Booking.com that failed me

I waited in the long queue on the day of R10 sale to no luck, so I decided to go book my flight ticket on booking.com when I got there I obviously put in my destination to try and search for a cheaper flight luckily I found myself a R268.11 return flight. I grabbed the opportunity with both hands as I was hoping to score that R10 ticket. I Proceeded to make a payment (it went through) I then received an email saying my booking will be confirmed within few hours as excited as I was, I stopped waiting on the flysafair site because I had booked already. On Friday the 10th only then I receive an email saying my booking was not successful, this made me so frustrated because I dont get why my money would be on hold for that long why wasn’t I told on the same day or even the time I was making a booking(it was not the first time I make a booking on booking.com it never took 2 days) had I knew on the sametime/ day I would have went back to queue for the R10 ticket maybe I would have been lucky. Even the reason why it was unsuccessful is so unclear this frustrated me even more.