16 ms·

De-Stressing Booking.com (2019)

965 points by robin_reala 4y ago

55555 4y ago
Booking.com is actually much better about this crap than Agoda.
- splonk 4y ago
  Agoda is owned by Booking.
djha-skin 4y ago
Modifying a site to be less sensational does not make the makers of the site any less dishonest. Why would I do business with a site that is using sensationalism to get to my money when I could just do business with one of dozens of other travel websites who treat me better? It's not like booking.com has a monopoly. Why not so business with a booking company where customer relationship is more of a priority?
- petesergeant 4y ago
  > Why would I do business with a site that is using sensationalism to get to my money when I could just do business with one of dozens of other travel websites who treat me better? It’s cheap, it’s reliable, and whenever I’ve had any sort of issue then Booking.com have fixed it right away. For all this urgency stuff, I’ve found them absolutely excellent.
  - darkstar_16 4y ago
    I agree. I don't like booking.com's sales tactics but otherwise they're an excellent aggregator. Sort of like Amazon. I don't like that they promote their own branded stuff over competitors but I still use them.
- aflag 4y ago
  It's a sad state of things. I've grew unsensitised to that sort of things. Nowadays I usually automatically ignore that and what my brain perceives as ads. They all became background noise to me at this point.
- listenallyall 4y ago
  > It's not like booking.com has a monopoly You may want to take a closer look at the "dozens of other travel websites." Yes, there are still a few independent ones, but the majority of major sites are all owned by just two companies, Expedia and Booking Holdings (formerly Priceline). It's unfortunate but true.
hodgesrm 4y ago
I love HN articles about going down the rabbit hole. This one did not disappoint. At the end, though, I started to wonder about legal issues with altering downloaded code behavior. Cybersecurity laws are so clumsily written that the kind of alterations to Booking.com code described here seem likely to fall afoul of one or more such laws not to mention the site terms of usage. Opinions?
- asnyder 4y ago
  Personally, don't see how modifying anything on the client matters. Actual site and service is a series of authenticated API calls that trigger actions on their server side. None of those meaningful things are modified, only the client layer/ dressing so to speak.
  - hodgesrm 4y ago
    This seems corrrect though it made me curious. I've skimmed the Booking ToS and can't find anything that expressly forbids altering the site appearance to make it render differently. The closest is perhaps Section A14. Intellectual Rights. [0] So either Booking.com have thought about this and don't care, or they have not thought of it. Given that they do expressly prohibit monitoring/scraping/crawling for commercial purposes I would guess it's the former. They've limited liability in a way that any loss is limited to the amount paid and also do not offer indemnification, which further limits their exposure. (Reading legal documents is my personal rabbit hole.) [0] https://www.booking.com/content/terms.html#nov2021_terms_all_ipr_subheading https://www.booking.com/content/terms.html#nov2021_terms_all...
- netsharc 4y ago
  Who'd be sued? The people who use booking.com with this extension? It'd be a genius (/s) move for a service to sue their customers, ensuring they'll never return. IANAL, but I imagine a sleazy lawyer from the company could attempt to sue the users for altering a "copyrighted work", although it probably doesn't apply if the derivative work isn't for public consumption. Also it would mean defacing a book would be illegal.
- 4y ago
jbverschoor 4y ago
These practices are illegal and they have been fined for it before.
- mahmoudhossam 4y ago
  illegal where exactly?
  - jbverschoor 4y ago
    In the EU / the Netherlands. They used to provide false information about the availability. They changed it to "on our site" in 2020. Same applies for airlines
  - easywood 4y ago
    In several European countries, that's really not hard to find online: https://www.reuters.com/article/booking-hldg-hungary-idINL5N2CG754 https://www.reuters.com/article/booking-hldg-hungary-idINL5N... https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-privacy-watchdog-fines-booking-com-e475k/ https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-privacy-watchdog-fines...
returningfory2 4y ago
This looks awesome! I used booking.com a lot a few months ago and was just constantly amazed at how dumb all these “nudges” are. My favorite was a warning on a hotel listing saying “only 1 room at this price left on booking.com”. Turned out the hotel was completely empty! The hotel has only one of their smallest size room, so _necessarily_ when the hotel is empty there is only one of the cheapest rooms left. But still they try to make you feel anxious!
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  Well... they're not lying, then, are they? Should the code really be supposed to account for obscure edge cases like that? I always assume that there are a limited number of rooms available for third-party booking in any case, so I've come to accept that there will be hassles and risks associated with that. Starting to use airbnb more often for that and other reasons.
- netsharc 4y ago
  "only 1 room at this price left on booking.com", could also mean, the hotel only lets booking.com sell a limited number of rooms through their site, and presto, only 1 type of that room left, "on booking.com"!
- devoutsalsa 4y ago
  Plot twist, they’re referring to room #1, which is the last one ti be rented out.
amadeuspagel 4y ago
Interesting idea, but goes a bit too far for me. I'd prefer it if it just removed stuff, rather then rewriting.
monkeydust 4y ago
This is cool but I just mentally filter all this out already, no extension needed.
- WXLCKNO 4y ago
  I'd like to think I'm above this kind of manipulation but I'm sure I'm influenced like anyone else by things I'm unaware of.
- eropple 4y ago
  As a rule: people who think this, don't. I used to think it, too. Then I consulted for a company deep into split testing for marketing persuasion, and it made very clear to me how often I've got an intrusive, consumptive thought entering my brain that I can trace back to an advertisement. It's why I am pretty militant about ad-blocking (and also paying for things, because I want those things to still exist); I notice it today when I have a really weird "hey, I want that" crop up and derail my train of thought, and interrogating why is often valuable and leads back to the same things. (Even billboards actually work!)
- aeonflux 4y ago
  Yeah, like others said. You don't.
onetokeoverthe 4y ago
[dead]
Aillustrator 4y ago
I would like to know ow the world of hotel booking looks like these days. Is everybody here using booking.com? Or is anybody using alternatives as well? If you use something else: What? If you only use Booking.com: Why?
- samplenoise 4y ago
  Find places online, then call to reserve. Just last week I called a place I found on Booking and found they had a room at half the price shown online. This is in France though where there seem to be rules about how rates are advertised.
  - petesergeant 4y ago
    I’ve stayed at a few places where when I went to the front desk to extend my stay, they discretely told me to book via Booking.com rather than with them, because I’d get a better rate that way, and they were right. Like flight pricing, hotel room and channel pricing is complicated. Booking.com have a price guarantee, and a good one, so you will rarely get a better price from the hotel _unless you’re a member of their loyalty programme_ … so for the big hotel chains, sign up to those and book via their apps
    - netsharc 4y ago
      I guess the front desk has no discretion to give discounts, in smaller places the owner can give you the booking.com price because it means they don't have to give a cut (is it 30%?) to the bastards from Amsterdam. I remember walking into a hotel at around 10 PM (I was road-tripping around Iceland and could've slept in the car too) and asking if they'd give me a discount (1 room more to sell), and the front desk person clicked around on a lot on his computer and when a colleague asked him, he said "I'll just give him the agency rate.".
      - fwlr 4y ago
        I believe commissions are pretty standardized at 10-12% by now; OTAs have been competing on commission in the fight to sign up hotels. The most likely reason you might get a better rate from a third-party booking site than from the hotel direct is if the hotel allows the site to do variable pricing to try to capture more willingness-to-pay; sometimes that variable pricing will work out in your favour.
slater 4y ago
Right now, somewhere in the bowels of booking.com, a middle manager is crafting an e-mail to the front-end devs, "hey can we remove that .persuation-msg CSS class, and replace it with those nonsensical .xj892FXy0-style class names that are all the rage now? Thanks!"
- seattle_spring 4y ago
  Please tell me you're aware that those "non-sensical" classnames are machine generated during a production build? An eng isn't manually choosing that name.
  - narcraft 4y ago
    I think that's the intended joke
    - seattle_spring 4y ago
      Whooshed me good.
      - slater 4y ago
        ;)
frereubu 4y ago
It's not just the front end though. I used booking.com to book a hotel room with my wife and daughter, and it had a label on the booking option saying "your child's stay is free!" or similar. Turns out that her staying might be free, but the bed for her to sleep in is £30 per night, which was an extra I had to pay when we arrived. Booking.com is fine for finding somewhere because so many places are on it, but in the future I'll always book directly with the location through their website.
- trollied 4y ago
  That’s so messed up. I’d probably report their dark pattern crap to the advertising standards agency. They don’t like that sort of thing.
- bartvk 4y ago
  > in the future I'll always book directly with the location through their website I've tried this with a hotel in Italy, and found out that the price was actually higher. I couldn't believe it. I actually asked the reception whether they were really sure. Yes, this is our price, they said.
  - Bellamy 4y ago
    That's because the terms of use of bookings.com insist that you can't offer a price lower than on booking.com. I don't even if this is legal in your country, but in Germany they ruled against it: https://www.thelocal.de/20210518/germany-upholds-ban-on-booking-com-best-price-clauses https://www.thelocal.de/20210518/germany-upholds-ban-on-book...
    - toyg 4y ago
      Beyond the TOS nobody reads (not even sellers), this sort of difference might be due to a number of factors. It could well be that they provide rooms discounted to Booking.com because they want to fill a certain amount no matter what, and then do price-anchoring for other rooms on their website. This is more or less like them giving rooms massively discounted to package sellers (Thomas Cook etc).
pachico 4y ago
Unfortunately, this is the result of years of AB tests that prove that urgency messages increase conversion. They don't stress customers just for the sake of having a less pleasant experience. I work in the online accomodation business, BTW.
- wpietri 4y ago
  It's not the fault of the tests. It's the fault of the people who choose value short-term conversion metrics over everything else.
- executesorder66 4y ago
  Unfortunately years of experience has shown that threatening to shoot or stab people when you are mugging them increases the chances of them handing you the valuables they have on them. The muggers don't threaten their victims just for the sake of inducing fear. I work with the local gangs in my area, BTW.
  - pachico 4y ago
    This is terribly demagogic
  - toyg 4y ago
    There is actually a joke from a famous Scottish comedian (whose name escapes me rtn) that goes "as I came off the bus, a guy at the stop went OI! GIVE ME A QUID, OR YOU'RE GETTING STABBED! Now, compared with the likelihood of getting maimed, losing a pound looked like extremely good value! I don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for a bargain!"
    - toyg 4y ago
      Kevin Bridges! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W_k7ybGBDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W_k7ybGBDg
j1elo 4y ago
I love this kind of efforts to make the web more palatable, although changing the wording of some phrases seems to go maybe a bit too far. For me I'd rather have a cross-browser solution in the form of uBlock Origin's rules. Is there any place where someone has collected some useful ones for booking.com?
artemavv 4y ago
This is brilliant! I was irritated by Booking.com nudges for a long time but I thought nothing could be done about it. Now I want to build a similar extension. Leave a reply there if you know some site that badly needs de-stressing.
- kapitanjakc 4y ago
  agoda.com
  - kristofferR 4y ago
    https://pastebin.com/HjWzCAZ4 https://pastebin.com/HjWzCAZ4
fancyfredbot 4y ago
