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Bargain Travel Sites May No Longer Be Bargains
- TheChaplain 10y agoI had a somewhat similar experience as Mr. Giacobbe in the article. Recently I had to make a last minute change in a hotel reservation via Agoda, but they require you to pay the full amount in order to cancel the reservation, and then re-do the booking. So instead I called the hotel directly and got my reservation changed without any extra cost.
- joshvm 10y agoWho thinks that $2000 for a transatlantic trip is a good deal? I just looked at Google flights and most offerings are under £400 return (GOA-JFK). Even in mid-august I struggled to find flights above £600. Either that guy is flying business (management consultant, maybe then) or he seriously got shafted on price. Just had a look - premium economy is £900, business is almost £2000. EDIT: Interesting, it gets a lot more expensive the other way around. Though Google does suggest Milan as an alternative route, which drops the price to £400 again. It seems like the hop from Genoa to the international hub makes the difference. Or you could get a train from Milan, which is only 85 miles.
- tuananh 10y agoto some, convenience and time worth more than money.
- walterbell 10y agoThe lifecycle of aggregators may have some parallels with the fall of high-frequency trading. Eventually, the technology barrier to entry falls, incumbents fight back and the ecosystem rebalances. Two topics missing from this article are AirBnB and low-cost airlines that fly to smaller airports. AirBnB does not compete with aggregators and cannot be shut out on the supply side by hotels. Do low-cost airlines (like Norwegian) benefit from customer discovery via aggregators? Do aggregators change prices based on geographic location of the buyer? The article mentioned an experiment with higher prices for OSX buyers.
- autokad 10y ago"Do aggregators change prices based on geographic location of the buyer?" Not sure if they do, but airlines do. I wanted to fly from NYC to Singapore for a few days, and then fly to a friends wedding in the Philippines. Searching the websites, the fares were ~600$ but my singaporean friends said it should be cheaper. So I flew to singapore, walked into a local travel agent office and got my tickets for around 150 SGD
- qume 10y agoIts hard to tell because they change pricing based on so many other factors relating to browser usage history. Try an aggregator with the same query in both a normal tab and a private tab after doing a bunch of googling for the destination.
- paulgb 10y ago"Do aggregators change prices based on geographic location of the buyer" Anecdotally, I booked a flight a few weeks ago through expedia.hk for an itinerary that was not even available through expedia.com. I'm not sure if they geotarget, but for Expedia at least, the TLD you go through matters. I've also found a South American carrier (I forget which) to have significantly different prices depending on whether the website is in Spanish or English (alas, they wouldn't accept my US card through the Spanish site).
- stirlo 10y agoLAN is 100% cheaper on the Spanish website. I had no difficulty booking using an AU credit card. Also sells return tickets with a total cost less than the cost one way ticket to the same destination. Weird business model but my wallet was happy that I figured it out. :D
- qume 10y agoAwesome 100% cheaper is my favourite price
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- obstinate 10y agoIt makes sense. Companies will use price discrimination to offer higher prices when they are able to segment the market. This would happen regardless of whether the lazy people were on aggregators or going direct. If they're able to separate the groups and one is more price sensitive than the other, that group would tend to be charged higher prices.
- massysett 10y agoHard to get through this article. It repeatedly insists that "everyone" uses aggregators, when airlines and hotels sell much of their product directly. In particular, Southwest does not sell through aggregators at all and they are the highest volume US airline. Personally I refuse to book through aggregators because I don't want finger-pointing between aggregator and airline if something goes wrong. I stopped reading when the article said travel agents are irrelevant for anyone but boutique wealthy travelers. A large amount of corporate and government travel is routinely booked through agents, who receive a routine fee. Hard to believe there is anything good in this article when so much of it in the opening paragraphs is facially inaccurate.
- objclxt 10y ago> In particular, Southwest does not sell through aggregators at all ...they sell through aggregators, just not to the general public. For business travel they pretty much have to, otherwise they'll miss out on the market (large companies usually requiring their employees to book business travel through a central agency).
