Booking.com (or any other hotel/flight booking sites) are the masters of dark patterns. This is what happens when software is 'finished', companies start to opt

Booking.com (or any other hotel/flight booking sites) are the masters of dark patterns. This is what happens when software is 'finished', companies start to optimize for profit, regardless of customer experience. But unfortunately, it works. I've seen friends that I consider intelligent panic buy tickets/hotels, "because prices are going up since the last time I checked!" Next time you want to book anything, browse around, ignore any of the fake urgency notifications, ignore the price (while staying broadly in your price-range, of course). Then when you found a destination you like, open the page in a private browsing window (or clear your cookies), and you'll see that prices and availability are back to normal.