After browsing hotels for some time I've seen booking.com show several hotels start to sell out of rooms. That usually causes me to hurry up and book, but after several hotels showed full at once I got suspicious and checked my partners phone. The hotels still showed as available there. Dark stuff. Their website is otherwise pretty good though and I still use them.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  This kind of behavior should just fall under fraud laws. If a person intentionally lies or misrepresents themselves for the purposes of gaining money it's usually considered fraud in most countries. This should be the same. The problem is that there are a lot of laws that in practice only apply to not-well-connected individuals. When done by companies or well-known people it's considered good business acumen.
  - Quarrel 4y ago
    In the UK at least, they've tried. https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/online-hotel-booking https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/online-hotel-booking Booking.com, amongst others, gave enforceable undertakings that they'd change their practices.
  - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
    i've started flying recently a lot and in this one particular circuit i see loads of dark patterns. 1. there was this snow season last month and the roads stopped working and suddenly the air prices skyrocketed. (as is now expected), i had to buy a ticket in emergency which i paid 4x the reasonable rate with all websites saying "oops, the fare has increased" trick. 2. many websites did the "just 1 seat remaining" trick and i jumped the gun. when the next day i traveled, the plane was half empty. what happens is, travel agents buy up tickets well in advance and then sit on the bookings, they either sell directly or wait for online portals to sell them. these travel agents having purchased tickets in bulk then say "oh, the ticket is priced $100 on kayak, i will sell it for 95. lets give you some discount" all the while having purchased the same for like 20. these people are willing to forego tickets because its more profitable to keep the prices high
jvans 4y ago
This is why I sometimes hate a/b testing. I'm sure someone at booking a/b tested these things and saw an increase in revenue. The thing that these tests don't measure are very long term effects where people either start to hate your product and look for alternatives, or become so numb to the changes that the initial novelty effect wears off. The person who ran the test gets a promotion for increasing revenue during the quarter but the net result is a massive negative for the longevity of the product.
- dyno12345 4y ago
  see also: facebook
- wpietri 4y ago
  That is not a problem with A/B testing. It's a problem with the values of the company. I've worked with people who will say, "Oh, this tests well, but we don't want to do it because of [long term concerns X and Y]." People who value revenue metrics over all else will still do shitty things for users even if they don't A/B test.
  - lylejantzi3rd 4y ago
    The problem with that approach is you now have evidence that the short term change will show immediate results and no evidence of the long term concerns. Given solid numbers vs somebody's gut, most managers will go with the solid numbers, even if the company has good values.
    - eropple 4y ago
      > Given solid numbers vs somebody's gut, most managers will go with the solid numbers, even if the company has good values. If this is true, that indicates that a company's theoretical "good values" are not being passed down to those decision-makers in a way that makes them impact decision-making. Which means the company does not have those "good values" in the first place. They have lip service. Values that are not practiced are not values. You are what you do, both when someone is watching and when someone is not.
ape4 4y ago
These persuasion messages seem untrue - which makes me not trust other parts of the website.
zxcvbn4038 4y ago
I think people really must not appreciate booking.com. My wife strayed from the formula, booked directly with major chain, used loyalty points to book a stay at a European hotel they operate. Got charged full price by the hotel, got charged for a number of meals she didn’t have, and we’ve been dealing with that since September 2022. When we have problems with reservations we made through booking.com, and post Covid a lot of hotels seem to overbook so we’ve rolled in and found we have no place to stay on several occasions, it’s just single phone call to booking.com resolve the issue. I don’t know what booking’s cut is but they earn every penny.
- catiopatio 4y ago
  This reads like a bizarro-world advertisement. You book through booking.com, and upon arrival, regularly find your reservation bumped due to overbooking? That’s not positive for booking.com!
  - stavros 4y ago
    This happens no matter whom you book with. The difference between booking directly and booking through booking.com is the difference between "sorry, sucks to be you, bye" and "there's this more expensive accommodation available for you and you don't have to pay anything extra".
    - lars_francke 4y ago
      This is just as anecdotal as your story and the original post: For the last 15 years I've spent about 100 nights in hotels per year all over the world and this has never happened to me. When I had a reservation it has always been honored. I've booked directly with small hotels, using chain sites and various aggregators (trivago, hrs, booking, Expedia, hotels.com). The experience has been pretty much the same. My only reason to use aggregators is to collect rewards across different hotels.
      - stavros 4y ago
        It's happened to me once and to my parents once, and we don't even book that often. Maybe it depends on the country.
MaanuAir 4y ago
Communicating by fear in non-dangerous contexts is a bad sign of an attempt to manipulate you.
mirrorlake 4y ago
A much easier solution: don't use their product. This would serve as a fantastic article about the reasons why it's worthwhile to stop giving them money. Except, it's the exact opposite of that--it teaches (or encourages?) everyone to learn the tricks required to ignore a company's unethical behavior, or install the extension to do it for you.
- ponector 4y ago
  But booking usually has better prices. Also competitors are not much better in terms of user experience. As a consumer I want to continue to use it, but to be blind to their persuasive techniques.
pdntspa 4y ago
The people who desire and authorize this sort of manipulative crap to be put on websites needs to have very bad things done to them. Manipulative money men are the bane of tech.
- expertentipp 4y ago
  > websites needs to have very bad things done to them Make them feel anxious and on their toes about something that is important for them. Exactly like the dark patterns they create.
- temp_praneshp 4y ago
  > Manipulative money men are the bane of tech. Closely followed by engineers who happily implement this kind of shit (unless you included them already)
non- 4y ago
Here is the direct link to the extension [0] for anyone who wants to try it out. It's kind of hard to find on the actual webpage because the author made links the same color as normal text. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bookingcom-de-stresser/ofhofgonllbejlhlbakkpphpecbdljil https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bookingcom-de-stre...
- roydivision 4y ago
  > the author made links the same color as normal text. I'm sure there's an extension to fix that
rdiddly 4y ago
This is an interesting thought experiment. I'm surprised the CSS class names are so transparent. They must think they're doing nothing wrong. "Persuation" is about what I'd expect from people who downvote every spelling correction. The Chrome extension is ultimately an enabler of bad behavior though. I wish someone over on Lawyer News would share a post about how they used their free time to put together a lawsuit against Booking.com for fun. Also what makes this author think the numbers of rooms left are any more accurate or honest than the rest of the surrounding bullshit? Just the fact that they're numbers? Anyway you don't need that info. Is there at least 1 room (or n rooms if you requested n rooms) left, yes or no? It's a boolean. Available or not.
- joe5150 4y ago
  I'm often browsing hotels ahead of actually committing to any firm travel plans, so a message like "rooms available" suggests I likely have plenty of time to keep looking (and potentially going to another website to book), but "only 3 rooms left" might prompt me to pull the trigger earlier than I otherwise would have. Of course, I am personally convinced these numbers are totally made up and just ignore them anyway.
  - rdiddly 4y ago
    Yeah there's a bit of a disconnect between what we wish it was -- a useful indicator of the actual number of rooms left, for purposes of gauging the urgency -- vs. what they use it for[0], which is to create the urgency artificially. [0] I should say "probably" since I don't have any concrete evidence.
  - okwhateverdude 4y ago
    They aren't totally made up, but they are deliberately obtuse. Hotels are ultimately the ones that control the availability of rooms sold on the platform. It is a common tactic to only list a handful of room nights until those are sold, then add more. This means that all of their rooms always have the urgency messaging. The larger chains do this at scale and across multiple third party sites. So Booking isn't really lying, those numbers are "true", in that there are "only 2 rooms left" but they don't mention the hoteliers' smarmy behavior in abusing the urgency messaging about the availability or their own complicit participation in the lie-by-omission.
jansommer 4y ago
I think this is a great example of how easy it is to change a ui in the browser, and something I think we take for granted now. Take any other tech and it'll be hard, potentially impossible. Something that concerns me is that we end up with Flutter(-like) websites, on a canvas using wasm. No cool stuff like this would exist, no way to escape the ads, and eye strain from websites that Dark Reader can't change. I wouldn't be surprised seeing "dark mode" as an added benefit to a subscription one day. (Yes, Flutter has html too. But if I tell my boss that it's because of my ideology for the web, that pixel's are a bit off, and performance is degraded, I might as well look for another job.)
- meltedcapacitor 4y ago
  It's sort of toxic socially though as devs write dark patterns during working hours and dark pattern blockers in hobby time, for other nerds to use. So dev caste gets usable web and profits from antisocial behaviour, while low non-dev castes are left to drown in the swamp.
  - Kwpolska 4y ago
    You don’t need to be from the “dev caste” to install an ad blocker or the Booking.com De-Stresser extension described in the post.
    - Loocid 4y ago
      I think you're underestimating how tech illiterate much of the population is. A quick Google suggests the percentage of people using an adblocker of any kind is only 30-40%. I would consider that the absolutely minimum of web viewing tech literacy.
      - janalsncm 4y ago
        The point remains though that the technical capabilities necessary to install chrome extensions and the technical capabilities required to program dark patterns are vastly different. No one is getting hired on their ability to do the former. The asymmetry is that one small group of web devs can roll out a change to millions of users whose ability and patience to combat those dark patterns will vary.
pshirshov 4y ago
A Firefox version please?
- kls0e 4y ago
  that would be lovely and I would install it right away, too. I see the time and effort it takes, tho. Would you be able to provide a css ruleset one could add to their browser of choice?
  - pshirshov 4y ago
    I'm not a front-end engineer so I can't help here. Though, from what I understand, Firefox uses the same extension system nowadays and it's mostly a question of publishing in Mozilla store.
hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
The sorting orders are the most weird (but still way better than Airbnb where you control nothing and are doomed to scroll an infinite list). For example, teh sort order I use most often is to sort by price, but I need to start from the most expensive offers as I'm looking for (the pretenders to the) best places in a given area. Unfortunately, Booking.com allows to sort by price in one direction only, so I have to start from the end and from the bottom of each page. Weird but easy to solve. But what I hate is that they won't let me sort by rating! Why do they include ratings, though? They present several weird options I'd never use as they are optimized to land me with a place I don't want. I just want to sort by rating - and let me decide if the number of ratings received makes it trustworthy.
- lozenge 4y ago
  Those ratings are fake anyway. You can score it a 1 (actually the lowest option is 2.5) due to nearby noise making it impossible to sleep. But they'll also ask you to rate the cleanliness, service, and location(??) and suddenly your terrible stay is a 6.0 rating. https://ro-che.info/articles/2017-09-17-booking-com-manipulation https://ro-che.info/articles/2017-09-17-booking-com-manipula...
