It comes as Hospitality New Zealand says an influx of scams through the service has affected its members in the last few weeks.
Pen-y-bryn Lodge opened in Oamaru 14 years ago and has used Booking.com from the start.
The service used to bring in about 10% of bookings, but co-owner James Glucksman said it was "absolutely more trouble than it’s worth".
The issues came to a head last week when Mr Glucksman received a charge-back for $781 after the guests had already stayed the night, a claim he had no grounds to fight due to the way business was commonly done through Booking.com.
The lodge had already pulled out of Booking.com by then, due to a plethora of other problems, but Mr Glucksman said he wanted to warn other hospitality providers so they do not fall prey to the problems he faced.
The issues mostly stemmed from two things: Booking.com did not handle payments through its website and it had a policy that if a credit card was rejected, then the booked rooms must be held for 48 hours to give the customer time to amend the mistake.
That combination meant Booking.com held no financial responsibility for any fraudulent bookings and the lodge lost out on two days of potential revenue every time it happened.
During winter, all five rooms were booked out multiple times within about three weeks, each time using a rejected credit card.
That meant the business could not make any money for two days after each instance.
The situation used to be much worse before the lodge cancelled its 30-day cancellation policy with Booking.com, as travel agents would book out a selection of rooms so they could offer guests a range, then cancel any unwanted ones at the last minute.
Once the cancellation policy was scrapped he got an influx of people booking with false cards and then failing to show up at all, meaning he had wasted a booking and the payment was rejected.
It was also very common for travel agents to book names using their credit card for guests, meaning the reservation and the order were under different names, he said.
The most complicated situation came in September.
He did not hear from the woman who made the booking until a week before the stay when she inquired about the booking, which he had cancelled.
Mr Glucksman contacted Booking.com asking what to do, but as it was no longer a valid booking through the service it claimed no responsibility, he said.
He said he was told he could book them in again, which he did directly instead of rebooking through Booking.com.
The woman on the phone provided a new card number, which was invalid. She tried again. Invalid.
The third card was approved, and the booking was complete.
He later found out that she had tried to book at another local property and also supplied them an invalid card.
There were other strange things, too. The woman was meant to be based in Thailand, but the phone calls came from German and French numbers.
Things got weirder the day before the guest was due to arrive. Mr Glucksman received an email from the guest, which said the woman who booked was his agent and that he wanted a receipt for the transaction.
"I thought ‘this sounds really weird’."
He wrote back asking for a formal letter with all the details of the booking with their request, so there would be a paper trail. The guest did not reply.
Concerned about the booking, Mr Glucksman contacted his transaction provider, Westpac, but the office he needed to speak to had closed for the week.
The guests showed up, he took their details and the payment was charged in full. Mr Glucksman thought it had all sorted itself out.
"They were nice, everything was fine."
Westpac even came back to him and told him he did the right thing and there was nothing suspicious about the transaction, he said.
Having gone through enough frustration between all the different issues the lodge pulled its Booking.com page.
Fast forward to December. Westpac sent Mr Glucksman a letter saying the $781 had been disputed by the owner of the credit card and it would be deducted from his account.
He tried to dispute the claim, but the name on the booking was different from the name of the guest, which according to Westpac policy, meant it was a valid charge-back.
Mr Glucksman had been processing charges from travel agents on behalf of guests through Booking.com for years and had no idea it was a liability.
None of the issues he had with the service would exist if it processed payments directly.
He had never had a problem with failed cards or mass booking with Expedia, as the service charged customers directly, then sent the accommodation provider a virtual card.
Booking.com does have a service for this, called Channel Collect. However, whenever Mr Glucksman asked about it he was told it was not available in New Zealand.
Before he cancelled his Booking.com listing it made up about 10% of Pen-y-bryn’s business, with about 20 bookings through the site each month.
That money would not be worth the frustration of dealing with the service, he said.
"I have no faith in them. I have vented my anger at them on a number of occasions.
"The amount of angst that Booking.com caused me in the past is immeasurable."
Hospitality New Zealand chief executive Steve Armitage said members of the association had been impacted by scams through Booking.com for several weeks.
"We have been reporting directly to Booking.com to ensure they are aware of every incident."
The service had communicated some "major updates" to Hospitality New Zealand focused on reducing fraud through the platform.
Booking.com has not responded to any questions regarding the situation, including why Channel Collect is not available in New Zealand.
