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I use Booking.com because it actually has worked very well for me for many years (including things like getting me a refund for a non-cancellable booking, which

I use Booking.com because it actually has worked very well for me for many years (including things like getting me a refund for a non-cancellable booking, which I wasn't really entitled to and I didn't expected to get... saved me a good chunk of money). But indeed, in the last few years the sales techniques are scummy as hell. Go look at a hotel in the middle of nothing in the most off-peak season, and it will still tell you that several rooms have been booked in the last few days and there are like 4 people looking at that hotel right now so you should book NOW! And of course everything is a one-time bargain. It's so blatant I don't even know how anyone can believe all that. What annoys me is that as I mentioned, when it comes to the actual product (hotel bookings, their management, and customer service), it works great (at least in my experience). It's far from being a scam. So why they have to resort to that cheap, misleading sales tactics, probably hindering their image, is beyond me.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
booking.com is like shopping in Times Square, and gives me a headache. But just like Times Square, many people seem to enjoy it. Edit: in the spirit of Hacker News, what I always think about is how financially successful booking.com is, given what I think is the worst experience in the world for reserving a hotel room. I use it to remind myself that very few people think like me, and making things to my liking (straight and to the point) will get me nowhere. Still boggles my mind that people prefer to patronize businesses that show a high price with a nebulous x% off, rather than just a simple price.
- gerhardi 7y ago
  I've made around 50 reservations in last couple of years through them and I really like it for the uniform experience across chains, cities and countries. They've been helpful and I've never run and into actual problems. I also probably ignore their dark patterns subconsciously.. I dont have proper incentives to try other platforms, agoda, trivago etc. seem worse (without trying).
- thinkingemote 7y ago
  I use Expedia, it's the same. But it's always cheaper than contacting the hotel directly either via website or phone. Always.
  - hoschicz 7y ago
    Have you ever tried to tell them that you're getting x price on Booking? They have always at least matched the price in my experience.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    Hilton/Marriott/IHG/choice/Wyndham/Hyatt all guarantee cheaper prices for reserving directly on their websites. Google them, if you see a lower price they will give you a hefty discount, but the computer systems shouldn’t allow it.
  - cardiffspaceman 7y ago
    Never in a million years. I booked a hotel in Hollywood, specifying a king size bed through Expedia, and I had to go around with the hotel management about it to actually get the king size bed. They told me that the booking they got from Expedia was not specific. That was the last time I used Expedia. In fact I won't use any of the booking sites because I don't need the complication of wondering who is responsible for a problem.
- m11a 7y ago
  > I use it to remind myself that very few people think like me, and making things to my liking (straight and to the point) will get me nowhere. There are many people that like straight and to the point. Most people would actually say they like it, although more are susceptible to these sales tactics than would like to admit. Booking.com is actually one of the best experiences I have with reserving places. It's quick for me to reserve something, and in my experience works better than most alternatives. Airbnb would be a far better experience but it targets different properties.
  - hnick 7y ago
    I also tend to use Booking.com more often than not. I don't like the pressure tactics but in the end all I'm doing is looking at the price, the location map, the amenities, and the reviews. The UI lets me do all that easily so I can often find a great place without much trouble.
- muse900 7y ago
