Hola!
As a fellow traveler, I understand some of this frustration; however, since there was a mention that the "Information About Your Stay" email was in fact received, that indicates beyond doubt that Booking.com did in fact receive and process the reservation, and successfully booked the room at the hotel in question. I believe Chase denied the dispute on the basis that the failure for a buyer to receive a confirmation email does not place the liability on the seller; it still rests on the buyer due to a number of factors. That is generally the standard and it is also defined specifically in the SW Hotels terms of sale:
Booking.com and Southwest Airlines Co. disclaims any liability or responsibility for any communication with the Supplier on or through its platform. You cannot derive any rights from any request to, or communication with the Supplier or (any form of) acknowledgement of receipt of any communication or request. Neither Booking.com nor Southwest Airlines Co. can guarantee that any request or communication will be (duly and timely) received/read by, complied with, executed or accepted by the Supplier.
In order to duly complete and secure your reservation, you need to use your correct email address. Neither we nor Southwest Airlines Co. are responsible or liable for (and have no obligation to verify) any wrong or misspelled email address or inaccurate or wrong (mobile) phone number or credit card number.
Any claim or complaint against Booking.com or in respect of the Service must be promptly submitted, but in any event within 30 days after the scheduled day of consummation of the product or service (e.g. check out date). Any claim or complaint that is submitted after the 30 days period, may be rejected and the claimant shall forfeit its right to any (damage or cost) compensation.
Due to the continuous update and adjustments of rates and availability, we strongly suggest to make screenshots when making a reservation to support your position (if needed).
Unfortunately, email communication is not foolproof. With all kinds of spam filters and firewalls nowadays to protect us from real scandals, there's going to be chances where legit emails get blocked. I'm not necessarily a pro-SW-Hotels traveler but SW Hotels has delivered on numerous occasions for me with great deals on SW points; thus I continue to patronize it. If I run into a problem that SW Hotels does not resolve, I'll report it. Case Example of where I was erroneously booked at a property next door to my desired hotel:
https://community.southwest.com/t5/Rapid-Rewards/Oct-23-Southwest-Hotels-Five-One-Night-Trips-at-Fiv...
Most folks reading this won't like my response, (think of it as the grit in the meal) but this case appears to be the buyer's responsibility of not saving the confirmation details after booking. Thus, Chase denied the dispute. Again, I've got to advise what is truthful, not what people want to believe. I don't think SW Hotels is at fault here.
Case Example on not receiving emails: Just a few days ago, I had some very important work-related emails that was communicated to me that my company's spam filter erroneously rejected and bounced back to the sender, thus requiring me to follow up with the sender by phone and working with my IT department to get the domain name in question whitelisted. The sender cannot be at fault. They sent the email. My company's system bounced it, but I'm still responsible for getting the work done.
Contacting the SW Hotels phone number on my 11/30 post or on the SW Hotels website and providing the details would have most likely resolved this issue as others who had similar issues followed this tip and got their situation resolved.
As mentioned in my prior post and in the SW Hotels Terms of Sale (I say it again with emphasis), always save a PDF or screenshot of the "You're All Set" Confirmation confirmation page going forward. Same can be said for everything else related to online reservations...yes, that includes online delivery and pick-up orders from the local fast food place too...I've been guilty too of just putting the phone to sleep after placing food orders only to notice the food order is running late, I didn't get the email, I re-open the browser and the web browser screen reloads and sends me back to the food provider's homepage. Can't blame the McD's or whoever is delivering the food for this. That was a lesson for me to save the screenshots of these confirmations too in case the order no-shows.
That's my closing argument on why the SW Hotels and Booking.com operations is legit and not a scandal to the industry.
Hope this helps.