  - splonk 4y ago
    I rant about the 2.5-10 scale on every Booking thread. It's not totally fake but it's very deceptive. When I had access to a large amount of rating data, the median rating on Booking was 8.1. If you can filter for business travelers (not sure if the UI allows this, but the data might still be in the page), that drops down to mid 7s.
tyingq 4y ago
Given the title, I was hoping this was a "how we're scaling our Perl backend" post, but still interesting. The hubris of using <div> class names like "persuation"(sic) is funny.
e4e5 4y ago
I like Google travel a lot to find hotels and then I book directly. It's the best for cities because of how integrated with maps it is and since Google doesn't sell me anything, I don't have to be as weary of these dark patterns.
- wiredfool 4y ago
  You know google is selling you hotel bookings?
  - Scoundreller 4y ago
    Is there a place to book/research hotels that isn't?
PresidentObama 4y ago
From the last time booking.com was discussed I picked up some ublock origin filters that make the website more bearable. You can copy and paste them directly in your ublock config (ublock options -> My filters) ! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21860328 booking.com##.soldout_property booking.com##.sr_rooms_left_wrap.only_x_left booking.com##.lastbooking booking.com##.sr--x-times-booked booking.com##.in-high-demand-not-scarce booking.com##.top_scarcity booking.com##.hp-rt-just-booked booking.com##.cheapest_banner_content > * booking.com##.hp-social_proof booking.com##.fe_banner__red.fe_banner__w-icon.fe_banner__scale_small.fe_banner booking.com##.urgency_message_x_people.urgency_message_red booking.com##.rackrate booking.com##.urgency_message_red.altHotels_most_recent_booking booking.com##.fe_banner__w-icon-large.fe_banner__w-icon.fe_banner booking.com##.smaller-low-av-msg_wrapper booking.com##.small_warning.wxp-sr-banner.js-wxp-sr-banner booking.com##.lock-price-banner--no-button.lock-price-banner.bui-u-bleed\@small.bui-alert--large.bui-alert--success.bui-alert Apart from these, I use some additional ublock filters to block some of their tracking that I am not ok with. $removeparam=/^(error_url|ac_suggestion_theme_list_length|ac_suggestion_list_length|search_pageview_id|ac_click_type|ac_langcode|ac_position|ss_raw|from_sf|is_ski_area|src|sb_lp|sb|search_selected|srpvid|click_from_logo|ss|ssne|ssne_untouched|b_h4u_keep_filters|aid|label|all_sr_blocks|highlighted_blocks|ucfs|arphpl|hpos|hapos|matching_block_id|from|tpi_r|sr_order|srepoch|sr_pri_blocks|atlas_src|place_types)/,domain=booking.com $removeparam=/sid=.\*;BBOX/,domain=booking.com ||www.booking.com/c360/v1/track ||www.booking.com/fl/exposed ||booking.com/personalisationinfra/track_behaviour_property ||booking.com/has_seen_review_list Note that these may result in you receiving some higher prices by removing some referrer info. If you do see that happening, feel free to remove the offending config if the price difference is significant for you. I usually don't bother for differences of < $10 (price displayed on the search page vs the property page).
- oriettaxx 4y ago
  super! thank you so much!
- yodsanklai 4y ago
  Could someone explain a bit how this works?
_nalply 4y ago
I booked on booking.com 2016 and now again. I feel booking.com reduced their dark patterns. After 2016 I said to myself, never again, and 2023 I said to myself, let's have a look, and it is better. This said, I try to take the approach of an eagle. Browse leisurely and then shoot down to the prey. Ignore pretty things blinking and focus solely on what you need.
tims33 4y ago
a/b testing obviously drives these kinds of site designs. The business leaders get what they want, but eventually these over-a/b tested products open themselves to disruption. I also think its funny when people accuse these companies of being immoral, but I think a/b testing is creating these bizarre amoral companies. And once they get lost they seem really lost.
DrNosferatu 4y ago
Booking.com is a de facto monopoly - break it up!
- oriettaxx 4y ago
  Turkey banned booking.com for this reason, and while in turkey booking.com tells you: you cannot book from this country (so you need a VPN) Then I know in Greece the booking.com commission is about 20%.... which is a lot! In Argentina it was (5 years ago) much lower due to availability of several other platform, so yes being the only provider is not a good thing Btw I love booking.com: I still remember the scams in Venice until the internet popped up with reviews, and I really appreciate platform that helps who works very good: I met owners that told me: "yes, it costs, but I get customers as soon as I provide a great service" I dislike airbnb as other have written: poor customers service when you tell them a host try to scam.
  - oriettaxx 4y ago
    I've just talked to a host: he says the commission is variable where the more you pay the more they promote
  - DrNosferatu 4y ago
    My point is that there is no practical alternative to using booking.com for hotels, and therefore they treat costumers as they please (very bad - during and after the sale) and charge whatever they want (very high). It should be “the free market” driving price formation and market share. Clearly, this isn’t happening here anymore. But like the Covid vaccine purchase fiasco, EU regulators will just sit idle cozying up to big business instead of standing for the interests of their citizens. The fact that a project like the OP even exists is screaming proof of what I’m saying: if booking.com wasn’t indeed operating as a monopoly, wouldn’t the “free market” drive out the use of Booking’s notorious stress / bullying sales practices?
  - tlug 4y ago
    I have not yet had to try Airbnb's support for host scam, but unfortunately I am now in a situation with a scam host on Booking.com. Some time after booking and paying for the apartment in NYC, the host disappeared, they removed the listing, don't answer emails/phones/etc. I've been complaining to Booking.com over their chat and phone - no real action for almost a month. The only thing the first line can do is to file a ticket to appropriate department (fraud, I assume) and their hands are tied. They apologise for delay, etc. but nothing is really being done, I'm afraid.
jacquesm 4y ago
Some of these patterns are now illegal. https://techpulse.be/nieuws/268825/booking-com-mag-klanten-meer-druk-zetten/ https://techpulse.be/nieuws/268825/booking-com-mag-klanten-m...
- npteljes 4y ago
  Which I believe is the only real way of stopping these patterns. If they are illegal and the law is enforced, then the field is level for the players, so they can't out-manipulate each other - with these patterns, at least.
xiwenc 4y ago
Specifically regarding booking.com i try to book accommodation way in advance with free cancellation until X date. When the trip gets closer i always review my booked accommodations at least X-1 days in advance for better deals. Sometimes i do find better price and location. I have started this strategy recently. So not much empirical evidence yet.
chpatrick 4y ago
Luckily (?) I live in Hungary where they got fined over this so these dark patterns are not visible.
SergeAx 4y ago
I am a many years Booking.Com user, but since about 4 years I stick to this pattern: look up hotel on Booking, then go to hotel's website, register account there and get a member rate or privilege. In exchange they will at worst send me some email marketing once, which is easy to unsubscribe. In larger networks I also getting some bonus points, but the main benefit of being a direct and even registered customer is an attitude of hotel. Most of the time it is better room or even upgrade, or just an available ear for requests or complains. The reason of that is a visible disloyalty and even dishonesty of Booking.Com site and app towards me. I am just not in the mood to de bullied and dark patterned by a search engine.
- aeonflux 4y ago
  Despite their shady practices I still only book through Booking.com when I to unknown places for the firs time. At the end of the day Booking sticks to customers when theres an issue and all the Venues/Hotels seem to care about their relation with Booking.
  - DrNosferatu 4y ago
    Not true: if there’s trouble with the property my experience with Booking.com shows that they won’t move a finger and you’ll be on your own.
paws 4y ago
Not sure if this is common knowledge, but I learned booking.com does not necessarily integrate with hotel backends in the way you might expect given their name. Turns out they (at least sometimes?) just lie to you in the UI. I know that because my dad used booking.com last year, but when he presented the booking.com printout at the front desk - 'Sorry sir, we can't recognize that.' He wasn't late or anything. Pretty sure he prepaid too. Total nightmare - you had one job, booking.com, GTFO. Personally given the blatant deception, plus the way they took UK/Netherlands pandemic money and laid workers off anyway [1][2] I don't think I'll ever use it. Also, Barry Diller thinks working from home is a crock [3]. I'll take my business elsewhere, GL with that Barry. [1] https://hospitality-on.com/en/concept/booking-holdings-reports-85-drop-bookings-and-substantial-layoffs-possible https://hospitality-on.com/en/concept/booking-holdings-repor... [2] https://skift.com/2022/02/11/booking-com-to-eliminate-2700-customer-service-jobs/ https://skift.com/2022/02/11/booking-com-to-eliminate-2700-c... [3] https://viewfromthewing.com/expedia-boss-trashes-his-employees-says-work-from-home-is-a-crock/ https://viewfromthewing.com/expedia-boss-trashes-his-employe...
- pingec 4y ago
  Carlton City Hotel Singapore, I arrived there in the middle of the night with a printout from booking.com of my (already-paid-for) reservation. The staff said they don't have my reservation, told them to check booking.com, they replied they do not have access to booking.com, a third party manages that for them which was unavailable at night. In that moment I realized I was putting way too much trust in that website. I was able to pay for a new reservation and later got the booking.com payment refunded. Luckily the hotel was not fully booked...
  - usr1106 4y ago
    > they replied they do not have access to booking.com, a third party manages that for them which was unavailable at night. I guess that's primarily the hotel's fault. They should not give rooms to weird third parties. But with the market shares of the big booking sites that would cause them significant loss of bookings.
- usr1106 4y ago
jononomo 4y ago
I finally moved all my domains away from GoDaddy for similar reasons -- just using the site stressed me out.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Can we have an extension that calls them and tells them my entire family is booking rooms individually with the hotel direct, and there are now only 3 people left who will buy through booking.com site, so hurry and offer us an extra discount.
SimonPStevens 4y ago
I used to use booking.com a lot. I can cope with the dark patterns and the aggressive anxiety based encouragement (although I find it repulsive). But more recently what's put me off is many of their listings aren't hotels, they are private landlords letting apartments Airbnb style. I'd like to be able to filter out those types of listings because having had a few bad experiences with AirBnB in the past what I usually want is a hotel. I don't want to deal with a private landlord hassling me, cleaning deposits, and rules, etc.
- eCa 4y ago
  They have a filter for that (that I always use).
  - local_crmdgeon 4y ago
    Isn't it just easier to go to the hotel chain you prefer and search the map though? Status gets you all the perks people here want
- dwg 4y ago
  Have you tried filtering search results by "Property Type" (Hotel) and "Property Rating" (3-star, etc.)?
agluszak 4y ago
In my company we use TravelPerk for booking business trip related flights, train tickets and hotel stays. I was shocked by how much more user-friendly it was than Booking.com or any other similar website. Unfortunately, afaik TP is available only for business clients, not individual customers. Disclaimer: That's not really a praise of TP, because I think that every website should be FORCED to have that level of usability (EU, please save us). User-hostile design should be banned.
sizzle 4y ago
I’ll donate and I’m sure others here too will if they hit you with a cease and desist let us know! I think it’s important to have tools to unfuck the web from dark patterns companies use to deceive us.
tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
