8 ms·

The one time I used booking.com I got screwed over. Their website is riddled with dark patterns and has probably been A/B tested into oblivion. The tactic they

• samuli 5y ago
  Many times booking directly from the hotel has benefits like more relaxed cancellation rules, which conveniently booking.com and others charge money for.
• durnygbur 5y ago
  10 people are reading this comment right now, 3 people have upvoted it. And it's you, dear HN folks, who implements all this.
  • rightbyte 5y ago
    Are you referring to the "x people has looked at this room in the last y" scam message?
    • durnygbur 5y ago
      yes
  • fennecs 5y ago
    Clearly producing value for shareholders needs to come before ethics, morals and general decency.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • llampx 5y ago
    Of course the entire rest of the chain is cleared of all wrongdoing, because the CEO, the VP and the product manager didn't write the code. Nice.
    • durnygbur 5y ago
      We submit to cutthroat and exploitive recruitment processes so we can submit to assholes in the workplace ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Some claim the remuneration package makes it worth it.
• jahnu 5y ago
  They exist for EU users of booking.com And several of the dark patterns don't. Because of fairly mild regulations that protect the consumer. Draw your own conclusions here.
  • ahartmetz 5y ago
    Yes indeed - I'm a pretty frequent user from Germany and I have used the free cancellation feature a few times without trouble. You can tell that it's real from the fact that offers with free cancellation, especially when close to the arrival date, are a few percent more expensive ;)
  • MandieD 5y ago
    After spending most of my adult life in Germany, I have to be extra-vigilant when doing anything with money back in the US - from remembering that the prices on the shelves are several percent lower than what I’m actually going to have to pay (while being way lower than VAT, sales tax is not included in prices!) to anything to do with cellphones, and then stuff like this.
    • vinay427 5y ago
      On the other hand, after growing up in the US I have to do the same when shopping in Germany or Switzerland. It’s almost unheard of for stores here to offer compensation such as a refund or exchange for many situations commonplace in the US, and many customer service interactions for other things like a phone bill have exhibited stubbornness to arbitrary policies that borders on hostility IMO. I’m not sure sales tax excluded from prices is a matter of vigilance if it’s a nearly-universal national norm. It’s a bit like someone from the US complaining about being charged for bottled water at a restaurant in Spain after assuming they’d receive free tap water.
      • strzibny 5y ago
        No, I think this is about mental exercise. Do I have to go shopping with a calculator to know how much I am spending? To me personally it's weird. I come to shop with $5 but I don't know what I can actually buy...
• dazc 5y ago
  Booking.com is a great site for finding hotel rooms, provided you use it only for this reason and then go direct to the hotel's own site.
  • pletnes 5y ago
    Just remember that they will list hotels as «full» if they don’t have any rooms out on booking.com. Many hotels never do, and some hotels only do when they have a lot of free rooms.
  • culturestate 5y ago
    I used to do this, but recently I (somehow) got kicked into the upper tier of Booking.com’s genius program. The 20% discount you get by using B.c in that tier is unbeatable - I’ve actually had hotel front desk staff in multiple countries over the last few months tell me straight-up that they can’t price match that low and I’d be better off just using B.c.
    • herbst 5y ago
      Same here. I often tried to get s better price by just asking, but more than once the booking price was already far better than anything they could offer. I never, and I mean never, got the genius welcome cocktail they always advertised for. No hotel ever heard of that
    • grogenaut 5y ago
      This is actually true with many online booking systems, especially the ones people actually use. I've been told this using at least 10 different booking sites at over 20 hotels since 2005. At one major chain in downtown Cincinnati the clerk brought the manager over, who looked at the rate, and proceeded to pick up the phone and contact corporate to adjust the rate up, they manager told me they were losing money at that rate.
      • dazc 5y ago
        I wonder how they can be losing money on a room that would be otherwise vacant?
• ww520 5y ago
  Book directly with the hotels if possible. Lots of hotels will forgo the 24-hour cancellation charge if you ask nicely. Hotels can't do much if you book with a 3rd party since you're a customer of the 3rd party, not with the hotel.
  • blunte 5y ago
    Several commentors have written this advice, but almost always if I check the hotel website directly I see much higher prices than what are offered on booking. hotels.com, or agoda. However, with flights and flight search websites I do sometimes see close to equal pricing, and in that domain I almost always check the airline website itself and book directly when possible.
    • capableweb 5y ago
      In the past I've called and asked the hotel if they are willing to price match as I much rather want to be a customer of them, rather than Booking.com, and I think only around two times have they denied my request. Probably because those were very large hotel chains and didn't really care about one customer here and there. But smaller hotels have always accepted price marching for me.
      • gingerlime 5y ago
        Hotel websites aren't typically that great for good prices, nor for the ease of use. But talking to someone on the phone and quoting the booking.com (esp. genius) price can give you a good anchor, and many hotels will at least match it.
    • richardfey 5y ago
      Not even once I have seen a higher price on the hotel's website. But I travel mostly to Europe so your experience might be different.
      • herbst 5y ago
        I travelled mostly Europe and SEA and ask directly for everything longer than a night or two. Yes, listed prices on websites are almost always higher, and no I couldn't get a better price than with booking in the majority of cases. Usually booking maximal a week before arrival. So maybe that's why? Maybe it depends on where exactly, or what kind of hotels, how late you are with your booking, or the booking genius I have, however I had the exact opposite impression.
• blunte 5y ago
  While I most often use hotels.com, I have used booking many times. I have never had any trouble nor complaint with the website, but perhaps that's because I'm in the EU and there are more regulations (as another commentor noted).
