Booking.com identifies ‘small bug’ in system update
Online travel agent Booking.com has said it has identified a “small bug” in its latest system update, resulting in a number of hoteliers seeing changes to their booking policies.
The bug resulted in a number of properties experiencing changes to their prepayment and cancellation policies without warning. Some hoteliers said they experienced “no deposit and free cancellation”, despite their policies not stating that.
Booking.com would not confirm how many hotels has been affected.
Heather Bradley Tsopanoglou, who owns Gabrielle’s hotel, which was affected by the bug, told Hotel Owner: “We just wanted to say how pleased we are that Booking.com have now found the computer glitch that caused prepayment/cancellation policies to change on their site, and that they are changing these back.”
The OTA said the bug was part of a “technical issue as part of a tooling improvement”, adding that the problems for the “majority” of affected partners have now been resolved.
A spokesperson for Booking.com said: “We are constantly innovating our products and tooling to be as convenient, efficient and user-friendly as possible. As such, we have recently made some enhancements to the interface of our policies tooling for partners, designed to provide them with a better user experience.
“We have identified a small bug associated with these improvements and are working to fix it as soon as possible.
“As always, if partners have any questions about these recent updates or are experiencing any issues whatsoever, we encourage them to reach out to their local contact directly for 24/7 support.”