Made any travel mistakes lately?

[Ade]

Booking dotcom

Very dodgy these days and becoming a hotspot for scams. Recently there was a massive "we can't authorize your card or something" scam. So many of my mates got caught in it. All had bookings via bdotcom so thought the scam email was legit. I received it as well, I book hotels for mates sometimes (they think I'm travel savvy etc), but I had a suspicion so I called the hotel in NZ and they confirmed that it is indeed a scam and not to respond, The hotel also confirmed that the booking is paid for and is well and truly in their system. I would exercise caution using bdotcom.

re: bdotcom prices - their pricing is also dodgy (4 out of 5 times for me at least). Either the price fluctuates very much or they promise a price and the price isn't what you end up paying. yea ... nah!

links to the scam from 2 days ago below;

Travellers and accommodation providers falling victim to major Booking.com scam

Australia's consumer rights watchdog sees a sharp increase in Australians citing the popular accommodation site when reporting they've been scammed.

www.abc.net.au

Booking.com scams surge 580% with hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses, ACCC says

Travel website says some accommodation partners targeted by phishing emails but its backend systems have not been breached

www.theguardian.com

 

[serfty]

Good result! Can you share what the faffing around involved? Were they able to get into your MyHealthRecord and verify the prescriptions, or contact your local chemist, or something else?

Probably contacted their GP/Medical Clinic and got them to send "eScript" prescription(s) via SMS.

This week I had a bad respiratory issue with COVID like symptoms (RATs negative) - my Medical Centre asks you to not attend, but call if you have any such symptoms.

During a conversation with the doctor I had my prescription text before the call finished. It contains a link to a web page that generates a QR code for the chemist to scan.

 

[JohnK]

Meanwhile some people are still lining up at the post office to pay their Telstra/Telecom/PMG bill. Got to keep up.
Back on thread, good tech fixes mistakes.

Off topic but I'd much rather go back a few years and you can keep your progress.

I bought a 58⁰ Cleveland wedge from someone in Loganholme yesterday for $60 but I withdrew $130 from CBA ATM at Loganholme and no one other than me and you know what I did yesterday. Oh and I also bought cheap $1.759 fuel from Rocklea but used credit card for that transaction.

I know some do not understand and will never understand but I want to do lots and lots of things that are not stored on some database somewhere. It's no ones business what I buy, when I buy, where I buy and why I buy it.

Long live cash and anonymity.

 

[kookaburra75]

Off topic but I'd much rather go back a few years and you can keep your progress.

I bought a 58⁰ Cleveland wedge from someone in Loganholme yesterday for $60 but I withdrew $130 from CBA ATM at Loganholme and no one other than me and you know what I did yesterday. Oh and I also bought cheap $1.759 fuel from Rocklea but used credit card for that transaction.

I know some do not understand and will never understand but I want to do lots and lots of things that are not stored on some database somewhere. It's no ones business what I buy, when I buy, where I buy and why I buy it.

Long live cash and anonymity.

I suspect you'd like this book.

The Traveler (novel) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I'm currently half way through it, and besides being a good read, it describes a future that you would want to avoid.

 

[Warks]

Not sure he did you a favour; sounds more like you got scammed. I've experienced similar. The motel accepts the cheap booking through an aggregator but when they find that night is heavily booked they cancel the cheap bookings and put it back out on their own site at a higher price. Call me cynical if you wish but I believe this is a scam that some motels seem to do.

The website had the cheapest rooms at $400 more than we were charged for the week. So not much of a scam for the motel. But Booking certainly runs a number. The motel owner said Agoda was usually the culprit in these cases.

 

[burmans]

The website had the cheapest rooms at $400 more than we were charged for the week. So not much of a scam for the motel. But Booking certainly runs a number. The motel owner said Agoda was usually the culprit in these cases.

Well same same (owner) really.

 

[Brissy1]

Off topic but I'd much rather go back a few years and you can keep your progress.

I bought a 58⁰ Cleveland wedge from someone in Loganholme yesterday for $60 but I withdrew $130 from CBA ATM at Loganholme and no one other than me and you know what I did yesterday. Oh and I also bought cheap $1.759 fuel from Rocklea but used credit card for that transaction.

I know some do not understand and will never understand but I want to do lots and lots of things that are not stored on some database somewhere. It's no ones business what I buy, when I buy, where I buy and why I buy it.

