Why the price of a number on third-party sites is lower than on the hotel’s official website

Why did we start talking about it? Because many travelers have concerns that the price of the rental site is not true. That there is some kind of stars and footnote that when a person comes to settle, in the hotel will ask to pay extra.

Indeed, on the website of the booking system we see one price, check on the official website of the hotel, the same price is higher . How so: intermediaries suddenly cheaper? Although it happens not always. It is better to check both options.

Now let’s try a slightly different option (the dates are the same, only the hotel is different; we, by the way, do not advertise anything here):

In fact, everything is honest, but how it turns out, we will understand now. Booking system &# 8212; Not such an intermediary is actually.

How price is formed

All nuances and options for the formation of the price of a room in the hotel is not possible, and you do not need it. We will only consider the most basic.

When the hotel concludes a contract with one of the hotel reservation systems (for example, Booking.COM), the following happens:

• Hotel highlights the quota system &# 8212; Some number of rooms,
• The system, in turn, guarantees the hotel’s expire in this quota, in return asking good conditions at prices.

Then the booking system itself can change prices as she wants to fill in the quota and earn on it.

There are still so-called "Wholesaleers", which just get a bunch of numbers, and then they sell them themselves. At the same time, of course, a discount discount is received from the hotel.

Why it happens

The whole thing is in popularity. If you need a hotel, you will look for it where? Most likely on Bucking &# 8212; Site for all hearing. You will not go through all the sites of hotels at random in search of the best offer. Owners of hotels understand this well &# 8212; It is better to sell cheaper rooms, but on a popular site, what to wait until they find them or invest money in our own PR. Hotels have enough of other worries.

What about other sites?

Yes, they are fully on the Internet, but Booking.COM was the first and now most sites simply use their base in their shell. This is called White Label.

Sites, by the way, may not have any base of hotels in general, but simply search and compare prices on booking systems. These sites are often called meta search engines &# 8212; Hotellook, Trivago or RoomGuru for example.

In meta search engines, there is also no trick &# 8212; they simply polish a bunch of sellers of hotels and sort information for the price without winding any of their commission. Further, the user itself is free to choose where it is ready to book a room.

Marks for their services they do not do, just looking for. Earn such search engines percentage of rooms sold. This percentage comes from the booking system, which shares part of its profits.

As a result of the system, the hotel receives guests, and tourists &# 8212; the ability to choose where to stay them.

Where does the site know about the available rooms

I think you yourself understood. If the reservation system redeems the part of the rooms in the hotel or gets a quota, she knows how many numbers have left. This is responsible for this special algorithm built into the booking site.

It happens that the booking system remains the last place where there are free rooms for a specific hotel. That is, watch the hotel on Bucking and see free rooms in the system, call the hotel, they say there are no free numbers. We go to another site &# 8212; There are no numbers there.

It turns out this due to the fact that the hotel itself has already sold everything to his partners &# 8212; sites, and some partners have not yet managed to sell their quotas. Here you see that one site says &# 8212; Rooms have, other &# 8212; No rooms.

The same is true for tour operators. One operator has already been soldered his quota, but the other is not yet.

On proven sites, especially on Booking.com, boldly book if you see free rooms.

Here is an example of the same prices

How to use it

And what, in fact, all this means for a simple tourist?

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The main thing &# 8212; Do not book rooms on the hotel website &# 8212; it is expensive.

Start searching the hotel is better not in the booking system, but in a special meta search engine, in our example it Hotellook . We are about them Already spoke. You can make the whole the same work yourself, but the site will make it faster.

Of all the possible options for the price of you are interested in the number, the search engine will choose the cheapest and show you the site on which she found this price. Further you go to this site and there you already book the selected room.

If you really want to settle in a certain hotel, and there are no numbers there &# 8212; Look for other sites. It is possible that some of them were still free rooms.

It also happens that closer to the date of arrival, the price number falls to ensure the cost. It can be used to save a little on the hotel, but do not forget that you risk stumble upon the lack of free numbers.

If they are still asked to pay

Yes, unfortunately it happens, let it not often, but happens. Bucking and the like &# 8212; These are huge complex systems in which errors sometimes occur. Usually they are informed immediately after your booking. That is, if you booked by an erroneous price, you will immediately communicate about it and offer or pay extra, or cancel the reservation.

The best insurance against such cases &# 8212; Book all in advance. Choose a few hotels, book them. Just make sure the cancellation of armor is free. If everything is fine, then cancel everything except one in which you live.

Suppose you need to this hotel, it is at this price that. Then contact the booking System Support.

Do not confuse with search engines. For example, you found the Trivago hotel, but you book you on another site, to which TRIVAGO has crossed you, here and call and write. Often (but not always) the booking system rises to the client side. In the worst case, you will be offered other options at the same price.

I think now you understand why In the booking system, the price is lower than directly in the hotel itself. And, most importantly, there is no trick.