I was a bit surprised by seeing this, before I saw "Date: 23rd July 2019" Booking.com was a textbook example for a website made terrible through such tactics, but has significantly improved since then (at least for me - note that this may be because I'm in Europe, and they got fined for some of their tactics, so maybe they only turned it down here). They still have 1-2 such "hurry up and buy already" things but it feels like it's nowhere near as bad as it was. I guess at some point they realized that it's really good at a) increasing conversions within the session b) making users absolutely hate you and poisoning your brand. (Although some of it is probably also me getting used to it.) Unfortunately, except for the high pressure sales tactics, Booking simply has the absolutely best UX I've ever seen on a booking web site: 1. It actually works. That shouldn't be remarkable, but I can't count the number of times a site either told me they were sold out or the price went up 5 steps into the booking flow, or failed at the payment step with some cryptic error. Especially flight booking sites are so terrible that by now I'm willing to pay the surcharge for booking directly with the airline or a known-working site, but I've had that with hotel sites too. 2. They know to only ask for the minimum of actually required information (although they sometimes hide a second set of questions behind a short first step - but it's never the 5 steps that I commonly see elsewhere). 3. They actually show you what's available and provide a decent overview of what is or isn't included. 4. They usually show the actual price, or the actual price minus a $2 tourism tax. Unlike a hotel web site, where you are playing guessing games with taxes, resort fees etc. 5. They don't require me to create an account (unlike e.g. many hotel web sites, where it's often clear for me that I won't be staying there repeatedly). In addition to that, they have very good inventory, often with favorable cancellation conditions, and often significantly cheaper than booking directly with the hotel (I've never gotten a better price by reaching out to the hotel directly, usually they're not even willing to match and tell me to book through Booking...). Ultimately, the horribleness of the competition is what resulted in me going back to Booking despite hating their sales tactics. Is there any competitor that is actually better?
- guitarbill 4y ago
  Sadly, I have to concur. The US based ones are all more awful. I can deal with nagging messages while using the site, as long as I'm shown the full price, and not bombarded with upsell emails afterwards (that I have unsubscribed from 3 times already). Never going to use Expedia again.
kwijibob 4y ago
We need more EQ (emotional intelligence) in our UI design. This is an area that AI will be unlikely to solve. Designing a SAAS that can motivate and relax and not manipulate or stress requires a particular human wisdom.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  They have plenty of "emotional intelligence". They're just using it for their interest, not yours. If you mean benevolence, not being an asshole, etc., say that - but they're not doing it because they don't understand.
nomilk 4y ago
> Some of the language is unnecessary, scolding even. Look at this one, which appears if you hesitate on the check-out page for just a few seconds Going against the grain here, but I appreciate these messages. In evaluating the website, I ask: "what would an awesome human do?". If you were at the physical front desk of hotel making a booking on a busy weekend, the hotel only had 3 rooms left and they were being booked fast, you'd really appreciate the human helping you giving you a nudge and saying "let's get this done super quickly for you so you don't miss out!" The caveat is the nudge must be honest. If the urgency is abused it loses its meaning and becomes noise.
- hakfoo 4y ago
  That's the entire problem here. One nudge at the right moment is awesome. A constant red alert of status notifications both undermines their credibility and fatigues the user to the one real notification. "42 other users are looking at this room" is 100% noise. For all I know, someone linked a picture of the sheets on Pintrest and it's people gawking at them rather than potential buyers. "Someone else booked a similar room" is very close to noise, unless I'm in a narrow audience of needing many similar rooms and being close to the margins. "There is only one room of this category left" has actual value, in that it is a legitimate ticking timebomb. But it's easy to lump all of these together when they're lighting up like a user-hostile pinball machine of anxiety.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
    It's not "42 other users". If someone else is looking at it, it's "2 users" (they and you).
sabujp 4y ago
i'd be happy forego having to directly use a computer at all. I really want "Ok google, book an apartment for 4 in this region of <x>. Make sure it has blah blah amenities and blah blah beds" ..then have it show me some options and pictures on my phone or ar/vr headset, i say ok book the thing, and it just does it.
jussaying2 4y ago
If anyone from booking.com is reading this, if you're looking for faster conversion rates, just let users save their filters! As a nomad, I don't want to think about the number of cumulative days I've spent selecting "Private bathroom", "Air-conditioned", "8+ user rating", "Laptop workspace" etc over and over.
- wasmitnetzen 4y ago
  Can't you just bookmark a search with all these params?
sizzle 4y ago
Reading all the anecdotes about experiences people had in this thread, both good and bad, it seems like the whole travel and lodging industry is hit or miss depending on seasonality and a million other variables. “YMMV” definitely applies once you reach your destination lodging/hotel.
sasaf5 4y ago
This plus the fact that you never really get the same room of the picture are the reasons I don't reserve hotels with platforms like this. Either I reserve directly with the hotel or I just walk in.
palashkulsh 4y ago
I've done the same for slack
smueller1234 4y ago
I worked at booking until late 2017. I was responsible for all their infrastructure and tooling development until the start of that year. We all hated the urgency messaging internally. Hated it. We felt bad. Many of us were reasonably proud of our product and felt this tarnished our ability to deliver value to customers. We argued with the product org and the CPO on a regular basis. The reality is that the urgency messaging drove significant incremental business that they felt they could not afford to pass up. The logic that the CPO applied at the time was some pretty sporty mental gymnastics: "we optimize for conversion (looker to booker) because that's a proxy to actually delivering value to the customer." The idea was that if a customer books and stays, it means they found what they were looking for. Being stuck in a perpetual, frustrating decision paralysis sucks after all. While I didn't agree with that framing, it's a touch less preposterous than it sounds. At the time, almost all bookings were fully refundable. So if you booked and stayed (you could have cancelled any time before the day at no cost, for most bookings), there's indeed something that went sort of right. Of course we also tried to measure CSAT in a number of ways (like net promoter scores) but those measurements are tricky at best. In any case, one of the counter proposals, which I tried to co-champion unsuccessfully, was to add a checkbox to the account area to opt out of urgent messaging. The idea was that if you were annoyed enough by them to find that flag (or to be told where to find it) then surely it would also be better for the company to give you that and retain you as a customer? It was IIRC never tried. I was sad. It would've been a tricky to measure experiment, that would have had to be run for a long time. Loyalty measurement is hard.
- teekert 4y ago
  Am I the only one that sees such urgency messages and then thinks: Well ok, then not? I'm orienting, looking at options, I'm just annoyed if my final list contains options that are gone by the time I feel ready to make a choice. The whole thing just makes me annoyed and look for other options. I had the same with a guy that wanted to sell us a mortgage, he said: "Better decide now, interest rates are probably going up next week." one day later he calls again: "You need to decide soon." So I tell him, "Ok, thank you we will not be going with your service then, I prefer to take time and I don't like this pressure." The guy was almost speechless. So I guess he expects people to be persuaded. Another example: The parents of a friend had their whole kitchen drawn and an offer on the table. So they want to take it home to think it over. The seller tells them: "What? No! I have to ask my manager if I am allowed to let you go like this, we went through a whole process!" So they actually sign! Same thing happened to friends, they told the seller: "What, this is not a prison, are you crazy!"... and they left. I guess most people are in the "I will allow myself to be pressured into stuff I don't want"-camp. I guess those are the people that also cave under pressure when being social engineered for access to their credit card. Maybe we can do something with this knowledge? Booking.com knows who the people are that will cave, to a degree I guess. Well it would be difficult to separate them from the people that just decide fast.
danjac 4y ago
I used booking.com to plan a short holiday earlier this year. It messed up the card payment failure with zero feedback, so I wasn't sure whether any payment had gone through or not. Long story short, I just booked the flights on the airline website and the hotel room through the hotel website. Price difference was maybe 20 EUR give or take, with very little extra inconvenience. And I had the assurance that if there were any problems, I could just contact the airline or hotel directly without having to deal with booking.com.
rho4 4y ago
"Only 1 room left" has become a totally useless message for me. I book every 2 months in the same city at different hotels, and I'm seeing this message pretty much all the time, and there seems to be always 1-2 rooms left, whether I book now or later. I'm guessing some hotels only put 1-2 rooms up in the system at a time, or something similar
glanzwulf 4y ago
It's an interesting extension, will give it a go. I've been booking a few hotels for this year as I have a bunch of trips aligned and booking is really fucking annoying. All those urgency prompts don't make me book faster or anything, they never did. And after a lot of bookings I tend to not even see them, my eyes already blur them out. I search for what I'm looking for and I book it.
black_puppydog 4y ago
I like how their "only 2 left on our site" is their example of "well this is alerting but useful, when exactly that tactic has been shown (in general, not on booking or at least I don't have that example at hand) to be entirely fictional. There simply isn't any actual shortage.
jwr 4y ago
Incidentally, since we're discussing booking.com — this site is ready to be disrupted. I recently tried to search for hotel rooms for a family of 3. A single room, for 2 adults and a kid. Good luck with that — they invested tons of money into that terrible anxiety-inducing messaging, but the search/filtering options are gathering cobwebs. For those who haven't tried: yes, you can select a single room and 2 adults and 1 kid. Booking will ignore that and show you 200 hotels that offer TWO rooms. You will need to sift through all of them to find some that might offer a single room, and then fight through misleading offers, where a room is marked for three people, but has two beds.
- carlosjobim 4y ago
  > this site is ready to be disrupted. Do a Kagi search for "hotels in (region)" and you can book directly with the hotels from their website, or contact them directly. But some hotels don't let you book through their website, and some hotels don't have enough information on their web site, some hotels don't have a website only a social media account, and some hotels don't have any of that. Well, if they - who have the most to win - are not ready to disrupt booking.com, then who is? A hotel owner will save thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per year in booking.com fees, if they only invest one week and a few hundred dollars into their own web site. But many would never in their life do such a thing. Not to mention AirBnB, who is worse than booking.com for both customers and hosts.
jarek83 4y ago
I quit using booking after finding out it's usually much cheaper to book with the host directly. It's not always possible and some convenience that booking.com provides is gone, but I usually prefer to use the saving for included breakfast.
rutthenut 4y ago
I use booking.com but the user experience does really grate. Simple things such as putting in the location and date, to get back a list of properties that aren't actually available for my requested date. Then have to set a search filter to 'show only available properties', which really should be the default. Especially as I set it every time. An argument could be that people may change dates if they like the property but this is just fluff that gets in the way of finding somewhere to stay. Could be classed as a 'dark pattern', from my point of view.
wodenokoto 4y ago
I was looking at a hotel on booking.com and I could not find the final price written anywhere. There was a highlighted price with “excluding the following charges”, but no sum of the price and the charges. Even after entering my details I couldn’t find the final charges as they asked me to enter my CC details.
stefek99 4y ago
This should be illegal. Luckily we have regulators to prevent such abuses.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

