Every time that I have booked through Booking.com choosing the 'pay at the facility/at arrival' option for different locations in the world, it worked perfectly. For the first time, after a long travel-day, I arrived at the front desk of this hotel in Miami around 8:00 PM to find out that my reservation was cancelled. Apparently, the hotel run an automatic payment at 7:00 AM on my arrival day. Since I was traveling, my phone was in Airplane mode. I did not get any messages that my card was declined during the automatic payment run. After my surprise on both my card being declined and the hotel running an early payment, I asked the staff member, Justin, if they could honor the 'pay at arrival/at the facility' policy, providing him another credit card. Justin told me that he could not, but he would talk to the Manager. When he came back, he told me that the hotel only had one room available. Unfortunately, if I wanted to take that room, I had to pay extra 60 USD, for the room, which was an upgrade that I did not need. I told him that the policies of Booking did always work and the room should not have been cancelled. In a rude manner, Justin told me that "Booking has its policies, the hotel has its own policies". I asked Justin to please bring the Manager to talk to him. Justin said: "I will not ask my Manager to come. I already talked to him and this is all we can do, if you want to take the room with us." It was late, the taxi had already left, I was tired, surprised, and frustrated. Above all, I was not happy neither with the cancellation of the room nor with the way that the hotel managed the situation. Instead of paying $123.- USD at my arrival, I ended up paying $185.- USD for a new reservation that I only needed for few hours, before continuing my traveling schedule the next morning. I reviewed the hotel policies on Booking and it did NOT say that the hotel would run an automatic payment prior my arrival.
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