Given that booking.com has not resolved this issue and has not described any plans to resolve, I have a solution for to remediate the fraudulent bookings locking up my rooms. I have Resnexus as my reservation application and source of truth. In that application I created extra rooms called "holding cells" that are not online or available for booking. When a fraudulent booking comes from booking.com I move the fraudster to a holding cell which frees up the room for other channels to book.
Given that booking.com has not resolved this issue and has not described any plans to resolve, I have a solution for to remediate the fraudulent bookings locking up my rooms. I have Resnexus as my reservation application and source of truth. In that application I created extra rooms called "holding cells" that are not online or available for booking. When a fraudulent booking comes from booking.com I move the fraudster to a holding cell which frees up the room for other channels to book.