965 points by robin_reala 4y ago

55555 4y ago

Booking.com is actually much better about this crap than Agoda.

splonk 4y ago
Agoda is owned by Booking.

djha-skin 4y ago

Modifying a site to be less sensational does not make the makers of the site any less dishonest. Why would I do business with a site that is using sensationalism to get to my money when I could just do business with one of dozens of other travel websites who treat me better? It's not like booking.com has a monopoly. Why not so business with a booking company where customer relationship is more of a priority?

petesergeant 4y ago
> Why would I do business with a site that is using sensationalism to get to my money when I could just do business with one of dozens of other travel websites who treat me better? It’s cheap, it’s reliable, and whenever I’ve had any sort of issue then Booking.com have fixed it right away. For all this urgency stuff, I’ve found them absolutely excellent.
- darkstar_16 4y ago
  I agree. I don't like booking.com's sales tactics but otherwise they're an excellent aggregator. Sort of like Amazon. I don't like that they promote their own branded stuff over competitors but I still use them.
aflag 4y ago
It's a sad state of things. I've grew unsensitised to that sort of things. Nowadays I usually automatically ignore that and what my brain perceives as ads. They all became background noise to me at this point.
listenallyall 4y ago
> It's not like booking.com has a monopoly You may want to take a closer look at the "dozens of other travel websites." Yes, there are still a few independent ones, but the majority of major sites are all owned by just two companies, Expedia and Booking Holdings (formerly Priceline). It's unfortunate but true.

hodgesrm 4y ago

I love HN articles about going down the rabbit hole. This one did not disappoint. At the end, though, I started to wonder about legal issues with altering downloaded code behavior. Cybersecurity laws are so clumsily written that the kind of alterations to Booking.com code described here seem likely to fall afoul of one or more such laws not to mention the site terms of usage. Opinions?

asnyder 4y ago
Personally, don't see how modifying anything on the client matters. Actual site and service is a series of authenticated API calls that trigger actions on their server side. None of those meaningful things are modified, only the client layer/ dressing so to speak.
- hodgesrm 4y ago
  This seems corrrect though it made me curious. I've skimmed the Booking ToS and can't find anything that expressly forbids altering the site appearance to make it render differently. The closest is perhaps Section A14. Intellectual Rights. [0] So either Booking.com have thought about this and don't care, or they have not thought of it. Given that they do expressly prohibit monitoring/scraping/crawling for commercial purposes I would guess it's the former. They've limited liability in a way that any loss is limited to the amount paid and also do not offer indemnification, which further limits their exposure. (Reading legal documents is my personal rabbit hole.) [0] https://www.booking.com/content/terms.html#nov2021_terms_all_ipr_subheading https://www.booking.com/content/terms.html#nov2021_terms_all...
netsharc 4y ago
Who'd be sued? The people who use booking.com with this extension? It'd be a genius (/s) move for a service to sue their customers, ensuring they'll never return. IANAL, but I imagine a sleazy lawyer from the company could attempt to sue the users for altering a "copyrighted work", although it probably doesn't apply if the derivative work isn't for public consumption. Also it would mean defacing a book would be illegal.
4y ago

jbverschoor 4y ago

These practices are illegal and they have been fined for it before.

mahmoudhossam 4y ago
illegal where exactly?
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  In the EU / the Netherlands. They used to provide false information about the availability. They changed it to "on our site" in 2020. Same applies for airlines
- easywood 4y ago
  In several European countries, that's really not hard to find online: https://www.reuters.com/article/booking-hldg-hungary-idINL5N2CG754 https://www.reuters.com/article/booking-hldg-hungary-idINL5N... https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-privacy-watchdog-fines-booking-com-e475k/ https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-privacy-watchdog-fines...

returningfory2 4y ago

This looks awesome! I used booking.com a lot a few months ago and was just constantly amazed at how dumb all these “nudges” are. My favorite was a warning on a hotel listing saying “only 1 room at this price left on booking.com”. Turned out the hotel was completely empty! The hotel has only one of their smallest size room, so _necessarily_ when the hotel is empty there is only one of the cheapest rooms left. But still they try to make you feel anxious!

CamperBob2 4y ago
Well... they're not lying, then, are they? Should the code really be supposed to account for obscure edge cases like that? I always assume that there are a limited number of rooms available for third-party booking in any case, so I've come to accept that there will be hassles and risks associated with that. Starting to use airbnb more often for that and other reasons.
netsharc 4y ago
"only 1 room at this price left on booking.com", could also mean, the hotel only lets booking.com sell a limited number of rooms through their site, and presto, only 1 type of that room left, "on booking.com"!
devoutsalsa 4y ago
Plot twist, they’re referring to room #1, which is the last one ti be rented out.

amadeuspagel 4y ago

Interesting idea, but goes a bit too far for me. I'd prefer it if it just removed stuff, rather then rewriting.

monkeydust 4y ago

This is cool but I just mentally filter all this out already, no extension needed.

WXLCKNO 4y ago
I'd like to think I'm above this kind of manipulation but I'm sure I'm influenced like anyone else by things I'm unaware of.
eropple 4y ago
As a rule: people who think this, don't. I used to think it, too. Then I consulted for a company deep into split testing for marketing persuasion, and it made very clear to me how often I've got an intrusive, consumptive thought entering my brain that I can trace back to an advertisement. It's why I am pretty militant about ad-blocking (and also paying for things, because I want those things to still exist); I notice it today when I have a really weird "hey, I want that" crop up and derail my train of thought, and interrogating why is often valuable and leads back to the same things. (Even billboards actually work!)
aeonflux 4y ago
Yeah, like others said. You don't.

onetokeoverthe 4y ago

[dead]

Aillustrator 4y ago

I would like to know ow the world of hotel booking looks like these days. Is everybody here using booking.com? Or is anybody using alternatives as well? If you use something else: What? If you only use Booking.com: Why?

samplenoise 4y ago
Find places online, then call to reserve. Just last week I called a place I found on Booking and found they had a room at half the price shown online. This is in France though where there seem to be rules about how rates are advertised.
- petesergeant 4y ago
  I’ve stayed at a few places where when I went to the front desk to extend my stay, they discretely told me to book via Booking.com rather than with them, because I’d get a better rate that way, and they were right. Like flight pricing, hotel room and channel pricing is complicated. Booking.com have a price guarantee, and a good one, so you will rarely get a better price from the hotel _unless you’re a member of their loyalty programme_ … so for the big hotel chains, sign up to those and book via their apps
  - netsharc 4y ago
    I guess the front desk has no discretion to give discounts, in smaller places the owner can give you the booking.com price because it means they don't have to give a cut (is it 30%?) to the bastards from Amsterdam. I remember walking into a hotel at around 10 PM (I was road-tripping around Iceland and could've slept in the car too) and asking if they'd give me a discount (1 room more to sell), and the front desk person clicked around on a lot on his computer and when a colleague asked him, he said "I'll just give him the agency rate.".
    - fwlr 4y ago
      I believe commissions are pretty standardized at 10-12% by now; OTAs have been competing on commission in the fight to sign up hotels. The most likely reason you might get a better rate from a third-party booking site than from the hotel direct is if the hotel allows the site to do variable pricing to try to capture more willingness-to-pay; sometimes that variable pricing will work out in your favour.

slater 4y ago

Right now, somewhere in the bowels of booking.com, a middle manager is crafting an e-mail to the front-end devs, "hey can we remove that .persuation-msg CSS class, and replace it with those nonsensical .xj892FXy0-style class names that are all the rage now? Thanks!"

seattle_spring 4y ago
Please tell me you're aware that those "non-sensical" classnames are machine generated during a production build? An eng isn't manually choosing that name.
- narcraft 4y ago
  I think that's the intended joke
  - seattle_spring 4y ago
    Whooshed me good.
    - slater 4y ago
      ;)

frereubu 4y ago

It's not just the front end though. I used booking.com to book a hotel room with my wife and daughter, and it had a label on the booking option saying "your child's stay is free!" or similar. Turns out that her staying might be free, but the bed for her to sleep in is £30 per night, which was an extra I had to pay when we arrived. Booking.com is fine for finding somewhere because so many places are on it, but in the future I'll always book directly with the location through their website.

trollied 4y ago
That’s so messed up. I’d probably report their dark pattern crap to the advertising standards agency. They don’t like that sort of thing.
bartvk 4y ago
> in the future I'll always book directly with the location through their website I've tried this with a hotel in Italy, and found out that the price was actually higher. I couldn't believe it. I actually asked the reception whether they were really sure. Yes, this is our price, they said.
- Bellamy 4y ago
  That's because the terms of use of bookings.com insist that you can't offer a price lower than on booking.com. I don't even if this is legal in your country, but in Germany they ruled against it: https://www.thelocal.de/20210518/germany-upholds-ban-on-booking-com-best-price-clauses https://www.thelocal.de/20210518/germany-upholds-ban-on-book...
  - toyg 4y ago
    Beyond the TOS nobody reads (not even sellers), this sort of difference might be due to a number of factors. It could well be that they provide rooms discounted to Booking.com because they want to fill a certain amount no matter what, and then do price-anchoring for other rooms on their website. This is more or less like them giving rooms massively discounted to package sellers (Thomas Cook etc).

pachico 4y ago

Unfortunately, this is the result of years of AB tests that prove that urgency messages increase conversion. They don't stress customers just for the sake of having a less pleasant experience. I work in the online accomodation business, BTW.

wpietri 4y ago
It's not the fault of the tests. It's the fault of the people who choose value short-term conversion metrics over everything else.
executesorder66 4y ago
Unfortunately years of experience has shown that threatening to shoot or stab people when you are mugging them increases the chances of them handing you the valuables they have on them. The muggers don't threaten their victims just for the sake of inducing fear. I work with the local gangs in my area, BTW.
- pachico 4y ago
  This is terribly demagogic
- toyg 4y ago
  There is actually a joke from a famous Scottish comedian (whose name escapes me rtn) that goes "as I came off the bus, a guy at the stop went OI! GIVE ME A QUID, OR YOU'RE GETTING STABBED! Now, compared with the likelihood of getting maimed, losing a pound looked like extremely good value! I don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for a bargain!"
  - toyg 4y ago
    Kevin Bridges! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W_k7ybGBDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W_k7ybGBDg

j1elo 4y ago

I love this kind of efforts to make the web more palatable, although changing the wording of some phrases seems to go maybe a bit too far. For me I'd rather have a cross-browser solution in the form of uBlock Origin's rules. Is there any place where someone has collected some useful ones for booking.com?

artemavv 4y ago

This is brilliant! I was irritated by Booking.com nudges for a long time but I thought nothing could be done about it. Now I want to build a similar extension. Leave a reply there if you know some site that badly needs de-stressing.

kapitanjakc 4y ago
agoda.com
- kristofferR 4y ago
  https://pastebin.com/HjWzCAZ4 https://pastebin.com/HjWzCAZ4

fancyfredbot 4y ago

After browsing hotels for some time I've seen booking.com show several hotels start to sell out of rooms. That usually causes me to hurry up and book, but after several hotels showed full at once I got suspicious and checked my partners phone. The hotels still showed as available there. Dark stuff. Their website is otherwise pretty good though and I still use them.

