Is booking.com a Scam?

Technically booking.com tries not to be a scam, but their system allows people to get scammed and they don't really do much to help you because they give you a different agent every time you contact them and they just go through a script and you are given the runaround over and over and over again. Allo Housing is definitely a scammer so do not use any of their properties

In short:

• They gave my credit card information to the property, the property charged my card without my consent for 1500 EUR three months before my arrival to the property, despite the policy states they will not charge me until i arrive. 
• Three times over the course of 2.5 months, the agent at booking.com promised me over the phone they will refund me directly and invoice the property but then sends me an email after telling me the property will invoice me, which the property does not. 
• And now they are saying they are going to give me CREDIT on their website. 
• Every time i call, it's a different agent, giving me a rundaround and promising me i won't have to call back and then it gets passed on to a different agent who restarts the goddamn process as if nothing happened before. 
• I spent at least 6 hours dealing between the property, my bank, and booking.com. 
• This whole thing is fucked up. I would avoid using booking.com and Allo Housing is a giant scam.

Here is the play by play

• March 12: made a 7-day booking with Kentish Town by Allo Housing for June 10th - to June 17th - their policy is:
• Charge you 3 days before arrival
• Free Cancellation until June 3rd
• March 13: Allo Housing took almost 1500 EUR out of my bank account
• March 17th: I attempted to contact booking.com over their website and was told by automated message to contact the property directly, which i did over message
• March 18th: 
• The property responded saying they have the right to charge me. When i showed them the policy, they ignored me. 
• I then went to cancel the reservation and asked them to refund me and they said due to the coronavirus, they cannot refund me for another three months and that i need to call booking.com if i have an issue
• I then tried to call booking.com, but got an automated message saying they will not deal with my situation because my booking is too far away
• I attempted to reach booking via twitter and facebook but was provided answers with an autobot just like their website telling me the same thing that i need to contact the property
• I filed a complaint on the booking website
• I filed a complaint to my bank, to which they responded because i voluntarily gave them my credit card information, they will not refund me
• March 28: received a call from booking.com telling me booking will refund me the money and invoice the property, i just need to send booking a proof of charge. I sent this immediately.
• March 30: received email from booking.com that i will get a refund from the property and see it in my account in 10-15 days
• April 21: still did not receive refund and called booking.com, they AGAIN said booking will refund me and directly invoice the property and asked me to send more proof of charge, which i did immediately
• April 22: got another email from booking saying i will get refunded by the property
• May 8: sent booking an email saying i did not get the refund and got a response saying the property will not refund me for another 6 months
• May 9: Called booking.com again and asked wtf is going and they told me this is unacceptable and that i will get the refund from booking and they will invoice the property. I said you already said this to me TWICE and it didnt happen. The guy says, last few times they didnt write in the notes that it was approved by a supervisor, this time he has approval and if i dont get the money from the property within the next 7 days, i will get automatically refunded
• May 18: Called booking.com, first agent told me i need to wait until may 20, then hung up on me. I called back and spent another hour with the second agent who told me rest assured i will get automatically refunded on may 20th, i made him write an email to me confirming that booking will actually refund me.
• May 21: 
• Got an email from booking.com saying the property cannot refund me for another 6 months
• I called them and the agent said they will refund me in the next five days to my booking Wallet - a new system they created, which is essentially giving me a CREDIT on their system. The agent is claiming i will be able to send the credit to my credit card once i receive the credit, but given their track record, it's probably another lie and they are asking for my credit card information in the wallet again!

Second Pregnancy: still Week 11ish

according to the ultrasound i'm technically in week 10 because my cycle was longer but i'm leaving this at week 11.

Last pregnancy, as we went along, i would discover little things that are symptoms from pregnant every couple of weeks as i read about them or experience them, things like having your nose run the whole time, your feet growing bigger and not going to come back down, baby taking calcium from your teeth so you can lose a teeth if you dont keep up the calcium intake, and so and on.

I really thought that i know it all now and that whatever horrifying shit i experience in the first pregnancy would be the MOST i would experience for the second kid, but i couldn't be more wrong. I mean, the fact that i can no long stomach food is a lot worse than my last pregnancy. i also heard of people saying smells really bother them, so with this pregnancy, the smell bothering me was new to me, but not to my connaisance. Same with being feeling really tired and sleepy. i've heard of it, but didnt experience it, until now. What is completely new to me though, is the hot and cold flashes im experiencing on a day to day basis. i am so hot in one moment i am having, and then i would have the chills and freeze. This alternates every couple of hours thorugh out the night and through out the day. I look online and people are saying this is also normal. I don't wanna find out what other new crap im going to have to experience that i have no idea existed for pregnant women.


Life really isn't fair. Why do women have to go through this crap?

Second Pregnancy: Week 11

The past week has been hellish for me. I was puking so much and in so much pain that i've finally decided to medicate myself since i couldnt even eat anything for two days and was still puking out bile. I'm taking metoclopramide right now three times a day, which is also is used for cancer patients. I started taking it yesterday and im already feeling a lot better today. i can actually stomach food!

