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Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

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Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#81

Post by siscia »

justboxing wrote: post #77
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…

I see booking.com's BOT posting the same multiple jobs on @whoishiring's thread every month. Ex: Sept 2017 => https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15148950 Looking at all the negative observations about booking.com here, I'm curious. Has anyone from here actually applied to any of their job postings on @whoishiring ? How has your experience been? The one positive thing I've seen is that they mention that they sponsor…

I did. I received an offer that I turned down for unreleated reasons.

My experience is of some years ago (2/3 years).

A very nice experience honestly, great process of interview.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#82

Post by avar »

foobarian wrote: post #52
mtmail wrote: post #5

Try searching for a hotel room 6+ months ahead. Oslo end of February 2018. "14 people are looking right now. In high demand! Booked 124 times in the last 24 hours. Latest Booking: 3 minutes ago" "In high demand – only 3 rooms left on our site!" "Someone just booked this In high demand!" "Limited supply in Oslo: 3-star hotels. 4 hotels like Best Western Karl Johan Hotel are already unavailable on our site!" "3 other p…

Speaking of booking way ahead of time, how would you go about making a reservation for the 2024 total eclipse in Mexico? Most booking site allow booking somewhere close to a year in advance, but wonder if anyone had experience with reaching out directly.

Even if you could, that sounds like a bad idea. There's a lot of churn in the hotel industry, the hotel you're booking 7 years out may not even exist in its current form that far in the future, and if it does new/better/cheaper hotels might have popped up next to it. 18 months in advance should be plenty of time.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#83

Post by feelin_googley »

The annoyances described by the author sounded like they relied on Javascript and graphics.

This made me wonder if the site relies on Javascript or graphics.

As an experiment, I just wrote a small POC command line script for

  1. searching for hotels by keyword

  2. obtaining the hotel ids

  3. searching availability using the hotel id

  4. printing prices, etc.
If anyone wants this I will share it.

Easily adaptable to bulk searching, producing CSV, etc.

Again, this site does not require Javascript or graphics for getting price lists.

Easy to avoid the "dark patterns" and just retrieve the desired data.

I use a text-only browser.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#84

Post by JulienSchmidt »

AJ007 wrote: post #37
tyingq wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, Hotel…

Neither Ctrip nor eLong are owned by Priceline / Expedia. They invested in the respective companies and own a stake, but Chinese law prevents that any foreign company owns the majority of any Chinese company. (Yes, even the Chinese McD, Apple, Starbucks etc are majority Chinese owned)

I am a bit shocked though, that Momondo is owned by Kayak. For me, Momondo has so far been the best alternative. And Skyscanner is owned by Ctrip, which has a strategic partnership with the priceline group...

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#85

Post by JulienSchmidt »

tzs wrote: post #71
AJ007 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, Hotel…

Does that mean that the different sites within each group have the same listings and deals as the other sites in the same group?

For Hotel bookings, many (all?) Expedia subsidiaries seems to be just a different UI for the same offer with slightly different prices since they target different users (premium vs budget etc). All bookings are made under the name Expedia.

In case of Priceline Group, it depends on the market. E.g. in China Agoda seems to be just another front-end for booking.com. All bookings are actually made through booking.com. But e.g. in Malaysia Agoda lists some Hotels which I could not find on Booking.com.

The Flight search engines seem to have major differences, e.g. in Southeast Asia Momondo lists a lot more local agents and more airline websites directly than Kayak.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#86

Post by Scea91 »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #63
clamprecht wrote: post #13

It's a FOMO machine. I use it to find places, filtering by "wifi available", and then contact them directly.

Basically this. I use booking as the yellow pages, you search for the hotels you want and give them a call directly. Cheaper prices and no cuts for parasite middleman.

If you do this, you are more of a parasite than the middleman which provided value to you.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#87

Post by dyu- »

fizzbitch wrote: post #38

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…

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

Yea I experienced this last March. Charegbacks are not easy for regular consumers. Their customer service are trained to never give refunds (based on first-hand experience).

You'd have to be a valued client of your bank to have a successful dispute. And it is the only way I believe.

Both parties (booking.com and hotel) simply won't budge.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#88

Post by dyu- »

minimaximus wrote: post #62

I've been burned by booking.com's 'Free Cancellation' UI shenanigans a couple of times. In both instances I swear that I saw the free cancellation banner next to the room I'm reserving. Instantly after reservation, I receive an email saying 'non-refundable', or $400 fee for cancellation. The first time I thought I made a mistake, but when my wife saw the same thing... well, something fishy is going on.

It is deception at it's finest. My siblings experienced this first hand and I told them, no more booking.com, ever.

Also, the cancellation was 1 month away from actual booking but they do not care. They just want to decieve (scam?) you and get your money.

Luckily, the bank sided with us. The dispute is a sure process as long as they value you as a customer.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#89

Post by Freak_NL »

What are the realistic alternatives to Booking.com though?

When I'm planning a journey the reviews and search by area features of Booking.com make it possible for me to gain some understanding of going rates and hotel quality, but the process leaves a lot to be desired for both me, the customer, and the hotel.

I can search with Booking.com yet book directly with the hotel, but that means I can't review the property and help others.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#90

Post by dyu- »

rixed wrote: post #45
chewz wrote: post #40

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 b…

No this is ridiculously far from the truth. They make an awfull lot of money selling actual room nights (think Google-scale a lot, per employee, although the money culture in both firms are opposite to each other), and actually do cancel bookings and even sometime refund non cancelable ones. They are definitively harsh on the business side, especially when negotiating commissions with hotels, especially since it's al…

```No this is ridiculously far from the truth.```

Easy to say for someone who haven't experienced their deception first hand.

GP is correct. That is part of their scheme to extract more revenue.

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