Residents of Belarus complain that they cannot book accommodation in different countries of the world.
The online booking system Booking.com has stopped accepting Belarusian bank cards to pay for its services.
As one of the Belarusian travel agents said on Instagram, she first encountered this problem a few days ago when trying to reserve accommodation in Italy for tourists from Minsk. In particular, the woman claims that she tried cards from different financial institutions. We were able to pay for the reservation only with MTB, BSB Bank and Alfa Bank cards, but now payment through them no longer goes through.
According to the travel agent, the problem is the transition of Booking.com to the American payment system Stripe.
In the comments under the post, residents of Belarus leave different comments. One of the users wrote that he booked an apartment in Poland – the payment was initially made through Belagroprombank, but after some time the payment was canceled and the money was returned to the card. Some write that two or three days ago they paid for their reservation in Istanbul and Tbilisi with cards from Belarusian banks, in particular, Priorbank and Belarusbank. But it is quite possible: after some time, an unsuccessful payment will “pop up”.
“Tell me, maybe it’s clear now how to pay? I’m trying with two prior cards (master and visa) in Lithuania and Italy. There’s an error everywhere (payment is not accepted – ),” wrote one of the tourists.
Booking.com: what you need to know
This is an online booking system for accommodation (hotels, hostels), founded in Amsterdam in 1996. The website hosts more than 28 million properties in 226 countries and territories around the world. 1.5 million rooms are booked per day. The service is available in 43 languages.
In March 2022, amid the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Booking stopped displaying hotels and hostels located in Russia and Belarus. On the service’s website you cannot search for and book accommodation in Russian and Belarusian cities. At the same time, the search for hotels in other countries remained available for residents of the Russian Federation and Belarus.
