Booking.com halts payments to hosts over IT technical maintenance

Hosts renting out holiday homes on Booking.com are having to wait weeks for their money because the company is doing maintenance on its systems. Payments are suspended until the end of July, and some transactions may be delayed into August, Financieele Dagblad reports based on an email from Booking.com to hosts.

Booking is being flooded with complaints from landlords, some waiting for thousands of euros. They’re also displeased that Booking decided to do its maintenance now, in the busy summer season. “How do they expect us to pay our staff during this period?” one host wrote on Booking’s environment for hosts. He accused the company of putting small businesses at risk.

In the email sent on June 12, Booking informed hosts that it would carry out maintenance on its “financial system” from July 1 to 11. As a result, payments for guests checking out from June 28 would be delayed and all paid out in one go on July 24. According to FD, it usually takes up to ten days after checkout for the money to reflect in the host’s bank account, depending on their bank.

Booking “expects” everything to return to normal from July 27. But it added that “the handling of commissions, invoices, refunds, and settlements may be delayed” until August.

Exactly how many hosts are affected is unclear. But there are hundreds of complaints on the site’s extranet from hosts in the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, and others, according to FD.

The site told FD that there was a “slight delay” in paying hosts. It would not say how much money was involved or how many hosts were affected. According to Booking, hosts had time to prepare for this and also received “our help”