Truth in hotel websites

[albatross710]

There has been some success over the years in getting our airlines to publish all in fares. How can we get the same for hotel and accommodation websites.

In February I was surprised when I had to cough up an extra 10% service charge upon checkout for an Priceline booking in which I had missed the part about that tax. (Interetsing I booked it on Priceline and it was sent to the hotel as Booking.com (the parent company)).

Anyway, the hotel itself is OK but even the front desk says it's cheaper to go online and book.

It seems that not including a 10% service charge has been so popular that now they are "including" not including a Tax 12%.

So, in a list of possible rates, this provider has a 22% apparent advantage but in reality no real saving. Misleading. This is how it looks:



Am I unreasonable to think that Including non-inclusions is misleading. I just want to settle my accommodation charges before I go AND know I'm not getting ripped off.

The Booking.com group is a major player and owns so many of the accomodation websites, across so many jurisdictions how are they answerable to anyone?

Alby

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Is this the .au or .com site? Makes a big difference. For USA sites you expect taxes and fees to be added separately - the same as sales tax in each state (rarely does the ticket price match the price you pay at the register). AU sites usually include everything.

 

[dajop]

There has been some success over the years in getting our airlines to publish all in fares. How can we get the same for hotel and accommodation websites.

More chance of achieving peace in the middle east I think.

Forget all the oblique channels, it's difficult enough even within the same hotel type within the same chain within the same country. An example I recently noticed was with spg. Do a search on spg website in Japan - the front screen gives a range of hotels with their prices. The Sheraton Miyako Osaka showed a price of (for example) 18,000 JPY on the front search screen when you clicked through it came to 18,000JPY. The Sheraton Miyako Tokyo showed a price of 36,418 JPY, when you clicked through and then clicked a plus button the final price came to 43,465 JPY. Completely inconsistent.

I will add in most cases Australian sites do show the final price so it's not such a problem within Australia. Outside the +++ can be anything from 5-25%

 

[JohnK]

I've noticed this on Hotels.com since they took over HotelClub last month.

- Hotel rates for Australia, USA display room rate including all taxes
- Hotel rates for Thailand do not include all taxes and only once you click through do you see final price

Very confusing.

Oh and I get an email everyday about this deal and that deal, secret prices, various discounts yet the room rates stay the same. What gives? Don't they realise that some people monitor room rates more than once a day?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Oh and I get an email everyday about this deal and that deal, secret prices, various discounts yet the room rates stay the same. What gives? Don't they realise that some people monitor room rates more than once a day?

It's rare these days to get an email offering anything other than 50%-70% off! But the fine print states this is off the rack rate. Not sure how many people booking most of the hotels on offer would be paying the full published rate to start with.

 

[dajop]

Oh and I get an email everyday about this deal and that deal, secret prices, various discounts yet the room rates stay the same. What gives? Don't they realise that some people monitor room rates more than once a day?

I have unsubscribed from most hotel booking site emails. Boy who cried wolf.

 

[albatross710]

OK, fair enough. I did have some luck and noticed that Skyscanner seemed to work through the taxes, initially offering the all in price. As I clicked through to the booking site, they display ex-tax, then the confirmation page had a reminder about the included exclusions.

In the end....the good news and I guess it's part of the game.

The rate for the hotel I really wanted, a 5 star = $210/night
The rate for the hotel I would accept, a 4 star = $80 + 12% + 10% ~ $97

The rate Skyscanner found for me on 'Hotelopia' was the original 5 star for $104 inc breakfast. Winning

I actually wanted two nights but could only get one night at the $104 rate when I searched directly on Hotelopia. Just now I went back and started the search process through Skyscanner to Hotelopia I was able to find the required night at $104 inc breakfast.

MOst of the new entrant travel sites have to run promotional pricing and then hope for the residual users to pay the slowing declining discounts.

So for me, Agoda is finished other than for benchmarking.

Alby

 

[JohnK]

I have unsubscribed from most hotel booking site emails. Boy who cried wolf.

I pointed out to both Hotels.com and Agoda in an email last week that they just keep sending spam all the time. I only want to see their discount offers not the spam. I am not sure there is a way of doing it.

What I will miss the occasional 15%-20% discount which is really handy.

 

[maia200]

I have done the same and unsubscribed. I somehow have no confidence that writing to them changes their marketing discounts. When making books I use various sites as benchmarks. When travelling I go through a multitude of sites to find the best price (and will write to the hotel direct to confirm whether prices are all inclusive or not if unsure - and sometimes hotels come back and offer the same price). The added tax certainly adds to the end price and is misleading. I am a member of various hotel chains and often find that if they are not cheaper they have added benefits - eg breakfast or upgrades etc

 

[JohnK]

I go to pretty much the same hotel in Pattaya all the time. Just booked 7 nights in standard room with buffet breakfast for 2 for ~$344.

Occasionally Agoda has nice specials on this hotel, HotelClub used to have the 15%-20% off and now Hotels.com has 8%-15% off which is a significant saving. With hotels.com you don't earn hotel nights with the promotions but I get a kick out of getting hotels including breakfast for a week for the same price some spend on dinner for 2.