Nextgrid 4y ago
This kind of behavior should just fall under fraud laws. If a person intentionally lies or misrepresents themselves for the purposes of gaining money it's usually considered fraud in most countries. This should be the same. The problem is that there are a lot of laws that in practice only apply to not-well-connected individuals. When done by companies or well-known people it's considered good business acumen.
- Quarrel 4y ago
  In the UK at least, they've tried. https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/online-hotel-booking https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/online-hotel-booking Booking.com, amongst others, gave enforceable undertakings that they'd change their practices.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
  i've started flying recently a lot and in this one particular circuit i see loads of dark patterns. 1. there was this snow season last month and the roads stopped working and suddenly the air prices skyrocketed. (as is now expected), i had to buy a ticket in emergency which i paid 4x the reasonable rate with all websites saying "oops, the fare has increased" trick. 2. many websites did the "just 1 seat remaining" trick and i jumped the gun. when the next day i traveled, the plane was half empty. what happens is, travel agents buy up tickets well in advance and then sit on the bookings, they either sell directly or wait for online portals to sell them. these travel agents having purchased tickets in bulk then say "oh, the ticket is priced $100 on kayak, i will sell it for 95. lets give you some discount" all the while having purchased the same for like 20. these people are willing to forego tickets because its more profitable to keep the prices high

jvans 4y ago

This is why I sometimes hate a/b testing. I'm sure someone at booking a/b tested these things and saw an increase in revenue. The thing that these tests don't measure are very long term effects where people either start to hate your product and look for alternatives, or become so numb to the changes that the initial novelty effect wears off. The person who ran the test gets a promotion for increasing revenue during the quarter but the net result is a massive negative for the longevity of the product.

dyno12345 4y ago
see also: facebook
wpietri 4y ago
That is not a problem with A/B testing. It's a problem with the values of the company. I've worked with people who will say, "Oh, this tests well, but we don't want to do it because of [long term concerns X and Y]." People who value revenue metrics over all else will still do shitty things for users even if they don't A/B test.
- lylejantzi3rd 4y ago
  The problem with that approach is you now have evidence that the short term change will show immediate results and no evidence of the long term concerns. Given solid numbers vs somebody's gut, most managers will go with the solid numbers, even if the company has good values.
  - eropple 4y ago
    > Given solid numbers vs somebody's gut, most managers will go with the solid numbers, even if the company has good values. If this is true, that indicates that a company's theoretical "good values" are not being passed down to those decision-makers in a way that makes them impact decision-making. Which means the company does not have those "good values" in the first place. They have lip service. Values that are not practiced are not values. You are what you do, both when someone is watching and when someone is not.

ape4 4y ago

These persuasion messages seem untrue - which makes me not trust other parts of the website.

zxcvbn4038 4y ago

I think people really must not appreciate booking.com. My wife strayed from the formula, booked directly with major chain, used loyalty points to book a stay at a European hotel they operate. Got charged full price by the hotel, got charged for a number of meals she didn’t have, and we’ve been dealing with that since September 2022. When we have problems with reservations we made through booking.com, and post Covid a lot of hotels seem to overbook so we’ve rolled in and found we have no place to stay on several occasions, it’s just single phone call to booking.com resolve the issue. I don’t know what booking’s cut is but they earn every penny.

catiopatio 4y ago
This reads like a bizarro-world advertisement. You book through booking.com, and upon arrival, regularly find your reservation bumped due to overbooking? That’s not positive for booking.com!
- stavros 4y ago
  This happens no matter whom you book with. The difference between booking directly and booking through booking.com is the difference between "sorry, sucks to be you, bye" and "there's this more expensive accommodation available for you and you don't have to pay anything extra".
  - lars_francke 4y ago
    This is just as anecdotal as your story and the original post: For the last 15 years I've spent about 100 nights in hotels per year all over the world and this has never happened to me. When I had a reservation it has always been honored. I've booked directly with small hotels, using chain sites and various aggregators (trivago, hrs, booking, Expedia, hotels.com). The experience has been pretty much the same. My only reason to use aggregators is to collect rewards across different hotels.
    - stavros 4y ago
      It's happened to me once and to my parents once, and we don't even book that often. Maybe it depends on the country.

MaanuAir 4y ago

Communicating by fear in non-dangerous contexts is a bad sign of an attempt to manipulate you.

mirrorlake 4y ago

A much easier solution: don't use their product. This would serve as a fantastic article about the reasons why it's worthwhile to stop giving them money. Except, it's the exact opposite of that--it teaches (or encourages?) everyone to learn the tricks required to ignore a company's unethical behavior, or install the extension to do it for you.

ponector 4y ago
But booking usually has better prices. Also competitors are not much better in terms of user experience. As a consumer I want to continue to use it, but to be blind to their persuasive techniques.

pdntspa 4y ago

The people who desire and authorize this sort of manipulative crap to be put on websites needs to have very bad things done to them. Manipulative money men are the bane of tech.

expertentipp 4y ago
> websites needs to have very bad things done to them Make them feel anxious and on their toes about something that is important for them. Exactly like the dark patterns they create.
temp_praneshp 4y ago
> Manipulative money men are the bane of tech. Closely followed by engineers who happily implement this kind of shit (unless you included them already)

non- 4y ago

Here is the direct link to the extension [0] for anyone who wants to try it out. It's kind of hard to find on the actual webpage because the author made links the same color as normal text. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bookingcom-de-stresser/ofhofgonllbejlhlbakkpphpecbdljil https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bookingcom-de-stre...

roydivision 4y ago
> the author made links the same color as normal text. I'm sure there's an extension to fix that

rdiddly 4y ago

This is an interesting thought experiment. I'm surprised the CSS class names are so transparent. They must think they're doing nothing wrong. "Persuation" is about what I'd expect from people who downvote every spelling correction. The Chrome extension is ultimately an enabler of bad behavior though. I wish someone over on Lawyer News would share a post about how they used their free time to put together a lawsuit against Booking.com for fun. Also what makes this author think the numbers of rooms left are any more accurate or honest than the rest of the surrounding bullshit? Just the fact that they're numbers? Anyway you don't need that info. Is there at least 1 room (or n rooms if you requested n rooms) left, yes or no? It's a boolean. Available or not.

joe5150 4y ago
I'm often browsing hotels ahead of actually committing to any firm travel plans, so a message like "rooms available" suggests I likely have plenty of time to keep looking (and potentially going to another website to book), but "only 3 rooms left" might prompt me to pull the trigger earlier than I otherwise would have. Of course, I am personally convinced these numbers are totally made up and just ignore them anyway.
- rdiddly 4y ago
  Yeah there's a bit of a disconnect between what we wish it was -- a useful indicator of the actual number of rooms left, for purposes of gauging the urgency -- vs. what they use it for[0], which is to create the urgency artificially. [0] I should say "probably" since I don't have any concrete evidence.
- okwhateverdude 4y ago
  They aren't totally made up, but they are deliberately obtuse. Hotels are ultimately the ones that control the availability of rooms sold on the platform. It is a common tactic to only list a handful of room nights until those are sold, then add more. This means that all of their rooms always have the urgency messaging. The larger chains do this at scale and across multiple third party sites. So Booking isn't really lying, those numbers are "true", in that there are "only 2 rooms left" but they don't mention the hoteliers' smarmy behavior in abusing the urgency messaging about the availability or their own complicit participation in the lie-by-omission.

jansommer 4y ago

I think this is a great example of how easy it is to change a ui in the browser, and something I think we take for granted now. Take any other tech and it'll be hard, potentially impossible. Something that concerns me is that we end up with Flutter(-like) websites, on a canvas using wasm. No cool stuff like this would exist, no way to escape the ads, and eye strain from websites that Dark Reader can't change. I wouldn't be surprised seeing "dark mode" as an added benefit to a subscription one day. (Yes, Flutter has html too. But if I tell my boss that it's because of my ideology for the web, that pixel's are a bit off, and performance is degraded, I might as well look for another job.)

meltedcapacitor 4y ago
It's sort of toxic socially though as devs write dark patterns during working hours and dark pattern blockers in hobby time, for other nerds to use. So dev caste gets usable web and profits from antisocial behaviour, while low non-dev castes are left to drown in the swamp.
- Kwpolska 4y ago
  You don’t need to be from the “dev caste” to install an ad blocker or the Booking.com De-Stresser extension described in the post.
  - Loocid 4y ago
    I think you're underestimating how tech illiterate much of the population is. A quick Google suggests the percentage of people using an adblocker of any kind is only 30-40%. I would consider that the absolutely minimum of web viewing tech literacy.
    - janalsncm 4y ago
      The point remains though that the technical capabilities necessary to install chrome extensions and the technical capabilities required to program dark patterns are vastly different. No one is getting hired on their ability to do the former. The asymmetry is that one small group of web devs can roll out a change to millions of users whose ability and patience to combat those dark patterns will vary.

pshirshov 4y ago

A Firefox version please?

kls0e 4y ago
that would be lovely and I would install it right away, too. I see the time and effort it takes, tho. Would you be able to provide a css ruleset one could add to their browser of choice?
- pshirshov 4y ago
  I'm not a front-end engineer so I can't help here. Though, from what I understand, Firefox uses the same extension system nowadays and it's mostly a question of publishing in Mozilla store.

hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago

The sorting orders are the most weird (but still way better than Airbnb where you control nothing and are doomed to scroll an infinite list). For example, teh sort order I use most often is to sort by price, but I need to start from the most expensive offers as I'm looking for (the pretenders to the) best places in a given area. Unfortunately, Booking.com allows to sort by price in one direction only, so I have to start from the end and from the bottom of each page. Weird but easy to solve. But what I hate is that they won't let me sort by rating! Why do they include ratings, though? They present several weird options I'd never use as they are optimized to land me with a place I don't want. I just want to sort by rating - and let me decide if the number of ratings received makes it trustworthy.

lozenge 4y ago
Those ratings are fake anyway. You can score it a 1 (actually the lowest option is 2.5) due to nearby noise making it impossible to sleep. But they'll also ask you to rate the cleanliness, service, and location(??) and suddenly your terrible stay is a 6.0 rating. https://ro-che.info/articles/2017-09-17-booking-com-manipulation https://ro-che.info/articles/2017-09-17-booking-com-manipula...
- splonk 4y ago
  I rant about the 2.5-10 scale on every Booking thread. It's not totally fake but it's very deceptive. When I had access to a large amount of rating data, the median rating on Booking was 8.1. If you can filter for business travelers (not sure if the UI allows this, but the data might still be in the page), that drops down to mid 7s.

tyingq 4y ago

Given the title, I was hoping this was a "how we're scaling our Perl backend" post, but still interesting. The hubris of using <div> class names like "persuation"(sic) is funny.

e4e5 4y ago

I like Google travel a lot to find hotels and then I book directly. It's the best for cities because of how integrated with maps it is and since Google doesn't sell me anything, I don't have to be as weary of these dark patterns.

wiredfool 4y ago
You know google is selling you hotel bookings?
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  Is there a place to book/research hotels that isn't?