- nunez 10y agoThat wasn't true until very recently. they allowed you to see their latest prices, but did not allow you to book. Most of their travel traffic is from the leisure segment anyway, so them not getting business traffic isn't the end of the world
- subway 10y ago> Most of their travel traffic is from the leisure segment anyway, so them not getting business traffic isn't the end of the world This. Southwest (and the other LCCs) can't really compete with the 'kickbacks' provided by traditional carriers. If you're responsible for a lot of corporate travel, or you do a lot of corporate travel yourself, carriers like AA effectively make it so you never have to buy a personal ticket, and get upgraded to a higher level of service on many of your flights.
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- sersi 10y agoIt's been this way for a long time. It's often cheaper to book directly from the airline than through an aggregator so it always pay to check (and use a tool like http://matrix.itasoftware.com http://matrix.itasoftware.com to also look for fare prices) It makes sense, it's not in the airlines or hotels best interest to give lower prices to external OTAs and by providing better fares on their website they cut the middleman. It's also the reason why hotel chain tend to not reward user with status and points if they book through an aggregator.
- bsder 10y agoI can tell you that the aggregators were totally useless when booking a hotel in New York. "$99 for a room!" Great!. Erm, for tonight. Only. It's "$299 for every other night". Not so great. Eventually it became clear that staying in Connecticut and taking the train in was a huge improvement.
- verelo 10y agoThis has been my experience, until recently. I started not booking ahead and just using the Hotel Tonight app to get something (literally minutes before i get on my flight). I feel like one day i'm going to get screwed, but so far I've never slept on the street (around 20 months of doing this) and the rates are often no more than $160 CAD for great hotels in midtown [area sucks, but its where the office is]. I also like that it shows currency in my local currency, not the destination currency.
- kylehotchkiss 10y agoOne time tired me got off an international flight and wanted a hotel. I ended up hooking through hotel tonight and got a corporate apartment (!) accidentally in my tired trance. it was not too expensive but just really strange I missed that. It was a nice apartment, furnished terribly, and enough room to sleep probably 6 people. Weird app. But I love it, great for road trips where you don't know where you want to call it quits for the day.
- lotsofpulp 10y agoThe reason this works for you is not anything to do with Hotel Tonight, it's because NYC hotels price high early and then drop prices heavily because they're market is hurting (lots of new supply, and fewer customers). At any chain hotel (Marriot/Hilton/IHG/Choice/Wyndham/Starwood), you'll get the cheapest price by being a rewards member (free, just like airline mile programs) and reserving directly on their website, or www.roomkey.com which is also owned by the hotel chains itself. Next time, reserve the room from far out, then pay attention to the cancelation policy. Just before the cancelation policy ends, check the prices, they've probably dropped. You can then cancel and get the new price, and it will be cheaper than Hotel Tonight, because the hotel doesn't need to pay commission to Hotel Tonight, and you get the benefits of being a rewards member.
- hn_throwaway_99 10y agoWhile I thought this was a pretty good article, the author is confusing what is an OTA vs a meta-search engine, even though he spends a paragraph explaining the difference. From one of the comments on the article: * Expedia is not an aggregator/meta-search, it is an OTA itself. Meta-search engines are sites like skyscanner, hipmunk, trivago and kayak to mention some. Another further confusion is when the author compares TripAdvisor with Hilton's own site. The screenshot even shows that TripAdvisor just redirects to Booking.com (Booking.com is owned by Priceline), who is the OTA. The other thing the author doesn't discuss, but is an important part of the story, is that large OTAs spend billions advertising through Google, and are experts at it. Booking.com is the largest spender of any company on Google Adwords: https://venturebeat.com/2015/11/05/booking-com-largest-google-advertiser-facebook-hasnt-cracked-the-code-on-direct-response/ https://venturebeat.com/2015/11/05/booking-com-largest-googl...
- jmarbach 10y agoYes, exactly, the author confuses the term OTA versus a metasearch engine. Expedia and Priceline are the largest OTA's after consolidation in recent years, creating what is now a duopoly. Furthermore, Expedia and Priceline have created an illusion of choice by acquiring the majority of the high traffic metasearch sites and then deciding to maintain their separate brands. Disclaimer: I built a flight search tool, https://concorde.io https://concorde.io
- NikolaeVarius 10y agoI'm ehhhh on this. I've worked with these systems. Airlines are pretty much never worth it through these sites. Margins are so damn razor thing that everyone pretty much scrambles for the last dollar. (Literally like 3-5 dollar margin" Hotels are MORE worth it, in that they do offer deals through aggregators. Partially due to name and partially through exposure. Booking.com is pretty good for this as they index alot of smaller hotels that generally are hard to find.
