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…