PresidentObama 4y ago

From the last time booking.com was discussed I picked up some ublock origin filters that make the website more bearable. You can copy and paste them directly in your ublock config (ublock options -> My filters) ! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21860328 booking.com##.soldout_property booking.com##.sr_rooms_left_wrap.only_x_left booking.com##.lastbooking booking.com##.sr--x-times-booked booking.com##.in-high-demand-not-scarce booking.com##.top_scarcity booking.com##.hp-rt-just-booked booking.com##.cheapest_banner_content > * booking.com##.hp-social_proof booking.com##.fe_banner__red.fe_banner__w-icon.fe_banner__scale_small.fe_banner booking.com##.urgency_message_x_people.urgency_message_red booking.com##.rackrate booking.com##.urgency_message_red.altHotels_most_recent_booking booking.com##.fe_banner__w-icon-large.fe_banner__w-icon.fe_banner booking.com##.smaller-low-av-msg_wrapper booking.com##.small_warning.wxp-sr-banner.js-wxp-sr-banner booking.com##.lock-price-banner--no-button.lock-price-banner.bui-u-bleed\@small.bui-alert--large.bui-alert--success.bui-alert Apart from these, I use some additional ublock filters to block some of their tracking that I am not ok with. $removeparam=/^(error_url|ac_suggestion_theme_list_length|ac_suggestion_list_length|search_pageview_id|ac_click_type|ac_langcode|ac_position|ss_raw|from_sf|is_ski_area|src|sb_lp|sb|search_selected|srpvid|click_from_logo|ss|ssne|ssne_untouched|b_h4u_keep_filters|aid|label|all_sr_blocks|highlighted_blocks|ucfs|arphpl|hpos|hapos|matching_block_id|from|tpi_r|sr_order|srepoch|sr_pri_blocks|atlas_src|place_types)/,domain=booking.com $removeparam=/sid=.\*;BBOX/,domain=booking.com ||www.booking.com/c360/v1/track ||www.booking.com/fl/exposed ||booking.com/personalisationinfra/track_behaviour_property ||booking.com/has_seen_review_list Note that these may result in you receiving some higher prices by removing some referrer info. If you do see that happening, feel free to remove the offending config if the price difference is significant for you. I usually don't bother for differences of < $10 (price displayed on the search page vs the property page).

oriettaxx 4y ago
super! thank you so much!
yodsanklai 4y ago
Could someone explain a bit how this works?

_nalply 4y ago

I booked on booking.com 2016 and now again. I feel booking.com reduced their dark patterns. After 2016 I said to myself, never again, and 2023 I said to myself, let's have a look, and it is better. This said, I try to take the approach of an eagle. Browse leisurely and then shoot down to the prey. Ignore pretty things blinking and focus solely on what you need.

tims33 4y ago

a/b testing obviously drives these kinds of site designs. The business leaders get what they want, but eventually these over-a/b tested products open themselves to disruption. I also think its funny when people accuse these companies of being immoral, but I think a/b testing is creating these bizarre amoral companies. And once they get lost they seem really lost.

DrNosferatu 4y ago

Booking.com is a de facto monopoly - break it up!

oriettaxx 4y ago
Turkey banned booking.com for this reason, and while in turkey booking.com tells you: you cannot book from this country (so you need a VPN) Then I know in Greece the booking.com commission is about 20%.... which is a lot! In Argentina it was (5 years ago) much lower due to availability of several other platform, so yes being the only provider is not a good thing Btw I love booking.com: I still remember the scams in Venice until the internet popped up with reviews, and I really appreciate platform that helps who works very good: I met owners that told me: "yes, it costs, but I get customers as soon as I provide a great service" I dislike airbnb as other have written: poor customers service when you tell them a host try to scam.
- oriettaxx 4y ago
  I've just talked to a host: he says the commission is variable where the more you pay the more they promote
- DrNosferatu 4y ago
  My point is that there is no practical alternative to using booking.com for hotels, and therefore they treat costumers as they please (very bad - during and after the sale) and charge whatever they want (very high). It should be “the free market” driving price formation and market share. Clearly, this isn’t happening here anymore. But like the Covid vaccine purchase fiasco, EU regulators will just sit idle cozying up to big business instead of standing for the interests of their citizens. The fact that a project like the OP even exists is screaming proof of what I’m saying: if booking.com wasn’t indeed operating as a monopoly, wouldn’t the “free market” drive out the use of Booking’s notorious stress / bullying sales practices?
- tlug 4y ago
  I have not yet had to try Airbnb's support for host scam, but unfortunately I am now in a situation with a scam host on Booking.com. Some time after booking and paying for the apartment in NYC, the host disappeared, they removed the listing, don't answer emails/phones/etc. I've been complaining to Booking.com over their chat and phone - no real action for almost a month. The only thing the first line can do is to file a ticket to appropriate department (fraud, I assume) and their hands are tied. They apologise for delay, etc. but nothing is really being done, I'm afraid.

jacquesm 4y ago

Some of these patterns are now illegal. https://techpulse.be/nieuws/268825/booking-com-mag-klanten-meer-druk-zetten/ https://techpulse.be/nieuws/268825/booking-com-mag-klanten-m...

npteljes 4y ago
Which I believe is the only real way of stopping these patterns. If they are illegal and the law is enforced, then the field is level for the players, so they can't out-manipulate each other - with these patterns, at least.

xiwenc 4y ago

Specifically regarding booking.com i try to book accommodation way in advance with free cancellation until X date. When the trip gets closer i always review my booked accommodations at least X-1 days in advance for better deals. Sometimes i do find better price and location. I have started this strategy recently. So not much empirical evidence yet.

chpatrick 4y ago

Luckily (?) I live in Hungary where they got fined over this so these dark patterns are not visible.

SergeAx 4y ago

I am a many years Booking.Com user, but since about 4 years I stick to this pattern: look up hotel on Booking, then go to hotel's website, register account there and get a member rate or privilege. In exchange they will at worst send me some email marketing once, which is easy to unsubscribe. In larger networks I also getting some bonus points, but the main benefit of being a direct and even registered customer is an attitude of hotel. Most of the time it is better room or even upgrade, or just an available ear for requests or complains. The reason of that is a visible disloyalty and even dishonesty of Booking.Com site and app towards me. I am just not in the mood to de bullied and dark patterned by a search engine.

aeonflux 4y ago
Despite their shady practices I still only book through Booking.com when I to unknown places for the firs time. At the end of the day Booking sticks to customers when theres an issue and all the Venues/Hotels seem to care about their relation with Booking.
- DrNosferatu 4y ago
  Not true: if there’s trouble with the property my experience with Booking.com shows that they won’t move a finger and you’ll be on your own.

paws 4y ago

Not sure if this is common knowledge, but I learned booking.com does not necessarily integrate with hotel backends in the way you might expect given their name. Turns out they (at least sometimes?) just lie to you in the UI. I know that because my dad used booking.com last year, but when he presented the booking.com printout at the front desk - 'Sorry sir, we can't recognize that.' He wasn't late or anything. Pretty sure he prepaid too. Total nightmare - you had one job, booking.com, GTFO. Personally given the blatant deception, plus the way they took UK/Netherlands pandemic money and laid workers off anyway [1][2] I don't think I'll ever use it. Also, Barry Diller thinks working from home is a crock [3]. I'll take my business elsewhere, GL with that Barry. [1] https://hospitality-on.com/en/concept/booking-holdings-reports-85-drop-bookings-and-substantial-layoffs-possible https://hospitality-on.com/en/concept/booking-holdings-repor... [2] https://skift.com/2022/02/11/booking-com-to-eliminate-2700-customer-service-jobs/ https://skift.com/2022/02/11/booking-com-to-eliminate-2700-c... [3] https://viewfromthewing.com/expedia-boss-trashes-his-employees-says-work-from-home-is-a-crock/ https://viewfromthewing.com/expedia-boss-trashes-his-employe...

pingec 4y ago
Carlton City Hotel Singapore, I arrived there in the middle of the night with a printout from booking.com of my (already-paid-for) reservation. The staff said they don't have my reservation, told them to check booking.com, they replied they do not have access to booking.com, a third party manages that for them which was unavailable at night. In that moment I realized I was putting way too much trust in that website. I was able to pay for a new reservation and later got the booking.com payment refunded. Luckily the hotel was not fully booked...
- usr1106 4y ago
  > they replied they do not have access to booking.com, a third party manages that for them which was unavailable at night. I guess that's primarily the hotel's fault. They should not give rooms to weird third parties. But with the market shares of the big booking sites that would cause them significant loss of bookings.
usr1106 4y ago

jononomo 4y ago

I finally moved all my domains away from GoDaddy for similar reasons -- just using the site stressed me out.

quickthrower2 4y ago

Can we have an extension that calls them and tells them my entire family is booking rooms individually with the hotel direct, and there are now only 3 people left who will buy through booking.com site, so hurry and offer us an extra discount.

