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> Europeans understandably do not prefer to pay for the hotel stay at the time of booking. I do not understand the obviousness of "understandably". Seems like

> Europeans understandably do not prefer to pay for the hotel stay at the time of booking. I do not understand the obviousness of "understandably". Seems like a likely culture difference. Explain?

paganel 9y ago
Not sure what the OP meant, as I'm an European who does all of his traveling through Booking.com and as such I've encountered both situations, I'd say in equal measure: i.e. I've either paid the booking up-front or I've paid it after the stay was over (at check-out). I slightly prefer to pay at check-out, but that is in no way a stopping point for me when shopping for accommodation. What Booking.com is really excellent for is that it just works and that it takes away a lot of the stress when traveling. Just by filtering on 8+ -rated reviews and by your desired nightly pay and you're sure to get what you want, no hidden gotchas, no anything.
- DrScump 9y ago
  It "just works"... except when reviews and ratings and inventory ("just 1 room left!") are bogus, as I experienced last week.
  - paganel 9y ago
    Yeah, I've recently noticed the "just 1 room left!" thingie, I generally tend to ignore it, as I travel by myself or with my gf. The reviews have held up for me, though. Granted, I also look at the number of reviews and at way those reviews are written, if it seems like there's something fishy I just skip it. On top of that I use TripAdvisor, which is really holding up pretty well for me in terms of traveler reviews.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      FYI: TripAdvisor is an expedia brand.
      - blackoil 9y ago
        Expedia sold trip advisor few years back, now they own another Meta Trivago.
        user5994461 9y ago
        It was never sold. They are both part of the Expedia brands.
        skronch 9y ago
        In December 2011, TripAdvisor was spun off from Expedia in a public offering. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TripAdvisor#cite_note-16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TripAdvisor#cite_note-16]
        user5994461 9y ago
        The spun off is a financial maneuver, it doesn't mean the company is not under Expedia.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    >'It "just works"... except when reviews and ratings and inventory ("just 1 room left!") are bogus, as I experienced last week.' These are all the reasons to just avoid booking.com. The whole site is like a shady used car salesman - for example returning search results that say -"You just missed it", then why tell me about it? Or "5 people looking at this right now", seriously who cares? Do people really liked to feel pressured? Or how booking.com returns properties with the red "sold out!" in search queries for hotel rooms? Booking.com is one of the most miserable user experiences on the internet and the UI? What a total 1990s looking shit show that is. And of course the reviews seem dubious as you mentioned. I've been burned by them more times than I care to admit and prepaying means you are stuck with it.
    - DrScump 9y ago
      I found similarly bogus ratings issues with both Booking.com and TripAdvisor. Had I taken a closer look at the patterns of reviews (as I've learned to do with Yelp), I would have realized the preponderance of fakes. Ratings are all over the place. Numeric scores are inconsistent with comments. Vast majority of 8+ reviews are one-time reviewers, and a bad review is immediately followed by multiple high reviews the same week. In the Booking.com case, the primary photo is phony (a different property -- room is wrong configuration). Many reviews refer to nonexistent features. The few negative reviews paralleled my experience very well (this place was a D-I-V-E, by far the worst I've stayed in anywhere in North America).
      - smueller1234 9y ago
        If you suspect a fraudulent property, ratings or images on booking.com, please report that. Personally, I've never come across any, but I know we've had such cases. In all such cases I'm aware of, the fraud was dealt with quickly and effectively. Disclosure: I work for Booking.com albeit neither in the hotels facing department nor customer service. Managed fraud ops and security ops and eng years ago. Do not speak for the company.
      - paganel 9y ago
        TripAdvisor used to show photos of the properties taken by what looked to be actual past visitors, in all the cases I was involved in those photos matched my ulterior experiences with said places. And, yeah, like almost all the reviews-based websites out-there you have to learn to filter through the fake reviews. I'm European and as such travel mostly to non-English speaking countries, and you can spot those fake-reviews pretty well if they come from the owner or his relatives/friends, as they tend to make the same grammatical mistakes. I admit, in North-America things might be different in this regard.
- ghaff 9y ago
  In general, pre-pay seems to be increasing pretty much everywhere. It used to be mostly limited to some resorts and other pre-pay packages. Today, it's pretty common at a lot of hotels, both in the US and elsewhere, to get substantial discounts for pre-paying.