- emodendroket 10y agoI find the aggregators still offer better deals if you're willing to forego stuff like being able to cancel or selecting the exact hotel you want to stay in.
- jamez1 10y agoThe author missed a major driver of this - which is that the hotels etc are not allowed to undercut the OTAs, or the OTA will boot them off. This is why you can call and get a better deal, and why many hotels are aggressively trying to build loyalty programs
- einrealist 10y agoWell, if you are Hilton, you probably have a deal without that "undercut part" in the contracts. OTAs depend on the big chains. On the other hand, these undercut clauses are already in discussion for violating competition regulations. So even if there is such clause in a contract, the OTAs may not fight for it.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- anjc 10y agoAs far as I know too the OTA can legitimately under-price the supplier's products down to their wholesale price right? Which I'm guessing would mean that the largest volume OTAs should have better deals due to lower wholesale prices, but could cause consolidation to continue, meaning higher prices eventually....which happened in car rental and seems to be happening now in travel
- tuananh 10y agoi dont think they can, unless they package it with something else eg: flight and hide the actual price.
- lotsofpulp 10y agoHotels are allowed to undercut the OTAs, you just need to be a hotel rewards member. If you're a Hilton Honors, Marriot Rewards, IHG Rewards, and all the other ones, then reserving directly on the hotel website or www.roomkey.com will get you a lower price than on any OTA. You also get treated like a second class citizen if you buy via OTA, so if you're a Rewards member, which is free, you can get early checkin/late checkout and all that stuff too. There's no reason hotels want to pay 15% to a website for no reason.
- manicminer 10y agoIt's very true that in terms of hotel booking many consumers still see the big OTAs as the "bargain" sites and are often surprised to find that you can usually get an equal or better rate by booking directly with a hotel chain itself. The company I work for, roomkey.com, was founded by six of the largest hotel chains to address this problem and bring more direct bookings back to the chains. The OTA duopoly of Expedia and Priceline have many of the hotel chains over a barrel with very aggressive contract terms that do not allow the hotel chain to advertise a lower direct rate than those they supply to the OTAs. And added to this, the OTAs take a pretty eye-watering commission. However, most of the big chains are able to provide a lower rate to their own loyalty members. Room Key is unique in that we can access and aggregate these lower rates into a one-search solution. But, we are a tiny voice and competing with annual online marketing budgets of over a billion dollars each for the big two OTAs. Our job is a very hard one. I'm glad articles like this are starting to paint a truer picture for the consumer. It really does make sense to book direct almost every time. It's easier to cancel/modify. You are the customer of the hotel, not a third party. You get loyalty benefits. And more of your money goes to those who take on the overhead of your stay and ensure the quality of your experience. The OTAs used to be both cheap and convenient. Now they can only really lay claim to convenience through aggregation, and we at roomkey.com are trying to change that too.
- shshhdhs 10y agoJust so you know, your site is completely broken on mobile when users use Firefox Focus.
- manicminer 10y agoWe're aware of the issues - and we're working on a much improved mobile presence. Coming soon. Thanks for the feedback.
- daniel02216 10y agoIt looks like roomkey.com doesn't seem to have any mobile apps, which makes it hard to say that it's more convenient to use when traveling than an aggregator that does have an app. It's interesting to hear about your site though, perhaps I'll try it out next time I'm traveling.
- einrealist 10y agoRecently left a startup in that business. The article is spot on. And there may be technological opportunities here, like open APIs to hotel property management systems or even property management systems as a service....
