5 ms·

I hate using these systems, hotels.com is another subpar example, at least as a customer, with only half working systems. It seems silly to me as a customer tha

I hate using these systems, hotels.com is another subpar example, at least as a customer, with only half working systems. It seems silly to me as a customer that the booking system, is also responsible for handling payments. I fully understand the lure of getting paid upfront, and the sociological impact on customers in regards to cancelling, but boy is it annoying me as a customer. I find it way easier to just pay at checkout, at the hotel. Now, not everyone is a hotel, and in those cases it might make sense. There, I'll turn of the grumpy old man now.

username_my1 3y ago
I think there is no issues in bundling software to provide a turn key solution, that way the customers can focus on their business, not the complexity that comes with digital solutions. with that being said, I'm pretty sure marketplace regulations (such as booking.com) forces the marketplace to be out of the money flow. so this should be on the PSP side, it's strange that booking.com is halting payments this way. another point is that they're collecting 4% interest on money that's not theirs ... I wonder if they plan on paying out the interest.
jefozabuss 3y ago
I use booking.com and I seem to pay about half the time at the hotels, so you can technically just pay at checkout at the hotel if you choose ones with that option.
danpalmer 3y ago
It's actually a bit more complicated than this. It's not just about where you pay as a customer, it's also about the business model under which you're buying. If you pay Booking, it's quite possible that Booking are acting as a reseller and buying wholesale hotel rooms to then sell to you at a markup. In that case Booking are the merchant, and who is ultimately responsible for the service. If you pay the hotel, Booking may take a fee but it's essentially commission, the hotel is fully responsible for the service and are the merchant. None of this should really matter to the customer, but it does when things go wrong. Liability is different and consumer rights can be different if you're buying internationally or paying online vs in person.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  > it's quite possible that Booking are acting as a reseller and buying wholesale hotel rooms to then sell to you at a markup. They don't do that and none of their competitors do that. Booking.com charges hotels 15% in commission on their sales and that's it. If you reserve through Booking.com, they are 100% responsible towards you for the reservation, and the hotel is 100% responsible towards Booking.com
  - jaclaz 3y ago
    Only for the record, 15% and up, often nearer to 20% (it depends on country and particular agreements). Responsability varies greatly depending about what is the issue at hand.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    And this is why you should always book directly with the hotel.
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      Depends greatly on the hotel. Some of them won't even give the same discounts to direct customers that they give through booking.com
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    > They don't do that and none of their competitors do that. Booking.com charges hotels 15% in commission on their sales and that's it. This is how Expedia worked for many years. Booking didn't start out doing this, but I think both are now large enough that they all do a bit of both. Some googling suggests Booking may not be buying wholesale directly, but may be just listing inventory from other wholesalers. There's a good episode of the Acquired podcast on Booking.com that goes into some depth on their business model if you want more info.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    And this explains why CapitalOne can give customers 10% back on hotels booked their portal…
carlosjobim 3y ago
> I find it way easier to just pay at checkout, at the hotel Of course. And it's much easier to frivolously book and cancel rooms if you don't need to pay up-front. Charging at booking time gets rid of a lot of guests who make "maybe" bookings, making it easier for real visitors to get their accommodation. That's the reason most hotels are moving to that model.
- jaclaz 3y ago
  From my little experience inside hotels, the amount of people making "frivolous" bookings is small, and the normal policy (bar particular times of the year) of hotels is to allow free cancellation if done within reasonable time before arrival (one or two days in advance).
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    It depends on location, but in my experience about 20-30% will later cancel if they can reserve for free. Upfront payment reduces this a lot, even with free cancellation and refund.
    - jaclaz 3y ago
      Definitely a different market/location/kind of customers/whatever, I would say 2-3% at the most.
scarface_74 3y ago
I stay at a lot of hotels. I never use a third party portal. It’s hard to make last minute changes if not impossible and dealing with the hotel directly about any issues is much easier. Last year, I was in San Francisco for a hybrid business/personal trip where I extended my stay on both ends, brought my wife and of course I paid the difference. I booked the week at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District. We got there and it was a dump. It was late, we stayed one night, checked out the next night and moved to the Parc 55. That would be nearly impossible if I booked through a third party. On top of that, you don’t get hotel status benefits or points booking through a third party. We were upgraded free to the “fitness room” with a gym inside the room as a Diamond member of Hilton and the points went toward free hotel stays.
- switch007 3y ago
  But then Hilton are a prime example of charging way more on their site than through third parties. I can save 30% regularly with third parties. How much do I value their continuously downgraded loyalty scheme? Not much. In the UK even the basic rooms seem to be good enough so I don’t chase upgrades. And the good hotels still thank me for being a loyal member and link my number to the booking on checkin (oddly occasionally I get the points too)
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Hilton does price matching. Also, I understand outside of the US, credit card rewards aren’t as lucrative. I get 20x points per dollar from Hilton for staying and an additional 14x from Hilton for using my cobranded Amex Hilton Aspire card when paying Hilton directly.
    - switch007 3y ago
      Mm, sounds good in theory! In my experience, third party sites deliberately show less room information/a partial room description I imagine precisely to prevent successful price-match claims. Though I can't say I've ever submitted one - I just assumed the third parties kind of work with the hotels to make it hard to claim. And yes we have much less lucrative CC rewards here. Here, Amex are partnered with Marriott (ew. not many good ones in the UK) and you only earn 6x
coldcode 3y ago
Most people still think Hotels.com, Vrbo, Travelocity, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Ebookers, CheapTickets, CarRentals.com, Wotif, and Trivago are separate companies, yet they are just Expedia brands and sell Expedia inventory. For the most part, all of them exist only as marketing brands and use the Expedia backend. I used to work for one of those brands and when we were all laid off during the transition, we were not allowed to tell our customers the brand was becoming Expedia.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  It’s right on their website that these are Expedia brands. https://welcome.expediagroup.com/en/about-us/about-expedia-group-travel-brands https://welcome.expediagroup.com/en/about-us/about-expedia-g... On the other hand, there are other companies not owned by Expedia who use their backend like AmexTravel.
  - newhotelowner 3y ago
    it's not on hotels.com The majority of the guest don't know about it.
    - yoden 3y ago
      It's right there on the about us page: https://www.hotels.com/lp/b/about_us?pos=HCOM_US&locale=en_US&siteid=300000001 https://www.hotels.com/lp/b/about_us?pos=HCOM_US&locale=en_U... If you're a member they've been sending emails about how they're merging the rewards with Expedia's reward system. Perhaps you're right that most guests don't pay enough attention to realize, but it's not a secret.
      - newhotelowner 3y ago
        it's not visible to the guest. Sure you can look for it but that's not what visitors do.