Long live cash and anonymity.

Fair enough, my aff pop-up ads are spot on my search history. Scary. My mistake?... perhaps not paying for aff

 

[ksthommo]

Gave bookingdotcom a wide berth back in 2018.

Credit card got skimmed/scammed, $1256 was used on Cathay Pacific AU site
and 3 transactions totaling $3170 on bookingdotcom for hotels.

Noticed the transactions on the day, rang Cathay, they were good, cancelled the booking
and dollars were refunded. Not sure if they forwarded it on to their fraud department.

Bookingdotcom, what a joke, didn't seem to care, couldn't ring anyone to try and stop the hotel bookings.
Ended up getting the dollars back by disputing the transactions.

 

[Denali]

I dont know how I achieved it but I make a recent hotel booking via booking.com and not Velocity so missed out on about 2000 points.

I still dont know how I did it as I dont use booking.com at all.

 

[drron]

Rocket miles was formed by Agoda in 2013 who were taken over by Booking in 2015.
I have been looking at a few of the OTAs as booking hotels in Hokkaido for a 3 week driving tour. Often much better rates booking direct. Sometimes however I couldn't or wouldn't book direct. 4 because an OTA was significantly cheaper and 2 because website booking was all in Japanese
. Not a problem with Google translate but these 2 had problems with address in Australia and directions such as input telephone number in half size numbers.

Now one hotel on Agoda was $100 cheaper than the hotel website. They also added the Agoda rate and the booking.com rate so you could select either. Agoda was cheaper and breakfast included whereas the dearer booking rate breakfast was extra.

The other problem is the old bait and switch. You try and book the advertised rate and it comes back Last room just booked. A while later go back and the same room can be booked but at a dearer rate.

One hotel had a warning on their site re the spam emails which can occur if booking via an OTA.

 

[Warks]

Well same same (owner) really.

Yes I thought so. All the booking companies are owned by two behemoths as I understand it. It's like insurance in Australia - all owned by either IAG or Suncorp.

 

[Justinf]

I used my hotel keycard to go through the turnstile at Sapporo station.
unfortunately I used the one where it was just walk through so I didn’t realise what I had until I tried to exit at Nakajim-koen station.

 

[p--and--t]

I dont know how I achieved it but I make a recent hotel booking via booking.com and not Velocity so missed out on about 2000 points.

I still dont know how I did it as I dont use booking.com at all.

I booked a flight via edreams and a rental car via a rentalcars UK website and got the return date wrong on both bookings.

I needed to change the date for both bookings .

Got a call back from each from the same number in the UK but the two calls actually came from Spanish call centres.

Seems Bookingdotcom has bought out both companies

 

[cove]

Today I booked a flight in April instead of March. It is fixed now.
Qantas prices were ridiculous so I booked Virgin again.

 

[drron]

Booked an award flight back from Bangkok 31 days after arrival. Forgot i needed to count both the arrival day and departure day. fortunately after cancelling the award I rechecked on SQ instead which initially had no reward availability and there was award availability back to BNE and on the preferred daytime flight. Must have been very lucky to have rechecked just after someone cancelled their awards.

 

[I love to travel]

Today I booked a flight in April instead of March. It is fixed now.
Qantas prices were ridiculous so I booked Virgin again.

@cove If you booked QF flight you can cancel for full refund before midnight tonight

 

[cove]

Some of Qantas prices on their 737-800 in business class are completely off the wall so I didn’t bother to book with them. No need to cancel a Qantas booking.

 

[SYD]

I forgot the Aerogard!

Who knew there would be a mosquito invasion of Uruguay and even the locals were running for spray and shops sold out by noon!

Invasión de mosquitos: se trata de una especie “agresiva” pero que “no suele durar mucho”

El MSP reconoció que ante este fenómeno las "posibilidades de intervenciones son limitadas"

www.elobservador.com.uy

Nasty little coughs too!

Literally arrived overnight. Bizarre!

 

[Lynda2475]

Never go to Latin America without Bushman's Friend, works much better than aeroguard

 

[SYD]

Never go to Latin America without Bushman's Friend, works much better than aeroguard

I have the Agent Orange strength repellant at home but Santiago, Montevideo and Buenos Aires weren’t high on the list needing it (very very unusual).