- splonk 10y agoOne thing not mentioned yet is that "resort fees" are basically just a way to avoid paying commission to the aggregators. The combination of the ~20% commission and the most favored nation status that aggregators require from hotels without the negotiating power of Hilton limits the options hotels have to raise rates. And as the article mentions, this leads to hotels trying harder these days to establish a relationship with customers as an end run around the MFN clauses. Also, I've probably booked 100+ hotels in the past few years, and I still do the majority of them through booking.com. I am aware that I can sometimes get cheaper rates by booking direct, and I do sometimes, if the delta is high enough. (On the other hand, I actually just booked a Hilton that was cheaper on the aggregator than on their own website.) I'm also aware that every hotel employee will tell you that 3rd party customers get the worst rooms in the place and are the first ones to get walked when overbooked. I can't say I've ever noticed any problems there. I'm even aware that booking's rating system is skewed - their 10 point scale actually only runs from 2.5 to 10, and the median rating is something like 8.1, so keep that in mind when you book your "Very Good, 8.1" hotel. Despite all that, it has one killer feature that making direct reservations doesn't have - a uniform interface for making/changing/canceling bookings. It's a tremendous benefit in countries where I don't speak the language. I can do it fairly reliably on either the app or the website even when my network connection is dodgy, at any time, and without having to speak the language. I do admit that my requirements are fairly specific and most people traveling within their own country with reliable phone/internet service are generally better off doing the search first on an aggregator, and then booking direct (after signing up for loyalty programs) if the price is close. (I work in the industry, but not for any of the companies mentioned.)
- phreeza 10y agoIt's interesting that you say third party customers get worse treatment. I always assumed the opposite would be the case, because people booking through a portal can leave a rating, while many direct customers will be one-time business, with little to no recourse of things are sub-par. Do you know what the reason might be that this is not the case?
- chipperyman573 10y ago
- VSpike 10y agoOne thing the aggregators do well is offer a consistent and more flexible search than the airlines' own sites which are often pretty terrible. For example, I live within 2 hours of about 5 airports, and when flying within Europe there are often two airports near the destination. Being able to search with multiple departure and arrival locations, with flexibility across several days, in order to find the cheapest combination of airports and dates is still a useful service. I'm interested to know where Google Flights fits in to this picture. It is not well publicised but suddenly seems to have become quite good. A key feature for me is inclusion of the two big UK low-cost carriers, Ryanair and Easyjet. I'd assume Google are not working on commission but are just trying capture another area of search with their algorithms and data. Does anyone know more about it?
- FabHK 10y agoGoogle Flight also has this nice bar chart of what departure date is the cheapest for, say, a two-week trip to XYZ (and of course the usual departure date/return date matrix).
- abandonliberty 10y agoFlights also has an awesome tracking feature that charts the price of selected flights over time. It's very interesting to see how ticket prices fluctuate for different destinations and can help identify the best time to buy.
- anjc 10y ago> One thing the aggregators do well is offer a consistent and more flexible search than the airlines' own sites which are often pretty terrible. That's the classic benefit of intermediation in an industry, which is the ability to focus more on the market and market needs, and increase the flexibility of offerings by picking and choosing from suppliers. Of course suppliers don't necessarily like this, which leads to the situation described by OP.
- EwanToo 10y agoI don't know about flights, but I believe the previous Google "Compare" service (now shut down) was generating revenue from commissions.
- carlmungz 10y agoI've been running citybreakflights.com since Jan this year and one thing I've noticed is that buying tickets directly from the airline tends to be much cheaper than using an OTA. I track prices of flights from the UK to Europe for people wanting to go away for a few days. I don't track hotels but when I go away on a city break I use booking.com. Might start going directly and comparing the difference in price.
- TorKlingberg 10y agoSkyscanner is great, but I get the sense that the airlines have cut them off. They used to show almost every carrier, and sent you straight to the airline website to book (I assume they got paid for referrals). Now they seem to search other aggregators, who have spotty data themselves. The great whole month price overview never works any more.
- petecox 10y agoI travelled to Spain in low season recently. For accommodation it doesn't hurt just to turn up, old school, without a booking. Trivago have been blitzing our TV stations with ads, so I thought I'd give them a try. But their searches seemed just to redirect to booking.com so I couldn't see much value-adding. Forget the 'only 2 left at this price' deception. I door knocked at a couple of places and they were half empty for the night - owners offered cheaper in cash than off a website! Now maybe this doesn't work in high season when everything is full but I found it liberating to stumble out randomly from a bus station to the tourist information centre who would plot for me on a map the best places to stay!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- elastic_church 10y agoSo how does Google flights compare
- Terretta 10y agoUse Lola. https://www.lolatravel.com/about https://www.lolatravel.com/about "We’re a new kind of travel company that provides on-demand, personal travel service through a smartphone app. The Lola app instantly connects people to our team of travel agents who find and book flights, hotels, and cars for our customers. We also provide support while they’re on their trips." Aggregators are all fun and games till your plans change. And Lola gives you human curated travel (they really do consider your tastes) at aggregator costs.