SimonPStevens 4y ago

I used to use booking.com a lot. I can cope with the dark patterns and the aggressive anxiety based encouragement (although I find it repulsive). But more recently what's put me off is many of their listings aren't hotels, they are private landlords letting apartments Airbnb style. I'd like to be able to filter out those types of listings because having had a few bad experiences with AirBnB in the past what I usually want is a hotel. I don't want to deal with a private landlord hassling me, cleaning deposits, and rules, etc.

eCa 4y ago
They have a filter for that (that I always use).
- local_crmdgeon 4y ago
  Isn't it just easier to go to the hotel chain you prefer and search the map though? Status gets you all the perks people here want
dwg 4y ago
Have you tried filtering search results by "Property Type" (Hotel) and "Property Rating" (3-star, etc.)?

agluszak 4y ago

In my company we use TravelPerk for booking business trip related flights, train tickets and hotel stays. I was shocked by how much more user-friendly it was than Booking.com or any other similar website. Unfortunately, afaik TP is available only for business clients, not individual customers. Disclaimer: That's not really a praise of TP, because I think that every website should be FORCED to have that level of usability (EU, please save us). User-hostile design should be banned.

sizzle 4y ago

I’ll donate and I’m sure others here too will if they hit you with a cease and desist let us know! I think it’s important to have tools to unfuck the web from dark patterns companies use to deceive us.

tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago

I was a bit surprised by seeing this, before I saw "Date: 23rd July 2019" Booking.com was a textbook example for a website made terrible through such tactics, but has significantly improved since then (at least for me - note that this may be because I'm in Europe, and they got fined for some of their tactics, so maybe they only turned it down here). They still have 1-2 such "hurry up and buy already" things but it feels like it's nowhere near as bad as it was. I guess at some point they realized that it's really good at a) increasing conversions within the session b) making users absolutely hate you and poisoning your brand. (Although some of it is probably also me getting used to it.) Unfortunately, except for the high pressure sales tactics, Booking simply has the absolutely best UX I've ever seen on a booking web site: 1. It actually works. That shouldn't be remarkable, but I can't count the number of times a site either told me they were sold out or the price went up 5 steps into the booking flow, or failed at the payment step with some cryptic error. Especially flight booking sites are so terrible that by now I'm willing to pay the surcharge for booking directly with the airline or a known-working site, but I've had that with hotel sites too. 2. They know to only ask for the minimum of actually required information (although they sometimes hide a second set of questions behind a short first step - but it's never the 5 steps that I commonly see elsewhere). 3. They actually show you what's available and provide a decent overview of what is or isn't included. 4. They usually show the actual price, or the actual price minus a $2 tourism tax. Unlike a hotel web site, where you are playing guessing games with taxes, resort fees etc. 5. They don't require me to create an account (unlike e.g. many hotel web sites, where it's often clear for me that I won't be staying there repeatedly). In addition to that, they have very good inventory, often with favorable cancellation conditions, and often significantly cheaper than booking directly with the hotel (I've never gotten a better price by reaching out to the hotel directly, usually they're not even willing to match and tell me to book through Booking...). Ultimately, the horribleness of the competition is what resulted in me going back to Booking despite hating their sales tactics. Is there any competitor that is actually better?

guitarbill 4y ago
Sadly, I have to concur. The US based ones are all more awful. I can deal with nagging messages while using the site, as long as I'm shown the full price, and not bombarded with upsell emails afterwards (that I have unsubscribed from 3 times already). Never going to use Expedia again.

kwijibob 4y ago

We need more EQ (emotional intelligence) in our UI design. This is an area that AI will be unlikely to solve. Designing a SAAS that can motivate and relax and not manipulate or stress requires a particular human wisdom.

tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
They have plenty of "emotional intelligence". They're just using it for their interest, not yours. If you mean benevolence, not being an asshole, etc., say that - but they're not doing it because they don't understand.

nomilk 4y ago

> Some of the language is unnecessary, scolding even. Look at this one, which appears if you hesitate on the check-out page for just a few seconds Going against the grain here, but I appreciate these messages. In evaluating the website, I ask: "what would an awesome human do?". If you were at the physical front desk of hotel making a booking on a busy weekend, the hotel only had 3 rooms left and they were being booked fast, you'd really appreciate the human helping you giving you a nudge and saying "let's get this done super quickly for you so you don't miss out!" The caveat is the nudge must be honest. If the urgency is abused it loses its meaning and becomes noise.

hakfoo 4y ago
That's the entire problem here. One nudge at the right moment is awesome. A constant red alert of status notifications both undermines their credibility and fatigues the user to the one real notification. "42 other users are looking at this room" is 100% noise. For all I know, someone linked a picture of the sheets on Pintrest and it's people gawking at them rather than potential buyers. "Someone else booked a similar room" is very close to noise, unless I'm in a narrow audience of needing many similar rooms and being close to the margins. "There is only one room of this category left" has actual value, in that it is a legitimate ticking timebomb. But it's easy to lump all of these together when they're lighting up like a user-hostile pinball machine of anxiety.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  It's not "42 other users". If someone else is looking at it, it's "2 users" (they and you).

sabujp 4y ago

i'd be happy forego having to directly use a computer at all. I really want "Ok google, book an apartment for 4 in this region of <x>. Make sure it has blah blah amenities and blah blah beds" ..then have it show me some options and pictures on my phone or ar/vr headset, i say ok book the thing, and it just does it.

jussaying2 4y ago

If anyone from booking.com is reading this, if you're looking for faster conversion rates, just let users save their filters! As a nomad, I don't want to think about the number of cumulative days I've spent selecting "Private bathroom", "Air-conditioned", "8+ user rating", "Laptop workspace" etc over and over.

wasmitnetzen 4y ago
Can't you just bookmark a search with all these params?

sizzle 4y ago

Reading all the anecdotes about experiences people had in this thread, both good and bad, it seems like the whole travel and lodging industry is hit or miss depending on seasonality and a million other variables. “YMMV” definitely applies once you reach your destination lodging/hotel.

sasaf5 4y ago

This plus the fact that you never really get the same room of the picture are the reasons I don't reserve hotels with platforms like this. Either I reserve directly with the hotel or I just walk in.

palashkulsh 4y ago

I've done the same for slack

smueller1234 4y ago

I worked at booking until late 2017. I was responsible for all their infrastructure and tooling development until the start of that year. We all hated the urgency messaging internally. Hated it. We felt bad. Many of us were reasonably proud of our product and felt this tarnished our ability to deliver value to customers. We argued with the product org and the CPO on a regular basis. The reality is that the urgency messaging drove significant incremental business that they felt they could not afford to pass up. The logic that the CPO applied at the time was some pretty sporty mental gymnastics: "we optimize for conversion (looker to booker) because that's a proxy to actually delivering value to the customer." The idea was that if a customer books and stays, it means they found what they were looking for. Being stuck in a perpetual, frustrating decision paralysis sucks after all. While I didn't agree with that framing, it's a touch less preposterous than it sounds. At the time, almost all bookings were fully refundable. So if you booked and stayed (you could have cancelled any time before the day at no cost, for most bookings), there's indeed something that went sort of right. Of course we also tried to measure CSAT in a number of ways (like net promoter scores) but those measurements are tricky at best. In any case, one of the counter proposals, which I tried to co-champion unsuccessfully, was to add a checkbox to the account area to opt out of urgent messaging. The idea was that if you were annoyed enough by them to find that flag (or to be told where to find it) then surely it would also be better for the company to give you that and retain you as a customer? It was IIRC never tried. I was sad. It would've been a tricky to measure experiment, that would have had to be run for a long time. Loyalty measurement is hard.

teekert 4y ago
Am I the only one that sees such urgency messages and then thinks: Well ok, then not? I'm orienting, looking at options, I'm just annoyed if my final list contains options that are gone by the time I feel ready to make a choice. The whole thing just makes me annoyed and look for other options. I had the same with a guy that wanted to sell us a mortgage, he said: "Better decide now, interest rates are probably going up next week." one day later he calls again: "You need to decide soon." So I tell him, "Ok, thank you we will not be going with your service then, I prefer to take time and I don't like this pressure." The guy was almost speechless. So I guess he expects people to be persuaded. Another example: The parents of a friend had their whole kitchen drawn and an offer on the table. So they want to take it home to think it over. The seller tells them: "What? No! I have to ask my manager if I am allowed to let you go like this, we went through a whole process!" So they actually sign! Same thing happened to friends, they told the seller: "What, this is not a prison, are you crazy!"... and they left. I guess most people are in the "I will allow myself to be pressured into stuff I don't want"-camp. I guess those are the people that also cave under pressure when being social engineered for access to their credit card. Maybe we can do something with this knowledge? Booking.com knows who the people are that will cave, to a degree I guess. Well it would be difficult to separate them from the people that just decide fast.

danjac 4y ago

I used booking.com to plan a short holiday earlier this year. It messed up the card payment failure with zero feedback, so I wasn't sure whether any payment had gone through or not. Long story short, I just booked the flights on the airline website and the hotel room through the hotel website. Price difference was maybe 20 EUR give or take, with very little extra inconvenience. And I had the assurance that if there were any problems, I could just contact the airline or hotel directly without having to deal with booking.com.

rho4 4y ago

"Only 1 room left" has become a totally useless message for me. I book every 2 months in the same city at different hotels, and I'm seeing this message pretty much all the time, and there seems to be always 1-2 rooms left, whether I book now or later. I'm guessing some hotels only put 1-2 rooms up in the system at a time, or something similar

glanzwulf 4y ago

It's an interesting extension, will give it a go. I've been booking a few hotels for this year as I have a bunch of trips aligned and booking is really fucking annoying. All those urgency prompts don't make me book faster or anything, they never did. And after a lot of bookings I tend to not even see them, my eyes already blur them out. I search for what I'm looking for and I book it.

black_puppydog 4y ago

I like how their "only 2 left on our site" is their example of "well this is alerting but useful, when exactly that tactic has been shown (in general, not on booking or at least I don't have that example at hand) to be entirely fictional. There simply isn't any actual shortage.

jwr 4y ago

Incidentally, since we're discussing booking.com — this site is ready to be disrupted. I recently tried to search for hotel rooms for a family of 3. A single room, for 2 adults and a kid. Good luck with that — they invested tons of money into that terrible anxiety-inducing messaging, but the search/filtering options are gathering cobwebs. For those who haven't tried: yes, you can select a single room and 2 adults and 1 kid. Booking will ignore that and show you 200 hotels that offer TWO rooms. You will need to sift through all of them to find some that might offer a single room, and then fight through misleading offers, where a room is marked for three people, but has two beds.

carlosjobim 4y ago
> this site is ready to be disrupted. Do a Kagi search for "hotels in (region)" and you can book directly with the hotels from their website, or contact them directly. But some hotels don't let you book through their website, and some hotels don't have enough information on their web site, some hotels don't have a website only a social media account, and some hotels don't have any of that. Well, if they - who have the most to win - are not ready to disrupt booking.com, then who is? A hotel owner will save thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per year in booking.com fees, if they only invest one week and a few hundred dollars into their own web site. But many would never in their life do such a thing. Not to mention AirBnB, who is worse than booking.com for both customers and hosts.

jarek83 4y ago

I quit using booking after finding out it's usually much cheaper to book with the host directly. It's not always possible and some convenience that booking.com provides is gone, but I usually prefer to use the saving for included breakfast.

rutthenut 4y ago

I use booking.com but the user experience does really grate. Simple things such as putting in the location and date, to get back a list of properties that aren't actually available for my requested date. Then have to set a search filter to 'show only available properties', which really should be the default. Especially as I set it every time. An argument could be that people may change dates if they like the property but this is just fluff that gets in the way of finding somewhere to stay. Could be classed as a 'dark pattern', from my point of view.

wodenokoto 4y ago

I was looking at a hotel on booking.com and I could not find the final price written anywhere. There was a highlighted price with “excluding the following charges”, but no sum of the price and the charges. Even after entering my details I couldn’t find the final charges as they asked me to enter my CC details.

stefek99 4y ago

This should be illegal. Luckily we have regulators to prevent such abuses.

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