A man who tried to book $6400 worth of Christmas holiday accommodation online assumed the transaction didn’t go through when he received a message saying it was not available.

So, he was shocked later on when he saw the money had been taken out of his credit card account.

The man, who contacted the company but was refused a refund, took his grievance to the Disputes Tribunal, saying he never received a confirmation email that the booking went through and he was now out of pocket.

Now he’s managed to claw back $1000 made up of a booking fee and a cleaning fee that was refunded, plus an order for $500 after the tribunal found the provider was unreasonable not to re-advertise the room when the mistake was discovered.

The tribunal dismissed the full claim for almost $7000, including interest and filing fees on top of a full refund when it found the holidaymaker’s loss was not due to an error in the booking system.

In October last year the man, who is not named in the decision, used an unnamed website to find and book holiday accommodation in New Zealand over Christmas and New Year.

He selected a property and entered certain information which included his credit card details but when he submitted the booking request, he said he received a pop-up message saying the property was not available.

He thought that meant the booking hadn’t gone through so his wife then booked holiday accommodation elsewhere.

Just before Christmas last year the man saw his credit card had been charged $6390 in two separate payments amounting to the full booking price of the accommodation.

He immediately phoned the website and was told that according to its online system, the property was booked by him in October 2023.

The company, which said the dispute was raised five days before the couple were due to check in, refused to cancel the booking and refund his money.

He then asked if the property could be relisted which could help to mitigate his loss, but that too was refused.

Tribunal referee Shaurya Malaviya said the dispute hinged on either that the man had accidentally booked the property without realising it, or whether there was an error with the website’s online booking system.

The man claimed a technical error in the system confirmed the booking without his knowledge.

He also said a confirmation email had gone to the wrong email address and the message he received to say the property was no longer available yet he was still charged for the booking indicated a “concurrence issue” which he said was common with website booking functions.

He said this was the only logical explanation for what had happened, or that incorrect email “scraping” – the use of automated bots to collect email addresses from online sources was another common issue which also may have occurred in his case.

The booking site denied any system error or that its system had created or amended email addresses. It said the booking confirmation went automatically to the email entered during the booking.

The applicant said this was “highly unlikely” because his browser autofilled his email address which had been the same for 25 years.

A representative for the booking site told the tribunal at the hearing that the booking system ran on an automated platform and there was no human element to it.

They denied that a message saying the property was unavailable would have popped up and that if an error occurred the customer would know and the booking would not be accepted.

In this particular case, the IT logs were checked and no issue was identified.

Malaviya said that in the end, he was not satisfied that the booking resulted from a system error.

He said it was automated and designed to take online bookings.

“If there was an issue as described by (the applicant), it would likely impact other customers as well and this does not seem to have occurred here.”

He accepted that while the booking site was under no obligation to relist the property, he believed its decision to refuse was “harsh” under the circumstances.

“There are plenty of last-minute deal seekers who may have chanced upon this availability, and this could have mitigated losses suffered.”

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.