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How Booking.com manipulates users

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Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#151

Post by fakalaka »

_jgdh wrote: post #129
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…

In India Booking is known as the company you want to call when you want to visit Europe. The questions they ask in the phone screen are relatively simple by Indian standards so it's straightforward to get tickets and travel to Amsterdam. They don't seriously consider working there because perl isn't the only thing unappealing about Booking. The pay is so mediocre that Indian devs would prefer to stay in India rather…

I'm courios about the salary offered. In Amsterdam Booking is known to be paying above the market average. Their salary range is also listed stack overflow careers page. Are salaries really that hight in India?

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#152

Post by roel_v »

_jgdh wrote: post #129
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…

In India Booking is known as the company you want to call when you want to visit Europe. The questions they ask in the phone screen are relatively simple by Indian standards so it's straightforward to get tickets and travel to Amsterdam. They don't seriously consider working there because perl isn't the only thing unappealing about Booking. The pay is so mediocre that Indian devs would prefer to stay in India rather…

There are quite conflicting reports on pay there, and from what I can tell from their stackoverflow job postings, they're above average. What sort of pay would you expect in India for a job like this?

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#153

Post by puranjay »

etairaz wrote: post #149

You seriously had to book a shitty hotel in order to understand that you're being manipulated? Let me give you the short version of how to book on booking, which is BTW an excellent site for travel arrangements: 1) Ignore anything that makes it sound like you're in a competition. Cheapest price, someone is looking, etc. You're trying to book a hotel room that suits you, not win a race. 2) Any hotel ranked below 9+ ha…

Despite knowing all about dark patterns, I let myself be manipulated into paying $120/night for a room (expensive by Sri Lanka standards). Because of the repeated "only 1 room left!" messages and I didn't want to mess up my anniversary holiday

A few days later, I checked again and the room was going for $50

I mailed them about it. They agreed to refund me $50, so that was nice of them

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#154

Post by gommm »

Jaruzel wrote: post #137
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…

I recently used booking.com for the first time, as I was in a rush and needed somewhere to stay that night. The hotel I booked through booking.com was a Best Western. After the booking went through, I received a flurry of emails from both booking.com and Best Western. One of the Best Western emails encouraged me to sign up for their rewards scheme. Having liked Best Western hotels previously, I signed up, and downloa…

That's not exactly the fault of booking.com though. Hotels have learned that if they want people to book directly with them (which gets them more money), they need to make it attractive to customers. They can't really offer a lower price than booking.com and hotels.com due to contracts they have with those companies so instead they offer a reward scheme and exclude bookings not made directly with them.

They also sometimes offer lower "member only" price for members of their reward scheme as a way to get around their contract (in that case the lower price they provide than booking.com is not public but only restricted to members so it's not a breach of contract).

That said, I don't use booking.com, I find their dark patterns too deceptive for me.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#155

Post by chipperyman573 »

vijayr wrote: post #74
zodPod wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Udemy is also huge for having a "One time $10/$15 coupon!" that "expires in 3 days" and will immediately be replaced by another one. All you really have to do is google "Udemy coupon" to get any class on the site for $10 or $15 depending on what the current coupon is. This also works for the craft store chain Michael's but to a lesser extent. They almost ALWAYS have a 40-50% off coupon in their weekly ad. So if you f…

Not saying this is a nice thing to do, but they do it because it works, no? Didn't someone (JC Penny?) try getting rid of this constant "on sale/coupon" crap but that had a negative effect on their business? If something is constantly "70% off" (especially non digital goods and services), shouldn't consumers stop for a second and think how this makes sense?

JCPenny tried to pivot, which included:

- Selling to a different demographic (young adults - like 20-25 y/o) - Making their stores "trendy" (for example, removing POS, instead employees walk around with iPads that have scanners attached)

- Removing constant "70% off" sales

Removing the sales probably was a part of the failure. But it was not as huge of a deal as people make it out to be.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#156

Post by etairaz »

puranjay wrote: post #153
etairaz wrote: post #149

You seriously had to book a shitty hotel in order to understand that you're being manipulated? Let me give you the short version of how to book on booking, which is BTW an excellent site for travel arrangements: 1) Ignore anything that makes it sound like you're in a competition. Cheapest price, someone is looking, etc. You're trying to book a hotel room that suits you, not win a race. 2) Any hotel ranked below 9+ ha…

Despite knowing all about dark patterns, I let myself be manipulated into paying $120/night for a room (expensive by Sri Lanka standards). Because of the repeated "only 1 room left!" messages and I didn't want to mess up my anniversary holiday A few days later, I checked again and the room was going for $50 I mailed them about it. They agreed to refund me $50, so that was nice of them

That's actually nice of them... Do not take part in the race :)

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#157

Post by lozenge »

beefield wrote: post #148
ianamartin wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that it would only take a startup selling a few really big names before the monopoly breaks. Sell Taylor Swift on a different booking system that isn't pathological to users. A few other top shelf performers. Venues will be switching like there's no tomorrow to keep the top performers. The tricky part of this is getting an audience with people like Taylor Swift. On the other hand, with people like Trent Rezno…

I find the current "market equilibrium" for both hotel booking and event ticket sales quite weird. I mean, both of them charge ridiculously high fares for a service that costs a fraction of that to produce. I mean, take hotel booking. Hotels could (technically) easily set up a booking co-operative (or two to get some competition), and refuse to sell anywhere else online. The fees to be able to run the co-operative wo…

For tickets, some of that booking fee is actually going to the venue.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#158

Post by yladiz »

EasyTiger_ wrote: post #126
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…

How about being a grownup and actually take the damn call? Could you not just tell him you weren’t interested rather than being so ignorant? For a whole month I mean, really?

Both sides are at fault, and the parent should have been more direct with the recruiter, but the parent is also right -- after a few calls, no more than a week of missed calls and no response, the recruiter should have stopped.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#159

Post by wingworks »

ghgr wrote: post #111
wsc981 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Even worse. I went to a horrible, horrible hotel in Prague (which at the time was the #1 result, don't know if still is). My (obviously) bad review, while polite and with pictures attached, was ignored after 3 weeks in limbo. Not explicitly refused, no explanation. Just poof, never happened. And support is also ignoring my questions. All that being a "Genius" user. Unfortunately I don't have Twitter so no public-sham…

I usually check reviews on Google maps and tripadvisor before making a decision on a multi-night stay, but for the 1 nights I can usually get by well enough with photos and the sites own reviews. Though for what it's worth, the hotels that offer the 10% discount for genius members on booking are usually real discounts, but it's about the only "real" thing I look at on booking.

Re: How Booking.com manipulates users

#160

Post by eggie5 »

_jgdh wrote: post #129
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…

In India Booking is known as the company you want to call when you want to visit Europe. The questions they ask in the phone screen are relatively simple by Indian standards so it's straightforward to get tickets and travel to Amsterdam. They don't seriously consider working there because perl isn't the only thing unappealing about Booking. The pay is so mediocre that Indian devs would prefer to stay in India rather…

I am certain that booking pays at least 10k over market in Amsterdam
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