But when I check it out, the more than half price deal is nowhere to be found.
It is blatant false advertising, but I cannot be stuffed following it up.
Especially when there is no direct way to contact the booking agent.
The deal is - was $390/night - Now $155.
Best price I can find is $217
Total bullhitters
This is very common practice for all the stuff sold on line that uses dynamic pricing - so hotels, airline travel, etc. The argument for this is the notion of supply and demand - as demand goes up, so prices go up. The hotel or airline company can happily claim that the advertised price did exist at the time the advert was first shown or aired. But there will have been very limited number of these rooms or seats at that price. And as soon as they are sold, the pricing algorithm simply notices a hike in demand (these rooms or seats having been sold) and ups all prices accordingly.
Then, on top of that, there will be the price for you. The hotel or airline (or reseller) system will interrogate the cookies on your computer / tablet in order to categorise you as a potential customer. Have you searched their site before, and when and for what - and did you buy? Does your shopping profile (and perhaps even social media profile) match any of their target customer profiles or not? These factors might increase or reduce the prices you see.
Do not think this is limited to hotels or airlines. Research has found that online shopping at supermarkets and other market-place sites do the same dynamic pricing. One shopper might get eggs for £3.50 a dozen but another only sees the same eggs for £3.75. All down to your previous shopping behaviors and their profile of you. And you never know because when you look at their online store all you can ever see is the price shown to you. Unless you nip down to the shop and check the price in the actual shop.
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When I made the initial enquiry, the price was $177, 30 minutes later it was $200, 20 minutes later it was $217.
Going up constantly.
I will have a look now. 3 hours later.
Still at $217.
I was checking out the price of tomatoes online, in store price, $3.90kg, online price $4.90kg.
It can be helpful to sometimes delete your browsing history or at least all cookies. I’ll let others comment on the possible additional benefits of doing this…
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I have worked out how some of those very cheap prices are valid.
I saw prices advertised today for $39 a night.
When I looked into that price it was for a 3-bedroom house with 6 beds.
Priced at $259/night. $43 per person
Same place for 2 people $216/night. $113 per person.
I will always pay the premium price because I only ever book a room for one person.
If you ever rent a house or flat (usually people rent via airbnb or booking.com) then it is often worth doing a search for the property you like the look of. If you can find the direct contact details then many holiday let owners are happy to rent direct. And as airbnb adds about 12-15% (split between renter and owner) and booking.com charges the owner about 17% then there is scope for a discount if you go direct.
Unofficially and just what I’ve heard, the direct contract rental can offer even bigger discounts. When the owner rents via one of these sites the local tax authorities can see the record of the rental. So the owner must declare that earning - which will be taxed. But direct contracts with the owner will not show up and so might be treated as cash income by the owner and not declared. Hence the potential for a greater discount. That is just what I’ve heard.
I did check out one of the accommodation places direct on their own site and noticed the price was cheaper than that offered on the booking site.