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Dark patterns aplenty, but hidden fees? I don’t think there's a single hotel booking site that shows taxes by default unless required by law. Maybe Google Searc

Dark patterns aplenty, but hidden fees? I don’t think there's a single hotel booking site that shows taxes by default unless required by law. Maybe Google Search? I use Booking.com plenty and it's pretty predictable. Agoda on the other hand has super… ahem "flexible" prices that change at every reload, or depending on how you reach the site, or on your cookies, or…

prepend 3y ago
> single hotel booking site that shows taxes by default unless required by law That doesn’t make it not suck. Not hiding fees doesn’t mean “we always show what’s legally required.” As a customer I want to know how much things cost. It’s a pain to not know taxes when shopping rooms. Especially since I rarely know city taxes and some hotels have different taxes because they are “resort” or “convention” or whatever tax rules exist for a particular jurisdiction.
- corbezzoli 3y ago
  Totally agree, I'm just saying it's unfortunately a standard across the industry, it's not just Booking. You're always allowed to set "show full price", which is then remembered after the first visit. It's the first thing I do whenever I compare prices across sites. Overall I find Booking pretty neat, once you get past all the "449 people booked this room in the last 4 seconds" bs. Having said that, Agoda has the lowest price most of the time, so I put with their bs even more willingly.
  - user3939382 3y ago
    It’s a standard in the US because of lacking consumer protection laws. Some countries don’t allow these companies to play these games and the advertised rates are the real rates.
    - mardifoufs 3y ago
      They do the exact same thing in Europe. Booking is a European corporation too.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - user3939382 3y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resort_fee#Countries_where_resort_fees_are_illegal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resort_fee#Countries_where_res... Europe European Union regulations say that mandatory fees must be included in advertised prices, making hidden resort fees illegal.[118][119]

prepend 3y ago

> single hotel booking site that shows taxes by default unless required by law That doesn’t make it not suck. Not hiding fees doesn’t mean “we always show what’s legally required.” As a customer I want to know how much things cost. It’s a pain to not know taxes when shopping rooms. Especially since I rarely know city taxes and some hotels have different taxes because they are “resort” or “convention” or whatever tax rules exist for a particular jurisdiction.

corbezzoli 3y ago
Totally agree, I'm just saying it's unfortunately a standard across the industry, it's not just Booking. You're always allowed to set "show full price", which is then remembered after the first visit. It's the first thing I do whenever I compare prices across sites. Overall I find Booking pretty neat, once you get past all the "449 people booked this room in the last 4 seconds" bs. Having said that, Agoda has the lowest price most of the time, so I put with their bs even more willingly.
- user3939382 3y ago
  It’s a standard in the US because of lacking consumer protection laws. Some countries don’t allow these companies to play these games and the advertised rates are the real rates.
  - mardifoufs 3y ago
    They do the exact same thing in Europe. Booking is a European corporation too.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - user3939382 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resort_fee#Countries_where_resort_fees_are_illegal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resort_fee#Countries_where_res... Europe European Union regulations say that mandatory fees must be included in advertised prices, making hidden resort fees illegal.[118][119]