username_my1 3y ago

I think there is no issues in bundling software to provide a turn key solution, that way the customers can focus on their business, not the complexity that comes with digital solutions. with that being said, I'm pretty sure marketplace regulations (such as booking.com) forces the marketplace to be out of the money flow. so this should be on the PSP side, it's strange that booking.com is halting payments this way. another point is that they're collecting 4% interest on money that's not theirs ... I wonder if they plan on paying out the interest.

jefozabuss 3y ago

I use booking.com and I seem to pay about half the time at the hotels, so you can technically just pay at checkout at the hotel if you choose ones with that option.

danpalmer 3y ago

It's actually a bit more complicated than this. It's not just about where you pay as a customer, it's also about the business model under which you're buying. If you pay Booking, it's quite possible that Booking are acting as a reseller and buying wholesale hotel rooms to then sell to you at a markup. In that case Booking are the merchant, and who is ultimately responsible for the service. If you pay the hotel, Booking may take a fee but it's essentially commission, the hotel is fully responsible for the service and are the merchant. None of this should really matter to the customer, but it does when things go wrong. Liability is different and consumer rights can be different if you're buying internationally or paying online vs in person.

carlosjobim 3y ago
> it's quite possible that Booking are acting as a reseller and buying wholesale hotel rooms to then sell to you at a markup. They don't do that and none of their competitors do that. Booking.com charges hotels 15% in commission on their sales and that's it. If you reserve through Booking.com, they are 100% responsible towards you for the reservation, and the hotel is 100% responsible towards Booking.com
- jaclaz 3y ago
  Only for the record, 15% and up, often nearer to 20% (it depends on country and particular agreements). Responsability varies greatly depending about what is the issue at hand.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  And this is why you should always book directly with the hotel.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    Depends greatly on the hotel. Some of them won't even give the same discounts to direct customers that they give through booking.com
- danpalmer 3y ago
  > They don't do that and none of their competitors do that. Booking.com charges hotels 15% in commission on their sales and that's it. This is how Expedia worked for many years. Booking didn't start out doing this, but I think both are now large enough that they all do a bit of both. Some googling suggests Booking may not be buying wholesale directly, but may be just listing inventory from other wholesalers. There's a good episode of the Acquired podcast on Booking.com that goes into some depth on their business model if you want more info.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  And this explains why CapitalOne can give customers 10% back on hotels booked their portal…

