I'm cofounding a startup in the travel space and our cofounder has a lot of domain expertise and according to him it's illegal to show a rate lower on Exedia than say Marriott.com. There are exceptions as always, but for the most part this is true. Now I don't know if this applies to the opposite..I guess you could just add to a price but I still would think that's fishy. Anyway, just a little tid bit of knowledge.
Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users
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Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users
#52Not that familiar with most of the hotel examples shown but, for Las Vegas at least, both the hotel examples shown are pretty low-end Strip Casinos. (i.e., at least this example isn't about significantly different classes of properties)
Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users
#53Another interesting one is when Capital One showed different rates by browser types by using a demographic study of wealth based on browser via http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/11/do-different-we...
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Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users
#54Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I view the former as helpful, not annoying. Featuring semi-personalized offers saves me time and energy. With e-commerce it only makes sense to put the best-fit offers in the front of the store, for everyone involved.
It would be helpful if that is, in fact, what you want. Owning a Mac is correlated with having more disposable income available, but that doesn't necessarily mean you want to get a costlier hotel room. I would hope they use other data points too, not just using a Mac, to decide whether the user would be amenable to pricier offers.
Owning a Mac is correlated with having more disposable income available
Or, owning a Mac may be positively correlated with having less disposable income, since the higher price of a Mac took more of your disposable income to purchase.
Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users
#56Inevitably, this will make people like me (Mac user that considers $50 a night overpriced) book through other sites. Does orbitz think I only price through them? Most people I know price at least a half dozen locations before deciding, so as long as everyone doesn't jack prices for Mac users, Mac user's business will naturally migrate to whomever doesn't try to screw us.
If they believe Mac users are happy to pay higher prices they most likely also believe Mac users are less prone to shopping around.
Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users
#57I wonder how Linux users are profiled.
They are redirected to the couch surfing site.
Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users
#58Inevitably, this will make people like me (Mac user that considers $50 a night overpriced) book through other sites. Does orbitz think I only price through them? Most people I know price at least a half dozen locations before deciding, so as long as everyone doesn't jack prices for Mac users, Mac user's business will naturally migrate to whomever doesn't try to screw us.
Are they trying to screw us or trying to predict what they think we want?
Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users
#59Screenshots for those of us stuck behind the paywall: http://imgur.com/a/VtNRf
Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users
#60Paywall. :(
Protip: many paywalls, including this one can be circumvented by using Google's URL redirection service: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB... Simply use 'www.google.com/url?q=' and paste in the address of the article which has a paywall.
That's awesome, thanks .. how does it work? I mean why does it allow google to bypass their paywall.