Is Booking.com's New Feature Face Control?
I still enjoy my experiences on the site, but the user experience has definitely taken a hit
I am genius — I mean, a genius. And not just your run-of-the-mill hardware store variety but a “level 3 genius.” This means I have spent a lot of money and time using Booking.com.
It’s fun to go back sometimes and look at my many trips. I can recall the anxiety I felt preparing for investor meetings, the fatigue of jet lag, the expectation of romance, having arrived at a wonderfully romantic villa overlooking Lake Guarda, the island of Ischia, and many other places. Packed in all those trips are honeymoons and celebrations with friends and family, most alive but some now gone. All of it is stored in my own Gmail account. I tend to be somewhat of a hoarder of data, and it is also stored in Booking’s servers. A picture of the virtual me is in varying states of “travel,” and so that is why I am a three-time genius.
Booking has always been there for me, and even when I have had to reach out for help, they have helped. They always seemed on my side, even when I double-booked and forgot to cancel one of the rooms.
An annoying new feature
Someone or something, however, has decided that Booking.com needed to either catch up with the times or become more German in its need for tidiness and control — and I mean this in a good way because if Germans didn’t have this personality trait, their beer wouldn’t be in my opinion the best in the world.
I made a reservation for my Oktoberfest hotel in Munich a year ago. Prices during this time of the year are increased by 100 and 200 percent in most hotels due to the massive influx of revelers. As of my last check today, a closet-sized room near the train station that usually goes for 90 euros a night is going for 270 euros!
This is the kind of hotel where when the elevator opens, all doors rattle due to the suctioning of air. When your neighbor clears his throat in the bathroom in the morning, it might be in your bathroom. The day after Oktoberfest, this place will offer complimentary breakfast, but today, it’s at near capacity despite the prices. It also doesn’t matter when you reserve a room; the prices aren’t lower a year out. It’s just a matter of getting a place in the center.
Over the past month or so, I have seen some excellent deals showing up on Booking that offer single-room apartments with good kitchenettes; by my second meal at a restaurant, I am usually sick of restaurant food, so I love the option of being able to have a small meal or breakfast in my room. Directly in the center and across the street from the world’s most extraordinary Syrian shwarma wrap with chicken, I found two places for 105 and 115 euros a night. For four nights, this is a bargain!
The new feature requires you to “request” to stay at the available apartment. In addition, Booking prompts you to “tell something about yourself” to the owners to help them decide in your favor. At first, I wrote an excellent little biography expressing excitement about the shwarma wrap across the street and really let them have a sense of who I was.
Twenty-four hours later, there was no response, which, in the context of this new feature, the location emperor has given you a thumbs down. That property remained available for a month after my rejection — and three more, all with different tales of who I am. In one, I wrote that I was a monk and was coming to town to turn over handwritten pages for a new edition of the Bible.
Six apartments that requested information about ignored my request to stay. Booking follows up after 24 hours with a second email informing you that you were — yet again — rejected.
I don’t know if this is something particular to Germany. Germany is the only country where I am regularly rejected for Airbnb accommodations. My rating is very high on Airbnb, but my last four requests to rent an apartment during Oktoberfest have been met with “Sorry. We aren’t renting this anymore,” or just a simple “not available,” but it was available until I wanted it. Airbnb advises owners not to reject it as it messes up their system. They want people to be able to rely on getting immediate confirmations, which was a great plus on Booking. All of this goes out the window, though, in Germany.
Or, maybe it’s the Oktoberfest that makes people want to try to get more money. I know that after my hotel, which is taking my payment tonight at 00:00, prices will drop on accommodations in Munich, or one of those other places I wanted will accept me. It makes me wonder if maybe some data-analytical artificial intelligence is watching me.
Nah, that’s just paranoia, right?
Whatever happens, it’s a decreased user experience on Booking.com, and someone needs to rethink this “new feature.”