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I'm cofounding a startup in the travel space and our cofounder has a lot of domain expertise and according to him it's illegal to show a rate lower on Expedia

I'm cofounding a startup in the travel space and our cofounder has a lot of domain expertise and according to him it's illegal to show a rate lower on Expedia than say Marriott.com. There are exceptions as always, but for the most part this is true. Now I don't know if this applies to the opposite..I guess you could just add to a price but I still would think that's fishy. Anyway, just a little tid bit of knowledge. Edit: Turns out they prices weren't different, just showing pricier results first.

bigiain 14y ago
"Illegal" is not _quite_ the right word. When I got out of the online hotel booking game (back in '08) - all of the major chains were starting to include terms like that in their contracts (or had been for a few years), and were leaning on all the wholesalers (Pegasus/Sabre/Gullivers/Octopus) to push and enforce those decisions on small players (like us) who booked through them. Our lawyers said there was a _strong_ chance that these contract provisions wouldn't stand up in court (here in Australia), but it was obvious to everyone that it wasn't worth getting into expensive legal fights with the suppliers of the "product" our business relied on…
jerednel 14y ago
It probably violates the contract that the OTA has with Marriott. Hotel chains typically offer a best rate guarantee that states that you cannot find a lower rate anywhere else - and if you do, they'll match it and provide an additional benefit (free night, $50 amex). OTA's eat into margins of the hotels because they get a good size c omission from the bookings - no hotel chain would negotiate a contract that let an OTA undercut them.