If you’ve used sites like booking.com in Europe, you’d be forgiven to expect the same kind of easy, convenient and hassle-free accommodation service in Ukraine. But the last three times I tried to book rooms with them in Ukraine, the accommodation owners demanded I pay unjustified extra expenses and, sometimes, directly into their personal accounts.
If you look up hostels or apartments in Ukraine on booking.com, you’ll find a myriad of attractive options promising you nice, central places with 8-to-9 star reviews and a possibility to cancel your booking free of charge nearly up to the very check-in time. I fell into that trap of taking those at face value and trying to book in two different Ukrainian cities: Ternopil and Odesa. After all, booking.com is a well-established website that I used numerous times before outside of Ukraine with no issues. I have an inkling that the team behind it just has no idea how the website’s popularity and clean (to my knowledge) reputation is used by profiteers in Ukraine (and possibly other countries as well).
Case number 1 was when I went to the western city of Ternopil for a weekend break. I wanted to get some time away from noisy Kyiv, so I found a flat that looked good to me and booked right away. It had positive reviews, so it seemed like nothing could go wrong. When hours after booking and asking whether I can check in at 11 p.m. (which is when my train arrived), I got a message from the flat owner asking me to pay a deposit fee upfront and into her bank account. She did not understand my confusion and unwillingness to pay when I asked to put this payment through booking.com.
“What’s the difference for you?” she asked.
I explained to her that when I pay through booking.com, the website serves as a guarantor and, in case something goes wrong, their support service should be able to help me out. And if, on the contrary, I send the money to her bank account and things go wrong, I will have almost no way of getting it back — I’d basically have nobody to blame but myself. Her response was quite epic.
“I see that we won’t be able to reach an agreement in this, so goodbye.”
Cases number 2 and 3 were both in the southern city of Odesa where I recently tried to book a hostel for my upcoming work trip. The first hostel had hundreds of positive reviews and, according to their booking.com description, a 24/7 reception. My arrival into the city by train would, again, be a late one so I marked my check-in time as between midnight and 1 a.m. (my train arrives just before midnight). After I booked the bed for around Hr 300 for two nights, the accommodation team emailed me about a surcharge of Hr 490, (yes, more than what two-nights worth of accommodation would cost me), for my late arrival. I could not believe it, I went to read the hostel’s description again. It clearly says “24/7 reception.” If they have people at the reception desk 24/7, what do I need to pay extra for?
My subsequent attempt to book another hostel in Odesa ended with a similarly-horrific experience. I got an email demanding I pay Hr 130 to secure my booking into a stated bank account number within (!) the next three hours. Otherwise, I risk having my booking canceled. The email arrived at 10 p.m., so basically if I had an early night, I could miss out on my accommodation just for committing the crime of going to bed early and failing to send the money within the provided time frame.
The issue with all these examples is not just about the money, of course. Paying Hr 130 or Hr 490 would not break the bank for many people. It’s the misleading information and trying to get around the company’s rules by asking to perform behind-the-scenes money operations. If you advertise a round-the-clock front desk or no booking fees on the website, then why send shady messages providing bank account details and demanding an upfront payment or else I risk ending up with no accommodation? Just do not false advertise, it’s that simple.
I can only imagine how these conversations turn out with unsuspecting, non-Ukrainian and non-Russian speaking tourists who come to Ukraine expecting a similar service to other countries. I am lucky to be able to call these people out on their inappropriate behavior. I also let the booking.com team know about this behavior when I provide the reason during cancellation. So far, to no avail. But hopefully this can change one day and Ukraine becomes a tourist destination where little things like this don’t ruin the overall experience of seeing the country.