  I use booking.com both as a customer and hotelier. Usually I’ll search booking.com to find a hotel to stay and if the hotel belongs to a brand let’s say Hilton or Marriott I’ll email them directly to get a better price. For smaller hotels or apartments I use booking.com for the security it provides me with. By security I mean that in the unfortunate case that the hotel of apartment I booked is overbooked or something similar, I trust booking.com and on its ability to force the hotelier to reaccomodate me somewhere else. I’ve had this happened to me previously as a client and booking.com managed to straight it out. Now if you book directly through a small hotel or apartment or even use the likes of Airbnb or something at points you risk being out of accommodation and just getting your money back which in a busy season that there is no availability left in the area and the closest room is 2 times more expensive than you booked. I know that people think that’s an extreme scenario but let me tell you that I run my hotel like airlines do. It’s cheaper to overbook and relocate someone to a near hotel having 105% capacity than having running lower than 100% on high season. And of course I had that happen to me as a client previously and just getting money back wasn’t nice at all. But overall look at hotels and email them, most hotels will knock off the 15-20% commission booking.com is charging.
  - pbourke 7y ago
    > if the hotel belongs to a brand let’s say Hilton or Marriott I’ll email them directly to get a better price. Does this work differently than calling the front desk? I tried that a few times over the years and never got a price improvement over the online brokers or the hotel website itself.
    - ant6n 7y ago
      After long at booking.com, I once went directly to a hotel website to book, but still ended up with a booking.com reservation...
    - jaclaz 7y ago
      >Does this work differently than calling the front desk? I tried that a few times over the years and never got a price improvement over the online brokers or the hotel website itself. That depends (now) from a lot of factors and until not so long ago the contract with booking.com didn't allow to publicize lower prices than what was on the booking.com site. But it depends also on the hotel (how it is organized, if it is a chain, etc.). Think at the front desk employee as an unsupervised/lazy employee of a largish organization. You book through booking.com, it means less work for him/her and no change in his/her pay (but less revenue for the hotel). I have had more than once conversations on the telephone with the front desk of an hotel, where they just told me to "go book online". If I have no time I simply choose another hotel, if I have some spare time I call again and talk to the director about the matter. Now think at the front desk employee as someone that has an interest in the income of the hotel (directly or indirectly) , the amount of work is the same (as there is not any "web reservation center" or the like) whether your booking is made by means of booking.com or directly (at the telephone and possibly with a confirmation e-mail) and he/she has the possibility to increase - even if slightly - the income of the company.
- lmm 7y ago
  The convenience of not having to learn another interface is worth it to me. booking.com may suck, but the individual hotel's website will probably be less usable in the basic sense of taking more clicks to get a booking done and be unfamiliar. Agoda is no better than booking.com, Google doesn't have enough coverage. So what's the alternative?
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    I use roomkey.com, and always reserve and email directly with hotels themselves to confirm stay details, as well as secure the lowest non commissionable price.
    - lmm 7y ago
      Tried to take a look and the website took over 30 seconds to load, lol. Guessing it was only ever tested in the US.
TulliusCicero 7y ago
A lot of people, maybe most it doesn't work on. But that population probably won't avoid booking because of the sleezy tactics if the price is right.
- distances 7y ago
  Indeed, I'm annoyed by the tactics but in Europe it just has the widest selection and best prices. I always cross check with hotels.com, but that is more expensive almost without fail.
empath75 7y ago
A/B testing gone horribly wrong is my guess.
- tomashubelbauer 7y ago
  I think A/B testing went horribly right here. They make the most money they can comparing all the scenarios they ran, but the user is left with a shitty experience. But they keep coming back, converting, booking...