• sgt 5y ago
  Not related to Booking.com, but these types of companies sometimes screw you over in ways you didn't even imagine. On my first trip to the USA (traveling from South Africa), Travelstart managed to somehow inject the word "DOCUMENT" into my name that was on the tickets. So my name e.g. "JOHN DOE" became "JOHN DOCUMENT DOE". At the customs/border control in Atlanta they noted that my ticket's name didn't correspond to my passport, which was actually a huge problem. Luckily they eventually let me into the country because the TSA agent was super friendly and "vouched" - which is bizarre on its own. Needless to say, I always order tickets directly from the airliner now.
• j4yav 5y ago
  They did the same thing to me and I never used them again. Don’t they realise they are losing repeat customers?
• lordnacho 5y ago
  This kind of thing is exactly what an ombudsman would be good for. Screwing a million people for a little bit of money each. They should have the power to fine a firm that's found to not actually be checking whether other people are online, whether a hotel is actually empty, etc.
• dessant 5y ago
  Here's a Booking.com employee that was part of the Consumer Psychology Team coming forward and arguing that what they've been doing is not illegal in the EU, after they were forced to change course because what they've been doing was incompatible with the law. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29472233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29472233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29471213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29471213
  • amelius 5y ago
    not illegal != decent, acceptable
  • ornornor 5y ago
    > not illegal > incompatible with the law This is amazing.
    • oblio 5y ago
      I can't find the second quote :-(
    • jonathankoren 5y ago
      What I find amazing is that @techcode says, "Not sure what illegal consumer practice are you talking about." Dude! I know what the illegal practice his team (He says he was tech lead of the "Consumer Psychology Team" at the time.) did. It was "unduly putting time pressure on users", most likely related to misrepresenting what the "X people are looking at this" and "last available" means. I'm sorry, but you're not paid enough to play dumb for your employer. Especially when it's your team that has been singled out by government regulators. A much better -- and honest -- defense would have been to state that it wasn't against the law when written, because the law didn't go into effect until January 2020, and the press release was from December 2019, and they would become in compliance within the six months as agreed to.
• grishka 5y ago
  Last time I used booking.com, I remember that the cancellation policy differed depending on the specific hotel. Most have free cancellation but only if you cancel more than a day before your booking.
• pembrook 5y ago
  Anecdotal, but I’ve canceled booking.com reservations probably 50+ times over the past decade without issue. They certainly use nefarious UX patterns like “10 people just booked this location!!” But I’ve always found the “free cancellation by” dates to be reliable. On the other hand, booking hotels directly is an absolute nightmare of interfacing with whatever broken systems the underfunded “IT” departments of said hotel have bolted on. At that point you might as well just call the front desk and wait 20 mins to be transferred to 3 different people.
  • thematrixturtle 5y ago
    If you're booking with a major chain like Marriott, Hilton etc, it's always worth booking directly, because it's much better to at least interface directly with those broken systems. If/when things break down, their own customer support can usually sort you out (esp if you have elite status), plus they're much more willing to comp you to better rooms etc. If you book through a proxy, the odds of breakage increase and support on both sides will just point fingers at each other.
  • gingerlime 5y ago
    Or just pick up the phone and call? found it to be a better option in some cases. Got better prices than booking.com too. The only problems we had with booking.com is that they give you no protection whatsoever. One case, the hotel clearly gamed the reviews and posted false info. It was so bad that we had to leave. But we were still charged the full amount, and booking.com just stood aside. Just recently, my wife booked a hotel in Tel-Aviv. The hotel charged her card twice (booking.com seemed to have passed the card info to the hotel). We cancelled, and still waiting for the refund/release of the funds. Booking.com does nothing to help. We have to bounce between the unhelpful hotel and the slow-as-hell bank/credit card company. OT: but are there any banks or credit card companies in Germany that actually help you when you're in this situation or need a chargeback? it seems like the low card fees in EU means much worse customer service compared to the US, or is it just my wishful thinking?
    • mschuster91 5y ago
      > OT: but are there any banks or credit card companies in Germany that actually help you when you're in this situation or need a chargeback? In my experience the Sparkasse is pretty decent, but since they're regional institutions YMMV. > it seems like the low card fees in EU means much worse customer service compared to the US, or is it just my wishful thinking? We just don't have much credit card usage since SEPA-ELV works pretty well. SEPA Direct Debit stuff you can chargeback at almost all institutions via online banking or self-service ATMs, credit card depends on your institution.
• szszrk 5y ago
  While I'm far from trusting booking I used late cancellation several times in EU. Usually those offers were more expensive, but I was charged late as promised (like a day before reservation date) and if cancelled before it just worked. Usually I'm more worried that their places usually just get my credit card number in plain text, write it down in a notebook and some frontdesk person simply uses that CC numbers to charge me on my first day there or so, manually entering it into CC terminal.
• hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  I got burned by the opposite: I booked a nice place for my brother's wedding 4 months ahead. At that time the prices were quite good. Fast forward a week before the weeding and I receive an email that the host is unable to process my credit card. So I try to contact the host - by phone, email, all possible ways, telling them I have several other cards, I can also pay by Paypal or wire transfer - but they don't reply. I notice the prices rose by 100% in the meantime and the host is trying to cancel my booking in an innocuous way. I wrote to booking.com - no reply. After that a second email arrived that the host was unable to charge my credit card (with a limit 50x more than the value of the booking...) and booking.com cancelled my reservation. Of course when I read the comments online it turned out I was not the first victim of this scheme. So, if booking.com cannot guarantee the very basics, why should I use them as an agent? It makes no sense to me - it's much better to book directly.