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How Booking.com manipulates users

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Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#101

Post by KGIII »

smtpserver wrote: post #12

Review scores are also a bit offset. I have tried to give the absolute lowest to every metric booking.com gave me to rate and the resulting score was 2.5-ish. I was thinking about making a browser extension that rescales the values accordingly but I just made a mental note that a score 7 hotel is in fact a score 6. With this scaling the scores on the lower end gain more as a 3.3 score becomes a 5. Take this into acco…

Notably, many review sites don't let you score a zero. This will make the resulting number higher and many people are pretty bad at math. They see that it averages a 4 rating and think it can't be that bad, but it's because nobody could rate it a zero.

On the plus side, I learned a new phrase from HN today. I now know what 'dark pattern' means.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#102

Post by nradov »

superasn wrote: post #98

They similarly totally lie about matching the lowest price. Had the misfortune of booking through them once, then I found the same hotel for a much lower price on another site (makemytrip) so I sent a screenshot to the support. After a day they outright DENIED to honor this "Lowest Price Guarantee" with some lame excuse. When I told them that I'll go to the small claims court I never heard back from them. Don't belie…

Did you pay for the room with a credit card charge to Booking.com? If so it would be easier to dispute part of the charge with your card issuer instead of going to small claims court.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#103

Post by djsumdog »

I thought about interviewing for them in Amsterdam. The recruiter put me in touch with one of their people and she explained to me everything was in Perl, there were little to no automated tests and developers often pushed straight to production. I said I had only worked in perl shops that were migrating from it to Scala or Python. She said, "Well we have no intention of moving."

Like I say with all recruiters, I said I was interested. I thought about it and everything was a red flag. Sure I'd get to live in Amsterdam and stay in Europe with my girlfriend, but ... that sounds like the ultimate shit job. I'd have to endure that until I worked out whatever visa contract they'd have or find someone else to sponsor me with a non-shit job.

So I just ignore the recruiter when he calls .. and ignore him .. and ignore him. Dude calls every fucking day for like four weeks straight; after I had already moved back to America. Most recruiters would take the hint after three failed calls. I can't imagine how desperate they must be. Then I heard from a former co-worker one of our other buddies, a Kiwi, had taken a job with them .. leaving NZ to go work there. He's still there ... hope it's not shit.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#104

Post by waf »

myoffe wrote: post #85

I absolutely loath Booking.com's UX. Whenever it's possible, I use something else, like HostelWorld. Their interface is clean, to the point, and the reviews and ratings can actually be trusted. I'm happy someone did this website. I just came back from a long trip and every time somebody asked me why I hate Booking.com, I pointed exactly to some of the points that were made there. The fake sense of urgency, the clutte…

> The fact they display the "total cost of all nights" in the results, instead of the per-night cost. That's not a misleading UX, it's just a bad UX decision.

I prefer the total cost in the results, since that's what I'll ultimately pay. Why do you prefer per night? Doesn't that make you do the multiplication in your head?

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#106

Post by milesskorpen »

bogomipz wrote: post #76
zpr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the direct prices are actually more. Your best bet for sticking it to them might be to use an alternative booking service.

And who is that in Europe? I tried both Agoda and Hotels.com without much success.

Agoda = Booking.com

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#107

Post by ToxicCorgi »

djsumdog wrote: post #103

I thought about interviewing for them in Amsterdam. The recruiter put me in touch with one of their people and she explained to me everything was in Perl, there were little to no automated tests and developers often pushed straight to production. I said I had only worked in perl shops that were migrating from it to Scala or Python. She said, "Well we have no intention of moving." Like I say with all recruiters, I sai…

I saw new job postings from Booking quite frequently in 2013/14 when I was first applying for jobs in Europe. Figured they were growing very quickly and applied for a few but never got a reply from them. And reading this thread and your post today, I'm glad I didn't.

I'd be interested to know how your buddy's doing there. Seems like they still post a lot on job websites, and their growth isn't exactly mindboggling, so it would seem they have really high turnover and/or trouble filling positions to begin with.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#108

Post by wsc981 »

Osmium wrote: post #22

To anyone from Booking.com reading this: I'll go elsewhere next time I need to book a room. Dark patterns may help profits in the short-term, but they're terrible for your brand. Just ask TicketMaster. It isn't just tech-savvy users that will catch on to this either. If an everyday user uses Booking.com, reads reviews and thinks their room will be great, but then has a bad experience, they're going to stop trusting B…

Last time I booked a room, I had leaking water everywhere in the room. Since I was alone and it was only for 1 night, I didn't bother to complain.

With that said, I will still book my rooms through Booking.com. But at least this article gave me some nice pointers to keep in mind in the future, like the "fine print".

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#109

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

bogomipz wrote: post #79
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #42

On the subject of fake reviews, I've recently started using Fakespot [0] with Amazon and Yelp. Sometimes making a decision for which goods to buy can be tricky, so it's really helpful to filter out a few shady options. Although, honestly, I don't think it makes much difference in most cases. Are there any trusted review services for travel locations? Something like Consumer Report, but for travel. Although I don't kn…

On Amazon I usually just make sure they are a verified purchaser of the product before considering a review. Does Fakepost offer something beyond that for Amazon? Yelp I understand though as I don't think there is anything like a "verified diner."

It helps filter down the initial list of items you evaluate. For example, you might see two items with 1000 reviews and similar scores, but one of the items might have an inflated score due to review farming.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#110

Post by lucaspiller »

waf wrote: post #104
myoffe wrote: post #85

I absolutely loath Booking.com's UX. Whenever it's possible, I use something else, like HostelWorld. Their interface is clean, to the point, and the reviews and ratings can actually be trusted. I'm happy someone did this website. I just came back from a long trip and every time somebody asked me why I hate Booking.com, I pointed exactly to some of the points that were made there. The fake sense of urgency, the clutte…

> The fact they display the "total cost of all nights" in the results, instead of the per-night cost. That's not a misleading UX, it's just a bad UX decision. I prefer the total cost in the results, since that's what I'll ultimately pay. Why do you prefer per night? Doesn't that make you do the multiplication in your head?

I agree it’s better to display the “total cost of stay” in the search results, however that isn’t what Booking.com displays. As OP said they display the “total cost of all nights” which excludes taxes and cleaning/service fees.

A few weeks ago I stayed in an apartment in Austria which was €49 for one night, with a €45 cleaning fee... I thought that seemed a bit crazy (ok there were 7 of us, so still pretty good), but clicking through other results I saw all the properties in this area had similar fees. One had the same price per night and a €70 cleaning fee! I guess it’s a way to avoid taxes or such.

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