  - smueller1234 7y ago
    That's exactly right! Source: I designed and built a version of their experiment tooling (the last iteration before they had proper mathematicians to get it more right).
  - nodemaker 7y ago
    Satisfaction and Conversion can be so much at odds with each other sometimes. I see this in other markets a lot too :)
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - empath75 7y ago
    Local maxima everywhere though.
- ben_w 7y ago
  That would explain why their most annoying aspect — asking me to rate the every single time I book a room, sometimes more than once in a single transaction — has never gone away.
austhrow743 7y ago
By providing a quality service wrapped in a layer of sleaze they get both the savvy self interested and the gullible markets at the cost of the ethically conscious one. I'd make that play in a heartbeat.
jlg23 7y ago
> go look at a hotel in the middle of nothing in the most off-peak season, and it will still tell you that several rooms have been booked in the last few days I live in the middle of nowhere where all mostly empty hotels are listed as at least 50% booked because hotel owners mark rooms as booked themselves to not look empty.. it's not all booking.com's fault.
rixed 7y ago
When I worked there a few years ago, I was actually surprised to discover that all these teasers were actually factual, including the "X other guests are looking at that hotel" and "Y rooms already booked in the last X days". But the way they are phrased can definitively be misleading, which is what the article is about. It's at the same time great and sad that no single sale genius is behind those teasers, though, as virtually anything can be tested online by anyone and only actual bookings will decide what sticks. It used to work the other way too: once a particular phrasing have been approved by the A/B experiment engine, it's very hard to get rid of it. Unless there is a new regulation of course. Regulations were also taken very seriously, but to the letter. Meaning those dark patterns will likely stay online whenever they are not regulated against.
- tomc1985 7y ago
  There was an article that ran a few months back here about how most of those teaser numbered were backed by a rand() function
- Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
  Wow, that's surprising. I would have bet heavily on those messages being straight out false. I have seen the "3 other guests are looking" message in hotels in quite off-track places and seasons, when booking well in advance. If that message is true, I guess I just underestimate the size of the market and/or the number of hotels that people will browse before booking.
  - Jaygles 7y ago
    I wonder if some of those "guests" are website scrapers or other automated systems from competitors that are looking to get pricing info.
    - GordonS 7y ago
      I wonder if some of these automated systems are ran by booking.com, or someone contracted to run them? Too cynical?
m11a 7y ago
In some cases it can be true, it's hard to tell which are true and which aren't. I don't think those alerts are bad if they're true (the opposite actually: they're super helpful then). I've had some bookings be gone within hours because I waited too long.
digitalengineer 7y ago
Relevant: “Consumers are becoming wise to your nudge” https://behavioralscientist.org/consumers-are-becoming-wise-to-your-nudge/ https://behavioralscientist.org/consumers-are-becoming-wise-...
HeavenFox 7y ago
For this reason I use Kayak. Far cleaner website, no gimmicks. Surprisingly it is owned by Booking.com And of course once I have a sense which hotel I want to stay at I try to book at their official site, so they don’t get charged an extortionate commission, and I get the points and elite status benefits.
- smueller1234 7y ago
  It's owned by booking holdings (formerly called Priceline group). Booking.com is owned by the same group. They're being operated as fairly independent companies just as Agoda, opentable and Priceline.com are.
peteretep 7y ago
Just going to tag on this; I’ve come to use Booking.com preferentially as it seems the least irritating, and I don’t remember the last time I was sold something I didn’t want from it. Guess I just blur out the bad bits?
- jimmaswell 7y ago
  I just look at "hotel" on google maps, weigh the prices/locations visually, and book directly. What's booking.com's value-add?
  - peteretep 7y ago
