When I arrived to pick up the car, the rental location was already closed because my luggage had been lost. The next morning, when I went to collect the car, I had an unpleasant surprise: the car was blocked because I hadn’t picked it up on the original reservation date, even though I had already paid for it.The rental company employee informed me that the car was still available and that she would be happy to release it as soon as Booking.com unlocked the reservation in the system. When I contacted Booking.com by phone, the representative told me it would not be possible to unlock the car and that I would need to cancel the reservation.I explained to her that if I canceled, I would no longer be able to get the same car at the price I had paid, since the reservation had been made months in advance. She then assured me that there was no problem — that Booking.com would refund the full amount of the original reservation, as well as cover the price difference for the new one. She said she couldn't unlock the car in the system, even though it had already been paid for, but insisted this was the best solution.Trusting her word, I followed all the instructions she gave me: I sent an email with the numbers of both the original and new reservations, explaining the situation in detail. However, I later received an email response stating that they would not honor what had been promised.As a result, I had to pay a significantly higher price for a new reservation, even though it wasn’t my fault that their system couldn’t unlock something that had already been paid for and charged to my card. The only refund I was told I would receive was for the car rental itself — the taxes I had paid would not be reimbursed.In the end, not only did I not receive a full refund, I also had to pay for a much more expensive new booking. The only reason I chose to use Booking.com was because I believed it was a serious and trustworthy company that would provide support if something went wrong. Unfortunately, that was not the case at all.
