4 ms·

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.

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…
- newhotelowner 3y ago
  Booking.com owns priceline & agoda.com Both expedia and booking.com know better about the market condition than the hotels. When they realize that rooms are selling fast in the area, they sell the room as prepaid rooms. If the nightly rate is $100, they sell it for $120-150 and they pay hotels $100 - 15-18% commission. They also buy google ads in the area for the top results during that time. Most guests don't even realize they are clicking on their ads.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    > When they realize that rooms are selling fast in the area, they sell the room as prepaid rooms. If the nightly rate is $100, they sell it for $120-150 and they pay hotels $100 - 15-18% commission. I've never seen Booking.com do that with any hotel no matter how high the demand, and I have never heard anybody in the industry having experienced that. What do you base your claim on? That would make little sense, since the proposal of Booking.com is to always offer the cheapest rates. However they do buy a ton of Google Ads for hotel bookings.
    - newhotelowner 3y ago
      Booking.com doesn't do opaque rates but agoda and Priceline are different. I'm very hands on at my hotel. Sometimes guest shows us how much they have paid. There were times when someone handed the guest receipt showing how much we got paid and they come back saying why they were charged more than the receipt. Older guest brings the printout of their booking. Booking even had a unique website for my hotel. We had to involve the franchise to get it shut down.
      - carlosjobim 3y ago
        Having the same owners is very different than saying that Booking.com does something. For one, each property owner decides who he or she partners with for sales. Your property won't be on Agoda or Priceline unless you've made a deal with them. > Booking even had a unique website for my hotel. We had to involve the franchise to get it shut down. Unless you're talking about listing page that they have for each property, I have a hard time believing this. Only if the previous hotel owner made some kind of thing together with them.

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…
newhotelowner 3y ago
Booking.com owns priceline & agoda.com Both expedia and booking.com know better about the market condition than the hotels. When they realize that rooms are selling fast in the area, they sell the room as prepaid rooms. If the nightly rate is $100, they sell it for $120-150 and they pay hotels $100 - 15-18% commission. They also buy google ads in the area for the top results during that time. Most guests don't even realize they are clicking on their ads.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  > When they realize that rooms are selling fast in the area, they sell the room as prepaid rooms. If the nightly rate is $100, they sell it for $120-150 and they pay hotels $100 - 15-18% commission. I've never seen Booking.com do that with any hotel no matter how high the demand, and I have never heard anybody in the industry having experienced that. What do you base your claim on? That would make little sense, since the proposal of Booking.com is to always offer the cheapest rates. However they do buy a ton of Google Ads for hotel bookings.
  - newhotelowner 3y ago
    Booking.com doesn't do opaque rates but agoda and Priceline are different. I'm very hands on at my hotel. Sometimes guest shows us how much they have paid. There were times when someone handed the guest receipt showing how much we got paid and they come back saying why they were charged more than the receipt. Older guest brings the printout of their booking. Booking even had a unique website for my hotel. We had to involve the franchise to get it shut down.
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      Having the same owners is very different than saying that Booking.com does something. For one, each property owner decides who he or she partners with for sales. Your property won't be on Agoda or Priceline unless you've made a deal with them. > Booking even had a unique website for my hotel. We had to involve the franchise to get it shut down. Unless you're talking about listing page that they have for each property, I have a hard time believing this. Only if the previous hotel owner made some kind of thing together with them.