    I can filter by ratings and locations above a certain level for places I'm not familiar with, filter by refund policy, and then read reviews and see if there are any deal breakers. I don't have to fight with an individual hotel's booking page, I know TripIt will read a Booking.com booking email perfectly, and Booking.com now has all my payment details saved. Edit: it occurs to me that this is much like the advantage that Amazon once had, for the period of my life when I bought pretty much everything via Amazon. Shame they've lost my confidence.
  - jiofih 7y ago
    Customer service vs dealing with small property owners directly.
    - usr1106 7y ago
      Does booking.com have any customer service worth the name? I use them sometimes, but from a company with such aggressive / dishonest marketing I would generally not expect any customer service worth the name. IIRC their terms and conditions exclude all responsibility whatsoever if the reservation does not work out, It's always the hotel's responsibility. Luckily I have never had a case where I would have really had to contact their support.
      - jiofih 7y ago
dschuler 7y ago
After using them many times, they tried to charge me for a rental car I couldn't pick up from a disreputable agency (they wouldn't let me see the car, but demanded I sign a statement claiming no damage, along with a 1000€ deposit). The management style seems oddly European here (I guess it's a Dutch company), since "growth at all costs" in the US usually means to err on the side of the customer. Interestingly, Europeans like to copy virtually everything from the US, often without being aware of it, but there's always something lost in translation.
krick 7y ago
I must admit that even though I know it is bullshit, it still makes me nervous as hell and I'm getting all tight until I book something, especially if I'm booking for a very near future. It works on me.
- axaxs 7y ago
  Same! And I hate myself for it. I know it's bullshit, but reminds me I guess that there could be other people who are gonna take the room before I can. Sigh, we're suckers.
rad_gruchalski 7y ago
> Go look at a hotel in the middle of nothing in the most off-peak season, and it will still tell you that several rooms have been booked in the last few days and there are like 4 people looking at that hotel right now so you should book NOW! And of course everything is a one-time bargain. It's so blatant I don't even know how anyone can believe all that. Oh yeah, and you make your choice, it loads the page where one supposed to enter the details, as you are about to type in your first name, a popup comes up “hurry up”. This is the moment when I always shout “fuck you booking.com”.
3xblah 7y ago
I wrote a non-graphical, text-only, command line method of searching booking.com a few years ago using only nc/tnftp/curl/etc., sed, links (for form submission) and tmux (to send keystrokes to links). It searches for hotels, outputs a formatted list of hotel IDs, completes the dates availability form and returns a list of prices. I just tried it and it still works. Of course I never see any of the controversial tactics as they all require graphics.
CaptainZapp 7y ago
The "one neat trick" that galls me even more is that when you did book a property you sometimes get spam that prices in Middleofnowhere just went down. While not being able to prove it I'm almost 100% certain that this is a bold faced lie. Why? I booked a hotel maybe a week in advance in Sapporo in the middle of Golden Week[1]. Probably on the same day I received that slimy spam that "Prices in Sapporo just went down". I think that's a lie because prices in Japan during Golden Week don't go down; never ever! Demand is so high during that time that this is just not believable in any way, shape or form. Why slimey you ask? I think it's really shitty behavior by booking.com just having sold a property to then turn around trying to get me to cancel that property and book something apparently cheaper. I totally get why hotels hate booking.com with a vengeance when they use such scummy tactics against those entities they make their money from. And I agree: The actual service works and is pretty good and they shouldn't need to hit you with tactics that are not that far off from that Nigerian gentleman who has a cool few million for you. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Week_(Japan) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Week_(Japan)

