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Travel hack: as the article points out, Expedia take 25% cut of the booking rate, which is usually the same a the hotel's direct rate. Because the hotel will m

by dotBen 14y ago

Travel hack: as the article points out, Expedia take 25% cut of the booking rate, which is usually the same a the hotel's direct rate. Because the hotel will make more profit from you, you have a higher chance of getting a room upgrade at the property, better amenities or even just better service if you book direct rather than via Expedia.

fmavituna 14y ago
Here is the funny fact, whenever I check the hotels' own websites, prices are almost always higher than Expedia's listing. Does anyone know why?
- nayanga 14y ago
  some time with Air tickets also
- gniv 14y ago
  That's been my experience as well. The article claims it isn't true, but I know for sure it is, since I remember researching a particular hotel extensively -- I really wanted to stay there -- and Expedia was by far the lowest price. This was an overseas hotel, so I was not fond of calling them up and asking for a discount from somebody who might or might not speak English.
- ebiester 14y ago
  It make it look like a more expensive hotel. Much of the time, you can get them to match Expedia's price by asking. Think of it as price discrimination.
- lotsofpulp 14y ago
  It's due to competition, and price discrimination. In highly competitive areas, other hotels will offer their rooms at a discount to Expedia/Travelocity/etc, to catch the market that visits these websites (due to the websites' marketing and reputation as being the place to go for online bookings). If a hotel doesn't offer their rooms on the third party websites, then they effectively lose those sales. I know some of the agreements will make it so that they can't advertise rooms at the rates given to travel agents, so that may be why you see it cheaper. Priceline has a different system, where each hotel provides three price levels, and if a person bids at or above a price level, then Priceline gets the difference between the price level and what the person bid. At hotels that don't have problems selling rooms, they have no reason to offer rooms to travel agents, so you won't see any price discrepancies there. In fact, you probably won't even see the room offered on third party websites.
viraptor 14y ago
Also, you may find that the room you want is actually available even if not marked as such on the aggregated list. Unless the smaller hotel is doing business exclusively with such website, they will have to spread their available rooms manually across multiple services and manually close them once they become reserved. That means some room may be marked open on one website and another room on another. If there's a large number of rooms open, there may be some overlap... but then overlap means a possibility of overbooking. I've seen the systems that small hotels have to deal with and really I'm surprised we don't run into overbooking more frequently.

by dotBen 14y ago

fmavituna 14y ago

Here is the funny fact, whenever I check the hotels' own websites, prices are almost always higher than Expedia's listing. Does anyone know why?

nayanga 14y ago
some time with Air tickets also
gniv 14y ago
That's been my experience as well. The article claims it isn't true, but I know for sure it is, since I remember researching a particular hotel extensively -- I really wanted to stay there -- and Expedia was by far the lowest price. This was an overseas hotel, so I was not fond of calling them up and asking for a discount from somebody who might or might not speak English.
ebiester 14y ago
It make it look like a more expensive hotel. Much of the time, you can get them to match Expedia's price by asking. Think of it as price discrimination.
lotsofpulp 14y ago
It's due to competition, and price discrimination. In highly competitive areas, other hotels will offer their rooms at a discount to Expedia/Travelocity/etc, to catch the market that visits these websites (due to the websites' marketing and reputation as being the place to go for online bookings). If a hotel doesn't offer their rooms on the third party websites, then they effectively lose those sales. I know some of the agreements will make it so that they can't advertise rooms at the rates given to travel agents, so that may be why you see it cheaper. Priceline has a different system, where each hotel provides three price levels, and if a person bids at or above a price level, then Priceline gets the difference between the price level and what the person bid. At hotels that don't have problems selling rooms, they have no reason to offer rooms to travel agents, so you won't see any price discrepancies there. In fact, you probably won't even see the room offered on third party websites.

viraptor 14y ago

Also, you may find that the room you want is actually available even if not marked as such on the aggregated list. Unless the smaller hotel is doing business exclusively with such website, they will have to spread their available rooms manually across multiple services and manually close them once they become reserved. That means some room may be marked open on one website and another room on another. If there's a large number of rooms open, there may be some overlap... but then overlap means a possibility of overbooking. I've seen the systems that small hotels have to deal with and really I'm surprised we don't run into overbooking more frequently.