> Europeans understandably do not prefer to pay for the hotel stay at the time of booking. I do not understand the obviousness of "understandably". Seems like a likely culture difference. Explain?

paganel 9y ago

Not sure what the OP meant, as I'm an European who does all of his traveling through Booking.com and as such I've encountered both situations, I'd say in equal measure: i.e. I've either paid the booking up-front or I've paid it after the stay was over (at check-out). I slightly prefer to pay at check-out, but that is in no way a stopping point for me when shopping for accommodation. What Booking.com is really excellent for is that it just works and that it takes away a lot of the stress when traveling. Just by filtering on 8+ -rated reviews and by your desired nightly pay and you're sure to get what you want, no hidden gotchas, no anything.

DrScump 9y ago
It "just works"... except when reviews and ratings and inventory ("just 1 room left!") are bogus, as I experienced last week.
- paganel 9y ago
  Yeah, I've recently noticed the "just 1 room left!" thingie, I generally tend to ignore it, as I travel by myself or with my gf. The reviews have held up for me, though. Granted, I also look at the number of reviews and at way those reviews are written, if it seems like there's something fishy I just skip it. On top of that I use TripAdvisor, which is really holding up pretty well for me in terms of traveler reviews.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    FYI: TripAdvisor is an expedia brand.
    - blackoil 9y ago
      Expedia sold trip advisor few years back, now they own another Meta Trivago.
      - user5994461 9y ago
        It was never sold. They are both part of the Expedia brands.
        skronch 9y ago
        In December 2011, TripAdvisor was spun off from Expedia in a public offering. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TripAdvisor#cite_note-16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TripAdvisor#cite_note-16]
        user5994461 9y ago
        The spun off is a financial maneuver, it doesn't mean the company is not under Expedia.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >'It "just works"... except when reviews and ratings and inventory ("just 1 room left!") are bogus, as I experienced last week.' These are all the reasons to just avoid booking.com. The whole site is like a shady used car salesman - for example returning search results that say -"You just missed it", then why tell me about it? Or "5 people looking at this right now", seriously who cares? Do people really liked to feel pressured? Or how booking.com returns properties with the red "sold out!" in search queries for hotel rooms? Booking.com is one of the most miserable user experiences on the internet and the UI? What a total 1990s looking shit show that is. And of course the reviews seem dubious as you mentioned. I've been burned by them more times than I care to admit and prepaying means you are stuck with it.
  - DrScump 9y ago
    I found similarly bogus ratings issues with both Booking.com and TripAdvisor. Had I taken a closer look at the patterns of reviews (as I've learned to do with Yelp), I would have realized the preponderance of fakes. Ratings are all over the place. Numeric scores are inconsistent with comments. Vast majority of 8+ reviews are one-time reviewers, and a bad review is immediately followed by multiple high reviews the same week. In the Booking.com case, the primary photo is phony (a different property -- room is wrong configuration). Many reviews refer to nonexistent features. The few negative reviews paralleled my experience very well (this place was a D-I-V-E, by far the worst I've stayed in anywhere in North America).
    - smueller1234 9y ago
      If you suspect a fraudulent property, ratings or images on booking.com, please report that. Personally, I've never come across any, but I know we've had such cases. In all such cases I'm aware of, the fraud was dealt with quickly and effectively. Disclosure: I work for Booking.com albeit neither in the hotels facing department nor customer service. Managed fraud ops and security ops and eng years ago. Do not speak for the company.
    - paganel 9y ago
      TripAdvisor used to show photos of the properties taken by what looked to be actual past visitors, in all the cases I was involved in those photos matched my ulterior experiences with said places. And, yeah, like almost all the reviews-based websites out-there you have to learn to filter through the fake reviews. I'm European and as such travel mostly to non-English speaking countries, and you can spot those fake-reviews pretty well if they come from the owner or his relatives/friends, as they tend to make the same grammatical mistakes. I admit, in North-America things might be different in this regard.
ghaff 9y ago
In general, pre-pay seems to be increasing pretty much everywhere. It used to be mostly limited to some resorts and other pre-pay packages. Today, it's pretty common at a lot of hotels, both in the US and elsewhere, to get substantial discounts for pre-paying.