lotsofpulp 7y ago

booking.com is like shopping in Times Square, and gives me a headache. But just like Times Square, many people seem to enjoy it. Edit: in the spirit of Hacker News, what I always think about is how financially successful booking.com is, given what I think is the worst experience in the world for reserving a hotel room. I use it to remind myself that very few people think like me, and making things to my liking (straight and to the point) will get me nowhere. Still boggles my mind that people prefer to patronize businesses that show a high price with a nebulous x% off, rather than just a simple price.

gerhardi 7y ago
I've made around 50 reservations in last couple of years through them and I really like it for the uniform experience across chains, cities and countries. They've been helpful and I've never run and into actual problems. I also probably ignore their dark patterns subconsciously.. I dont have proper incentives to try other platforms, agoda, trivago etc. seem worse (without trying).
thinkingemote 7y ago
I use Expedia, it's the same. But it's always cheaper than contacting the hotel directly either via website or phone. Always.
- hoschicz 7y ago
  Have you ever tried to tell them that you're getting x price on Booking? They have always at least matched the price in my experience.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Hilton/Marriott/IHG/choice/Wyndham/Hyatt all guarantee cheaper prices for reserving directly on their websites. Google them, if you see a lower price they will give you a hefty discount, but the computer systems shouldn’t allow it.
- cardiffspaceman 7y ago
  Never in a million years. I booked a hotel in Hollywood, specifying a king size bed through Expedia, and I had to go around with the hotel management about it to actually get the king size bed. They told me that the booking they got from Expedia was not specific. That was the last time I used Expedia. In fact I won't use any of the booking sites because I don't need the complication of wondering who is responsible for a problem.
m11a 7y ago
> I use it to remind myself that very few people think like me, and making things to my liking (straight and to the point) will get me nowhere. There are many people that like straight and to the point. Most people would actually say they like it, although more are susceptible to these sales tactics than would like to admit. Booking.com is actually one of the best experiences I have with reserving places. It's quick for me to reserve something, and in my experience works better than most alternatives. Airbnb would be a far better experience but it targets different properties.
- hnick 7y ago
  I also tend to use Booking.com more often than not. I don't like the pressure tactics but in the end all I'm doing is looking at the price, the location map, the amenities, and the reviews. The UI lets me do all that easily so I can often find a great place without much trouble.
muse900 7y ago
I use booking.com both as a customer and hotelier. Usually I’ll search booking.com to find a hotel to stay and if the hotel belongs to a brand let’s say Hilton or Marriott I’ll email them directly to get a better price. For smaller hotels or apartments I use booking.com for the security it provides me with. By security I mean that in the unfortunate case that the hotel of apartment I booked is overbooked or something similar, I trust booking.com and on its ability to force the hotelier to reaccomodate me somewhere else. I’ve had this happened to me previously as a client and booking.com managed to straight it out. Now if you book directly through a small hotel or apartment or even use the likes of Airbnb or something at points you risk being out of accommodation and just getting your money back which in a busy season that there is no availability left in the area and the closest room is 2 times more expensive than you booked. I know that people think that’s an extreme scenario but let me tell you that I run my hotel like airlines do. It’s cheaper to overbook and relocate someone to a near hotel having 105% capacity than having running lower than 100% on high season. And of course I had that happen to me as a client previously and just getting money back wasn’t nice at all. But overall look at hotels and email them, most hotels will knock off the 15-20% commission booking.com is charging.
- pbourke 7y ago
  > if the hotel belongs to a brand let’s say Hilton or Marriott I’ll email them directly to get a better price. Does this work differently than calling the front desk? I tried that a few times over the years and never got a price improvement over the online brokers or the hotel website itself.
  - ant6n 7y ago
    After long at booking.com, I once went directly to a hotel website to book, but still ended up with a booking.com reservation...
  - jaclaz 7y ago
    >Does this work differently than calling the front desk? I tried that a few times over the years and never got a price improvement over the online brokers or the hotel website itself. That depends (now) from a lot of factors and until not so long ago the contract with booking.com didn't allow to publicize lower prices than what was on the booking.com site. But it depends also on the hotel (how it is organized, if it is a chain, etc.). Think at the front desk employee as an unsupervised/lazy employee of a largish organization. You book through booking.com, it means less work for him/her and no change in his/her pay (but less revenue for the hotel). I have had more than once conversations on the telephone with the front desk of an hotel, where they just told me to "go book online". If I have no time I simply choose another hotel, if I have some spare time I call again and talk to the director about the matter. Now think at the front desk employee as someone that has an interest in the income of the hotel (directly or indirectly) , the amount of work is the same (as there is not any "web reservation center" or the like) whether your booking is made by means of booking.com or directly (at the telephone and possibly with a confirmation e-mail) and he/she has the possibility to increase - even if slightly - the income of the company.
lmm 7y ago
The convenience of not having to learn another interface is worth it to me. booking.com may suck, but the individual hotel's website will probably be less usable in the basic sense of taking more clicks to get a booking done and be unfamiliar. Agoda is no better than booking.com, Google doesn't have enough coverage. So what's the alternative?
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  I use roomkey.com, and always reserve and email directly with hotels themselves to confirm stay details, as well as secure the lowest non commissionable price.
  - lmm 7y ago
    Tried to take a look and the website took over 30 seconds to load, lol. Guessing it was only ever tested in the US.

