I missed that passport got autocorrected to password. More or less the process is described above: you send the initial request anonymous, so the IP is used to

I missed that passport got autocorrected to password. More or less the process is described above: you send the initial request anonymous, so the IP is used to presume your nationality. We, the portal, would have contracts with different providers, who would in turn have contracts with the hotels - we didn’t deal with hotels directly. We had almost 40 such providers if I remember correctly. Each of these providers had an API. The search of the user would be against those APIs. So, let’s jump to the step where you found your hotel and you want to book. We would pre-reserve the room and you would get a screen where you had to input your data and pay. Among the data, you would be asked about your passport or travel documents and you would have to select the country that issued the document. Upon send, we would send an API request to confirm the booking, but if the portal didn’t like your actual nationality, it would reply that the room is no longer available. We would then have to tell you to start the search again, but this time tell the portals your actual nationality. They would either choose to give you the room at a higher price or not at all. Anecdotally, Booking does the same thing. I don’t know if with higher prices but definitely with availability. We had hotels show availability for my account where the address is in Germany but not on my wife’s, where the address is in Romania. My best anecdote is when we were transiting Hungary and booked an apartment in Budapest with my account. We would get there after the reception closed because of traffic so we called and ask what we can do. The lady says that we can send copies of our passports per email and she would check us in and leave the key with the building’s security guard. We send her our Romanian passports and in less than 15 minutes receive a reply that the apartment is no longer available because a pipe burst in there (presumably the pipe burst after finding out Romanians will stay there for the night)