On Monday, i went to see a second OB that's 100% attached to a semi-private maternity hospital and he explained to me that his fees are going to be 1200-1400 EUR, but i wont be able to find out the fees for the hospital until after i had my first trimester scan and make an appointment with ste felicite thereafter.

He recommended that i go to a private clinic for the scan if i want the info sent directly to him, but if i wanted to reserve my spot at Necker (the public hospital), i would need to be doing my scans at necker. It's a bit of a weird dilemma for me because part of the reason why i wanted to go private was because i wanted to make things easier this time, but instead i feel like im making this a lot harder because there are too many choices and paperwork to do.

If i go private, i will need to figure out how to extract my files from necker from my previous pregnancies and all my scans, and then after i give birth, i need to follow up with insurance for all the payments. Whereas last time, with Necker, they take care of everything for you and there was very little i needed to do. There was so little that i needed to do that i had no idea what was going on half of the time, and this time i just wanna know. In addition, after going into ste felicite, you can palpably feel the difference between a private and public ward. every patient at ste felicite was carrying brand name handbags (ha!) and super well coiffed. One lady was even carrying an YSL Sac du Jour (3k bag). Anyway the hospital overall is just cleaner and more airy. 

My flight to toronto for Jay's wedding was supposed to be today. i didn't make it. i feel so tired.

Second Pregnancy - Still Week 10ish

So last Friday, Caleb's stupid team decided it would be a good idea to hold a team meeting in California mid October. I freaked out a bit when i found out. My mom is leaving on Oct 4. and that means i would have to take care of turbo all by myself. It's very possible that by then i will feel a lot better than i do now but given how it was with the last pregnancy it's really hard to say. i cannot imagine having to wake up early, change him, make him breakfast, take him to daycare, go to work, rush to pick him up, feed him dinner, bathe him etc etc etc all alone while being super sick. i can't even get myself downstairs and i have been hiving everyday.

So then it was decided after some discussions that he would take Turbo with him, but he would go for two weeks instead to california. and then it was decided yesterday that they would leave earlier - the same time as my mom. This means that they all leave me on oct 4th and then Caleb doesnt come back until Oct 19th. I feel so helpless. After my mom heard, she suggested that i go back to toronto instead for those two weeks with her.

i looked it up on the calendar and realized that i was already supposed to be in toronto from 26th to the 1st (so i wont see turbo for five days, and then another two weeks two days later). That's way too much for me. In addition, if i go back to toronto on the 26th, i would be back for two days and then ihave to fly again back to toronto - that's a bit too much considering i dont even want to fly once. Also my ticket to toronto for he 26th is basic economy so non-refundable anyway. In addition, i have an ultrasound for my 12th week booked for oct 3rd!

So my options are basically this:

1. Go back to toronto for the wedding for four days, come back and be alone in paris for two weeks, not see my son for the wedding week and for 2 weeks hes in cali.
• i dont want to not see Turbo for so long
• i dont want to be lonely...i think...or maybe it won't be so bad?
2. Miss the wedding, go back to toronto for the two weeks my husband and kid is gone, so i wont be alone and sad
• so many people will be at the wedding that i havent seen for so long, and i'll be so sad to miss it
• i RSVP'ed already, so it's pretty shitty to not say im not going
• ticket is non-refundable
3. go back to toronto for the wedding, come back for two days, get my ultrasound, and then fly back to toronto for two weeks
• i'll miss turbo for a long time
• too much flying

I really need to decide soon since ticket prices are going up. This really sucks.

Second Pregnancy: Week 10

Well technically i'm actually only in week 9. Went to the doctor's on Friday and based on ultrasound, butterball was only conceived around the 27th or 28th of July (my cycle is longer) so s/he is still a tiny thing.

The main thing that hit me when the news hit was that, shit, how much longer is this stupid sickness going to last if i am only at week 8 last week?! For almost the entirety of last week, i puked at least once a day, sometimes twice, and one day it was almost all day. I thought it was passing but it just got worse. Surprisingly, after coming back from the doc's, the pain has subsided a bit. Sat was a little better, yesterday was not too bad - only puked once in the morning, and this morning, after about 1 min if nonstop churning and gagging my guts, ive felt a lot less pain than i have for the last 5 weeks. I dont know if this is going to last, but today was the first day i accomplished some housework (did the laundry).

The ob i went to on friday suggested that i stick with Necker public hospital as i had done with Callan. i fully had plans to go semi-private this time around because i wanted to be able to communicate better and understand what is going on, but the doc said he can continue to follow me throughout the pregnancy (he charges 100 EUR a session) and because of my emergency c-section, it's better for me to stick with Necker, who knows my history and has all my files. i think he has a fair point. next week, i have another appointment with another ob from the private hospital and see what he says.

I got to hear butterball's heartbeat on friday. i dunno why that always makes me teary even tho s/he's only 1.5cm in length...

=)