TulliusCicero 7y ago

A lot of people, maybe most it doesn't work on. But that population probably won't avoid booking because of the sleezy tactics if the price is right.

distances 7y ago
Indeed, I'm annoyed by the tactics but in Europe it just has the widest selection and best prices. I always cross check with hotels.com, but that is more expensive almost without fail.

empath75 7y ago

A/B testing gone horribly wrong is my guess.

tomashubelbauer 7y ago
I think A/B testing went horribly right here. They make the most money they can comparing all the scenarios they ran, but the user is left with a shitty experience. But they keep coming back, converting, booking...
- smueller1234 7y ago
  That's exactly right! Source: I designed and built a version of their experiment tooling (the last iteration before they had proper mathematicians to get it more right).
- nodemaker 7y ago
  Satisfaction and Conversion can be so much at odds with each other sometimes. I see this in other markets a lot too :)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- empath75 7y ago
  Local maxima everywhere though.
ben_w 7y ago
That would explain why their most annoying aspect — asking me to rate the every single time I book a room, sometimes more than once in a single transaction — has never gone away.

austhrow743 7y ago

By providing a quality service wrapped in a layer of sleaze they get both the savvy self interested and the gullible markets at the cost of the ethically conscious one. I'd make that play in a heartbeat.

jlg23 7y ago

> go look at a hotel in the middle of nothing in the most off-peak season, and it will still tell you that several rooms have been booked in the last few days I live in the middle of nowhere where all mostly empty hotels are listed as at least 50% booked because hotel owners mark rooms as booked themselves to not look empty.. it's not all booking.com's fault.

rixed 7y ago

When I worked there a few years ago, I was actually surprised to discover that all these teasers were actually factual, including the "X other guests are looking at that hotel" and "Y rooms already booked in the last X days". But the way they are phrased can definitively be misleading, which is what the article is about. It's at the same time great and sad that no single sale genius is behind those teasers, though, as virtually anything can be tested online by anyone and only actual bookings will decide what sticks. It used to work the other way too: once a particular phrasing have been approved by the A/B experiment engine, it's very hard to get rid of it. Unless there is a new regulation of course. Regulations were also taken very seriously, but to the letter. Meaning those dark patterns will likely stay online whenever they are not regulated against.

tomc1985 7y ago
There was an article that ran a few months back here about how most of those teaser numbered were backed by a rand() function
Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
Wow, that's surprising. I would have bet heavily on those messages being straight out false. I have seen the "3 other guests are looking" message in hotels in quite off-track places and seasons, when booking well in advance. If that message is true, I guess I just underestimate the size of the market and/or the number of hotels that people will browse before booking.
- Jaygles 7y ago
  I wonder if some of those "guests" are website scrapers or other automated systems from competitors that are looking to get pricing info.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    I wonder if some of these automated systems are ran by booking.com, or someone contracted to run them? Too cynical?

m11a 7y ago

In some cases it can be true, it's hard to tell which are true and which aren't. I don't think those alerts are bad if they're true (the opposite actually: they're super helpful then). I've had some bookings be gone within hours because I waited too long.

digitalengineer 7y ago

Relevant: “Consumers are becoming wise to your nudge” https://behavioralscientist.org/consumers-are-becoming-wise-to-your-nudge/ https://behavioralscientist.org/consumers-are-becoming-wise-...

