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Booking websites - Are they conning us?


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On 8/11/2024 at 8:50 PM, impulse said:

My recent peeve (with Orbitz) is selecting a flight, clicking pay now, going through the CC process, and they come back with "that price is no longer available".  Caving, I agree to pay 10% more (+/-), then they come back with "price no longer available" for several iterations, until the price is 50% or more higher.  But if I close that tab and restart the process, they come back with the original price, and that's what I pay.  I don't delete cookies, or anything like VPN through a different country.  Overall, I like Orbitz, but that one's irritating.

 

Before Covid I booked through CheapOair until they started offering flights, but would not book them, no matter how many times I tried.  Then I found Priceline.

Tried booking directly with JAL.  They were more expensive than Priceline.  Our flight to BBK involves two stopovers, but segments all on one ticket.  May cost more, but better results if any problems arise like delays, etc.

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I have found the same thing mainly with Agoda.

Search via Tripadvisor, Google, direct to the website logged in, direct logged out, and all different prices. Come back next day and different prices again. Agoda does tend to be cheapest though. Prices on Booking.com are more consistent - tend to be more expensive - though lately they have improved and they might give one off cheaper prices or 5 per cent off.

Hotels.com and others such as Expedia etc tend to be a lot higher though hotels.com has the buy ten nights get 1 free deal which can make it worthwhile. 

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On 8/12/2024 at 12:49 PM, Scouse123 said:

Apart from the fact most booking sites such as Agoda, Bookings .com, etc are sub companies under the same umbrella company, I noticed a few things in my latest round of booking hotels whilst travelling around Thailand and the region.

 

I am a Platinum and a Gold member of Agoda.

 

I have found regularly by clearing my cache, logging out of both my accounts and going to either Google Maps and entering the name of the hotel or trip advisor and doing the same, whilst logged out, I can get offered cheaper rates as a non-member, that outweigh anything they offer me logged in as a Gold or Platinum member, in my view rendering these loyalty memberships useless.

 

Likewise, I have done this lately, booked as a non-member, then when it comes to the payment, logged into my account to get any future benefits they may offer, (Agoda cash etc) and the rate remains cheap.

 

When I book in through my member account, I get quoted more expensive flat booking fees.

 

This has happened about 80% of the time of late.

I know that Agoda and Booking.com are part of the same company, I have always said about Agoda and their small print booking hotels then finding 17% added on to the cost, but Booking.com?? While trying to book hotels in the UK, I would reply to an email they have sent me, then click on the "reply" box then get an email saying that the email I have replied to does not exist. This has happened at least 6 times so I would be wary of having anything to do with both of them if I could help it.

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Booking and Agoda are part of the same company, only Agoda has its head office in Singapore. The point of this I think is that Agoda is not required to play by EU rules.

 

Agoda jacks up the price at the last click. Agoda refuses to charge in Thai baht if you pay with an EU credit card, so instead of getting the good Visa exchange rate, you get the crappy Agoda exchange rate. IMO Booking runs Agoda as a non-EU compliant subsidiary.

 

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On 8/14/2024 at 4:50 AM, NoshowJones said:

I have always said about Agoda and their small print booking hotels then finding 17% added on to the cost . . . .

 

That's down to your settings and can be changed.

 

image.png.798a13d92c65ebe5efeef943f3b12280.png

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On 8/13/2024 at 1:10 PM, freeworld said:

They are all part of the same US company Booking Holdings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booking_Holdings

 

image.png.bba8304a7a887666f30d17e96eb242ae.png

Take a look at the recent reviews on trustpilot for booking and agoda.

 

There is some interesting info on booking.com wikipedia page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booking.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agoda

There are only two, booking.com and Expedia. All the others are offshoots.

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