Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 154 posts

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#31

Post by amag »

aluhut wrote: post #10

I gave up online vacation reservations this year. This is the second time I wasted hours on several portals before I've found one that worked in a decent way and had a useful choice. When I've finally found a destination, I tried to book the trips I've found and they all have been "sold out". When I tried the same criteria again, I got the same results but more expensive. Again sold out when I clicked any of them. Di…

Given the state of affairs with online reservations, going to your local travel agency is is undeniably the future. Oh the irony.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#34

Post by surfmike »

mewciv wrote: post #9
jakub_g wrote: post #6

Booking is the website with the highest density of dark patterns per pixel I've ever seen. Red texts hurrying you to make a reservation in virtually every on the page ("only 2 rooms left", "someone just made a booking", "12 people looking", "Booked N times today", "You're lucky to see this room, normally it's booked!", "You're lucky to see it for $50, normally it's more expensive" etc.). All of those texts are flashi…

Is there any other company not using these dark patterns? I tried to use many others (big enough to have choices) and it's all the same. Sometimes you're even wondering if it's not just the same website with another branding.

Google Hotel search. Hipmunk.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#35

Post by slipstream- »

exikyut wrote: post #19
slipstream- wrote: post #4

What do you expect, from an entity that advertises via spreading malware/PUPs? https://blog.malwarebytes.com/detections/pup-optional-bookin...

" Potentially Unwanted Program"? That's a polite way of putting it. > PUP.Optional.Booking > This is the detection for a family of potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) that show advertisements hailing from the booking.com domain. This PUP predominantly uses scheduled tasks to trigger the advertisements. Wouldn't mind seeing that looks like. Regardless, "scheduled tasks" definitely sounds like unsolicited EXE executio…

as InfoSec Taylor Swift once said, "potentially unwanted programs" are just malware with a legal team.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#36

Post by preinheimer »

amag wrote: post #31
aluhut wrote: post #10

I gave up online vacation reservations this year. This is the second time I wasted hours on several portals before I've found one that worked in a decent way and had a useful choice. When I've finally found a destination, I tried to book the trips I've found and they all have been "sold out". When I tried the same criteria again, I got the same results but more expensive. Again sold out when I clicked any of them. Di…

Given the state of affairs with online reservations, going to your local travel agency is is undeniably the future. Oh the irony.

I tried to book my honeymoon with a travel agent. We figured we could use some good advice, and (at least in canada) when you book with them you get some bonus insurance.

They basically told me it wasn't worth their time unless we were booking a cruise.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#37

Post by AJ007 »

tyingq wrote: post #24
mewciv wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any other company not using these dark patterns? I tried to use many others (big enough to have choices) and it's all the same. Sometimes you're even wondering if it's not just the same website with another branding.

Booking.com is the white label hotel provider for many websites. Kayak, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, etc.

Per excellent report by Ben Edelman, which I strongly recommend reading for anyone interested in the booking platforms http://www.benedelman.org/publications/ota-bias-12jul2017.pd...

Priceline Group: priceline.com, agoda.com, booking.com, cheapflights.com, ctrip.com, KAYAK, Momondo.com, Opentable.com, rentalcars.com, Rocketmiles

Expedia, Inc.: Expedia.com, Carrentals.com, Classic Vacations, eLong.com, HomeAway, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Orbitz Worldwide, Travelocity, Traveldoo, Trivago, Venere, Wotif Group

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#38

Post by fizzbitch »

I booked a room on booking.com a few weeks ago. There was an accident and I booked a smoking room---technically my fault. But since booking.com is just yet another internet middleman, their response is "you should have looked closer" and the hotel, which didn't have any non-smoking rooms that night, let me know there's no refunds for same-day online booking and told me to get bent (after hours on the phone trying to talk to people). I did not stay in the room, but they already had my money and I'll never see it again...

I really dislike how companies like booking.com (and others) plus physical merchants enable "gotcha capitalism" like this, where each party points at the other and they both keep my money.

booking.com: 'talk to the hotel for a refund'

hotel: 'talk to booking.com for a refund'

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#39

Post by aluhut »

preinheimer wrote: post #36
amag wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the state of affairs with online reservations, going to your local travel agency is is undeniably the future. Oh the irony.

I tried to book my honeymoon with a travel agent. We figured we could use some good advice, and (at least in canada) when you book with them you get some bonus insurance. They basically told me it wasn't worth their time unless we were booking a cruise.

> They basically told me it wasn't worth their time unless we were booking a cruise.

How is this even possible? Did you take away their time? Were there people waiting who would book a cruise?

My experience above is from Germany.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#40

Post by chewz »

booking.com is a deliberate scam. Their business model is to lock customer into reservation that he would have to cancel and booking.com will keep the money.

Booking.com puts a lot of pressure (through dark UI patterns) to make a reservation ASAP promising that you can cancel at any time. In many cases cancellation simply isn't possible - too late etc.. They are just keeping the money and this is exactly what their business model is after.

Post reply on HN