booking.com - Masane Lodge

I made a booking and was required to pay the full amount to secure the booking. I was supposed to check in on the 8th August 2025and out on the 10th August 2025, then we had a funeral at home and I sent an email both to *** and the accommodation owner to my surprise the owner responded before the people I paid money to which is bookings.com. His response was that because the money was not paid directly to him he cannot refund me anything but that I should contact booking.com for a partial refund since I cancelled. Booking.com however claimed that they cannot refund me anything because the owner has a no refund policy for cancellations, my question to them was since the owner sent me an email empathizing and confirmed that I should get a refund why would booking.com not refund me I am yet to receive a response from them till today which is the 10th April 2026. Booking.com is a ****, they decided to reward themselves with my hard earned savings was it hard for them to pay themselves for their admin and refund the difference because I did not go for the weekend getaway so what exactly did I pay for and I notified them on time.