Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking.com, apologized in a letter on Tuesday to those hosts who were affected by the payment scandal and have not received their money, either late or up to this day.
The letter reveals that the statements made in a video leaked from a Singapore conference, as published by Spabook, are indeed true. The CEO’s words confirm that it was not just routine maintenance but also system development and migration with the implementation of new features.
The CEO has pledged a minimum compensation of 50 euros in the local currency. The amount is not fixed but varies based on the duration and amount of the outstanding balance, although it is unfortunately not specified by how much.
The magnitude of the problem and its ongoing nature are indicated by the CEO’s request for affected hosts to report to a designated email address if they have not yet received their due payment. Interestingly, Booking itself seems unaware of who is still owed money – a serious incident that, in our judgment, may indicate either data loss or resource shortage.
I am sharing the letter from Booking, the translation is based on the Hungarian version.
Booking’s Apology with the signature of CEO Glenn Fogel:
Dear Partner,
I am writing to apologize for the impact that our finance and payment systems maintenance and the resulting delay in payments may have had on you and your business. I would like to offer some clarity about what happened.
As part of our investment to ensure our technology continues to deliver ever higher levels of online safety and security for you, your guests and our systems, we needed to carry out essential improvements, including system upgrades to our financial and payment platforms. Despite planning thoroughly and notifying you and our other partners in advance of this work, several unforeseen problems occurred. As a result, payments to some of our partners were interrupted.
We know that for some of those affected, this has had an impact on their business, as well as their professional and personal lives. I deeply regret this.
The delays in payments experienced by some of our partners were longer than we anticipated. This is not the level of service that we ever want to provide to our partners. We acknowledge that we fell short of the performance expected of us and recognize that we still have much work to do to regain your trust.
Therefore, if you are a partner still awaiting payment, and we have not contacted you regarding this, please inform us at [email protected] so that we can settle your payment as soon as possible.
I fully understand that my personal apology does not change the impact we have had on your business. However, I would like to acknowledge that we have caused you difficulties, and I apologize for that. We are working to learn from this situation and improve.
For those of our partners whose payments have been delayed for an additional 21 days or more (after the initial 10-day payment freeze communicated as part of the transition), as a goodwill gesture, we would like to offer a one-time cash payment, which will be transferred directly to your bank account by the end of November. This amount will vary depending on the amount owed and the length of the experienced delay, but will be at least 50 euros (or the equivalent amount in the local currency) or higher. I know this may not make up for the disruption to your business, but I hope it is a signal of our commitment to ensure we deliver better levels of service in the future.
With sincere apologies,
Glenn Fogel
CEO
The letter has been sent internationally, and we present screenshots from the English version. As a reminder, Glenn Fogel’s LinkedIn profile was flooded with complaints, and the affected parties have proven to be quite persistent.
A spokesperson for Booking.com would not say how much money the partners would be paid or the number of partners receiving the payment.
“The exact amount of compensation for each partner will be determined by the amount owed and the length of delay experienced,” the spokesperson said.
It is understood the system in question is an SAP enterprise resource planning system, but both Booking.com and SAP had previously refused to comment on this aspect.
