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Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

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Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#121

Post by graton »

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've considered applying but I didn't like the idea of becoming a Perl developer to be honest. If they were looking for Go or Python developers I would probably have applied by now as I think Amsterdam is a great city.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#123

Post by NicoJuicy »

azza2110 wrote: post #110
dazc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but you can discover using booking then go to the hotel page and book there Just a shame they often charge the same price so I think why did I bother doing them the favour?

The hotels are not allowed to offer a lower price than booking.com. To undercut, or offer bonuses, risks then getting pulled from one of their largest sales channels.

It went to court in the EU, this is not the case anymore

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#124

Post by hackits »

graton wrote: post #121
justboxing wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've considered applying but I didn't like the idea of becoming a Perl developer to be honest. If they were looking for Go or Python developers I would probably have applied by now as I think Amsterdam is a great city.

When I was contacted they where looking for over-all experienced developers. From listening to some of their developers podcasts they found most developer picked up Perl development and didn't have any problems with the language.

At the time was following `Damian Gryski‏` presentations how they used redis for their cookie management for such a large web-site. Also was reading into their back-end systems and over-all cultural inside the business.

Though was super excited about the interview with them although froze up during the interview process.

Nice to see other people here went through the interview processes and had a great time. I just suck at interviews.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#125

Post by cateye »

Besides dark patterns, there is something else that annoys me even more: the cluttered and inconsistency of the UI itself.

It is not possible or really not intuitive to do something like entering a couple of places you would potentially want to go to, select 2 adults and 3 children, filter them on criteria like free parking, free wifi and sort the results on price.

While this sounds like a pretty common pattern, the experience is really bad. Sorting is messed up by sponsored hotels, not consistent on the price of a room or the room I configured or the price is the cheapest room without wifi...

On top of it, they run all kind of experiments. This causes more confusion for me, because I just learned to do something in a specific way.

I still use it, not because of the great usability or great service but because there are no real better alternatives.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#126

Post by rixed »

dyu- wrote: post #90
rixed wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I had actually. Once, because of their website insisting on showing dates for which there are availabilities, I ended up booking for the wrong days, something that I could not cancel. At the time I though I made the mistake so didn't complain. Only later did I realize that's how the website works (they force a date in the web session because it converts better). Had I given them a call at the time, chances are that they would have refund me, but this also I learnt only later.

I've also been "stolen" a car booking on rentalcars once, another company belonging to Priceline. I'm not as familiar with rentalcars as I am with booking so can't be as confident but even in that case I doubt the business plan is based on such erroneous bookings. For sure, the incentive to fight fraud they are victim of is bigger than the incentive to fix the UX dark patterns that are causing the erroneous bookings and eventually bring them some extra profit.

Also, let's not forget that companies abusing dark patterns or being slow to fix "bugs" when they convert well, are not merely soulless organisations driven by profit. They are made of teams driven by OKRs, which are made of individuals driven by their desire to fit in the culture (or their perception of it).

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#127

Post by FICO »

dazc wrote: post #102
raverbashing wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to Trivago which is the worse kind of real life spam in existence? Thanks, I'll keep using Booking (Though the flashing things are annoying - but you can discover using booking then go to the hotel page and book there)

> but you can discover using booking then go to the hotel page and book there Just a shame they often charge the same price so I think why did I bother doing them the favour?

For most hotel chains if you join the loyalty programs then when you log in and book directly you get the member price which is usually $10-20/night lower.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#128

Post by tibiapejagala »

developer2 wrote: post #61
tibiapejagala wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take all the dark patterns they have if it means I can avoid hotel chains' own booking systems. At least I already know the dark patterns of booking.com. Tried to book a one of Starwood Preferred Guest hotel. Had to create an account, but this is a given. For a single room there are 12 offers you can choose, really simple /s. The cheapest offer is for "SPG Member Exclusive. Am I one? How do I know? I guess I'm n…

If you're only booking a hotel, rather than picking a travel vacation package, you're better off calling the hotel directly to make a reservation. The reservation staff almost always have sole discretion to negotiate prices within limits. If you are polite, and have checked for the best price you can find online, they will often match or beat that price. The trick is truly the politeness factor - "I SEE IT ONLINE FOR…

I do this very often, sending an email yields 5%-15% discount on booking.com prices. But that works for independent hotels. What I write here about are chain hotels, which have terrible online experience and contacted through email gave me 10-20% higher prices than online comparison sites (which also include commission for the site).

Edit: this is in Europe though

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#129

Post by FICO »

tibiapejagala wrote: post #57
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'll take all the dark patterns they have if it means I can avoid hotel chains' own booking systems. At least I already know the dark patterns of booking.com. Tried to book a one of Starwood Preferred Guest hotel. Had to create an account, but this is a given. For a single room there are 12 offers you can choose, really simple /s. The cheapest offer is for "SPG Member Exclusive. Am I one? How do I know? I guess I'm n…

In this case 'SPG Member Exclusive' means 'a rate exclusively for SPG Members.' you're an SPG Member if you signed up for their loyalty program and got a member number.

Re: Bad UX: How Booking.com deceives clients

#130

Post by iaskwhy »

dazc wrote: post #102
raverbashing wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to Trivago which is the worse kind of real life spam in existence? Thanks, I'll keep using Booking (Though the flashing things are annoying - but you can discover using booking then go to the hotel page and book there)

> but you can discover using booking then go to the hotel page and book there Just a shame they often charge the same price so I think why did I bother doing them the favour?

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, at least in Europe. If you're price sensitive, always check both before booking it.

Some examples: I've booked directly with the place to pay half price for one night in an amazing farm in Iceland; I've got the opposite last time I booked a night in a cheap hotel in Portugal. I usually check the Booking.com price and then check directly with the hotel then "Oh, but I've seen this cheaper in Booking.com", "Yes, please do the reservation via Booking.com then".

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