HeavenFox 7y ago

For this reason I use Kayak. Far cleaner website, no gimmicks. Surprisingly it is owned by Booking.com And of course once I have a sense which hotel I want to stay at I try to book at their official site, so they don’t get charged an extortionate commission, and I get the points and elite status benefits.

smueller1234 7y ago
It's owned by booking holdings (formerly called Priceline group). Booking.com is owned by the same group. They're being operated as fairly independent companies just as Agoda, opentable and Priceline.com are.

peteretep 7y ago

Just going to tag on this; I’ve come to use Booking.com preferentially as it seems the least irritating, and I don’t remember the last time I was sold something I didn’t want from it. Guess I just blur out the bad bits?

jimmaswell 7y ago
I just look at "hotel" on google maps, weigh the prices/locations visually, and book directly. What's booking.com's value-add?
- peteretep 7y ago
  I can filter by ratings and locations above a certain level for places I'm not familiar with, filter by refund policy, and then read reviews and see if there are any deal breakers. I don't have to fight with an individual hotel's booking page, I know TripIt will read a Booking.com booking email perfectly, and Booking.com now has all my payment details saved. Edit: it occurs to me that this is much like the advantage that Amazon once had, for the period of my life when I bought pretty much everything via Amazon. Shame they've lost my confidence.
- jiofih 7y ago
  Customer service vs dealing with small property owners directly.
  - usr1106 7y ago
    Does booking.com have any customer service worth the name? I use them sometimes, but from a company with such aggressive / dishonest marketing I would generally not expect any customer service worth the name. IIRC their terms and conditions exclude all responsibility whatsoever if the reservation does not work out, It's always the hotel's responsibility. Luckily I have never had a case where I would have really had to contact their support.
    - jiofih 7y ago

dschuler 7y ago

After using them many times, they tried to charge me for a rental car I couldn't pick up from a disreputable agency (they wouldn't let me see the car, but demanded I sign a statement claiming no damage, along with a 1000€ deposit). The management style seems oddly European here (I guess it's a Dutch company), since "growth at all costs" in the US usually means to err on the side of the customer. Interestingly, Europeans like to copy virtually everything from the US, often without being aware of it, but there's always something lost in translation.

krick 7y ago

I must admit that even though I know it is bullshit, it still makes me nervous as hell and I'm getting all tight until I book something, especially if I'm booking for a very near future. It works on me.

axaxs 7y ago
Same! And I hate myself for it. I know it's bullshit, but reminds me I guess that there could be other people who are gonna take the room before I can. Sigh, we're suckers.

rad_gruchalski 7y ago

> Go look at a hotel in the middle of nothing in the most off-peak season, and it will still tell you that several rooms have been booked in the last few days and there are like 4 people looking at that hotel right now so you should book NOW! And of course everything is a one-time bargain. It's so blatant I don't even know how anyone can believe all that. Oh yeah, and you make your choice, it loads the page where one supposed to enter the details, as you are about to type in your first name, a popup comes up “hurry up”. This is the moment when I always shout “fuck you booking.com”.

3xblah 7y ago

I wrote a non-graphical, text-only, command line method of searching booking.com a few years ago using only nc/tnftp/curl/etc., sed, links (for form submission) and tmux (to send keystrokes to links). It searches for hotels, outputs a formatted list of hotel IDs, completes the dates availability form and returns a list of prices. I just tried it and it still works. Of course I never see any of the controversial tactics as they all require graphics.

CaptainZapp 7y ago

The "one neat trick" that galls me even more is that when you did book a property you sometimes get spam that prices in Middleofnowhere just went down. While not being able to prove it I'm almost 100% certain that this is a bold faced lie. Why? I booked a hotel maybe a week in advance in Sapporo in the middle of Golden Week[1]. Probably on the same day I received that slimy spam that "Prices in Sapporo just went down". I think that's a lie because prices in Japan during Golden Week don't go down; never ever! Demand is so high during that time that this is just not believable in any way, shape or form. Why slimey you ask? I think it's really shitty behavior by booking.com just having sold a property to then turn around trying to get me to cancel that property and book something apparently cheaper. I totally get why hotels hate booking.com with a vengeance when they use such scummy tactics against those entities they make their money from. And I agree: The actual service works and is pretty good and they shouldn't need to hit you with tactics that are not that far off from that Nigerian gentleman who has a cool few million for you. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Week_(Japan) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Week_(Japan)