I have to confess it’s been a long time since I’ve been on a package holiday, let alone one in peak August, but having a stepdaughter and daughter-in-law who are both teachers rather limits your options when trying to get our modern combined family of five children, plus partners, away together.

We initially chose Ibiza, mainly because it’s Ruth’s favourite destination, but the kids overruled her. They had no interest in Ibiza super clubs and preferred the more relaxed atmosphere of Majorca, with its beaches and, importantly when there are 11 of you, plenty of good but relatively affordable restaurants.

We stayed at the Melia Calvia Beach, which I knew from last year’s ABTA conference, and booked the five-day trip through easyJet Holidays. Everything worked perfectly, although I’d forgotten just how busy a completely full Majorcan hotel can be in August. The sunbed alarm clock was back in operation, while the hotel has cleverly monetised the problem with bookable beach beds ranging from around £25 to an eye-watering £80 for a front-row double bed.

Ruth had also upgraded us to “The Level”, giving access to a private breakfast area, separate pool and free drinks between 4 pm and 6 pm. Unfortunately, the kids couldn’t get in, and there was no chance Ruth was going to sit around a different pool from them, so we hardly used it. Clearly plenty of other people do, though, and from a hotelier’s perspective it’s another clever way of extracting more revenue from the same room.

The holiday ended with a return to the Pirates show after a 20-year gap. The kids barely remembered going in 2005 until we produced the photos. Pirates has been fine-tuned over its 40-plus-year history and today feels much more Cirque du Soleil than the old mass-market Majorcan shows we used to know. They all loved it, and it was a great way to finish the trip.

Unfortunately, my Majorcan experience had started very differently.

I’d arrived in Palma a couple of days earlier with Ian Pattison from Neural River for an AI strategy session with Blue Sea Hotels. We arrived at HM Jaime III at 11.45 pm to be asked whether we were a couple because apparently, we had booked a double bed.

We hadn’t.

My Booking.com confirmation clearly showed a twin room, but after initially trying to blame Booking.com, the hotel eventually admitted they were overbooked. Their solution was to give two men in their 60s a double bed and an extra sheet so we could apparently sleep top-to-toe.

Not surprisingly, we declined.

We found the last available room at another hotel down the road at £340 for the night and I contacted Booking.com expecting them to sort it out. Their AI assistant was actually excellent and quickly escalated the issue to a human agent, who spoke to the hotel while I waited.

What happened next amazed me.

Despite being a Level 3 Genius customer who has booked hundreds of hotel nights through Booking.com, I was told my options were effectively to accept the hotel’s offer of £25 compensation or a free breakfast. The explanation was that Booking.com was simply acting as the hotel’s agent and could do nothing more.

That, for me, fundamentally misunderstands why customers use Booking.com.

I know perfectly well that technically Booking.com may be acting as an intermediary, but customers don’t build their relationship with the individual hotel. They build it with Booking.com. We return because we trust the platform, its reviews, its confirmation and, most importantly, expect somebody to stand behind the booking when something goes wrong.

Overbooking happens. I’ve spent most of my working life in travel and know that better than most. The real test of any travel company isn’t whether something occasionally goes wrong, but what they do when it does.

HM Jaime III failed that test spectacularly, both that night and the following day. Booking.com then had the opportunity to rescue the situation and strengthen a long-standing customer relationship.

Instead, they hid behind being an agent.

I’m now pursuing recovery of the additional cost through my card provider and will publish critical reviews right across the internet. But commercially, Booking.com has potentially lost something far more valuable than the cost of sorting out one £340 hotel room.

They’ve lost my trust.

And in travel, once you lose that, getting it back is extremely difficult.