carlosjobim 3y ago

> I find it way easier to just pay at checkout, at the hotel Of course. And it's much easier to frivolously book and cancel rooms if you don't need to pay up-front. Charging at booking time gets rid of a lot of guests who make "maybe" bookings, making it easier for real visitors to get their accommodation. That's the reason most hotels are moving to that model.

jaclaz 3y ago
From my little experience inside hotels, the amount of people making "frivolous" bookings is small, and the normal policy (bar particular times of the year) of hotels is to allow free cancellation if done within reasonable time before arrival (one or two days in advance).
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  It depends on location, but in my experience about 20-30% will later cancel if they can reserve for free. Upfront payment reduces this a lot, even with free cancellation and refund.
  - jaclaz 3y ago
    Definitely a different market/location/kind of customers/whatever, I would say 2-3% at the most.

scarface_74 3y ago

I stay at a lot of hotels. I never use a third party portal. It’s hard to make last minute changes if not impossible and dealing with the hotel directly about any issues is much easier. Last year, I was in San Francisco for a hybrid business/personal trip where I extended my stay on both ends, brought my wife and of course I paid the difference. I booked the week at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District. We got there and it was a dump. It was late, we stayed one night, checked out the next night and moved to the Parc 55. That would be nearly impossible if I booked through a third party. On top of that, you don’t get hotel status benefits or points booking through a third party. We were upgraded free to the “fitness room” with a gym inside the room as a Diamond member of Hilton and the points went toward free hotel stays.

switch007 3y ago
But then Hilton are a prime example of charging way more on their site than through third parties. I can save 30% regularly with third parties. How much do I value their continuously downgraded loyalty scheme? Not much. In the UK even the basic rooms seem to be good enough so I don’t chase upgrades. And the good hotels still thank me for being a loyal member and link my number to the booking on checkin (oddly occasionally I get the points too)
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Hilton does price matching. Also, I understand outside of the US, credit card rewards aren’t as lucrative. I get 20x points per dollar from Hilton for staying and an additional 14x from Hilton for using my cobranded Amex Hilton Aspire card when paying Hilton directly.
  - switch007 3y ago
    Mm, sounds good in theory! In my experience, third party sites deliberately show less room information/a partial room description I imagine precisely to prevent successful price-match claims. Though I can't say I've ever submitted one - I just assumed the third parties kind of work with the hotels to make it hard to claim. And yes we have much less lucrative CC rewards here. Here, Amex are partnered with Marriott (ew. not many good ones in the UK) and you only earn 6x

coldcode 3y ago

Most people still think Hotels.com, Vrbo, Travelocity, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Ebookers, CheapTickets, CarRentals.com, Wotif, and Trivago are separate companies, yet they are just Expedia brands and sell Expedia inventory. For the most part, all of them exist only as marketing brands and use the Expedia backend. I used to work for one of those brands and when we were all laid off during the transition, we were not allowed to tell our customers the brand was becoming Expedia.

scarface_74 3y ago
It’s right on their website that these are Expedia brands. https://welcome.expediagroup.com/en/about-us/about-expedia-group-travel-brands https://welcome.expediagroup.com/en/about-us/about-expedia-g... On the other hand, there are other companies not owned by Expedia who use their backend like AmexTravel.
- newhotelowner 3y ago
  it's not on hotels.com The majority of the guest don't know about it.
  - yoden 3y ago
    It's right there on the about us page: https://www.hotels.com/lp/b/about_us?pos=HCOM_US&locale=en_US&siteid=300000001 https://www.hotels.com/lp/b/about_us?pos=HCOM_US&locale=en_U... If you're a member they've been sending emails about how they're merging the rewards with Expedia's reward system. Perhaps you're right that most guests don't pay enough attention to realize, but it's not a secret.
    - newhotelowner 3y ago
      it's not visible to the guest. Sure you can look for it but that's not what visitors do.