Hotels That Lie About Price Matching

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Mantra Hotels, Resorts & Apartments

• 

  qwerty on 10/09/2019 - 13:51

  +5

  Hotel receptions are not saying expedia is evil to customers let alone multiple hotel receptions

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 10/09/2019 - 14:02

    +4

    True, but some of them will give you a look, and if you knew what the commissions were, you would understand why.

    Good on OP for trying to book direct. If they really want your business they will beat the other price. If not, just book through Expedia or go somewhere else.

  • 

    biltong2go on 10/09/2019 - 14:05

    @qwerty
    I've had at least 1 reception person say that,
    and the others constantly ask why I don't book direct. They also use this as an excuse to withhold free WiFi (unless it was explicitly included in the Expedia booking), but after some minor haggling they relent.
    It seems like a lose-lose situation: They lose 15% of their rate to Expedia; I don't get free WiFi and I have less of a chance of an upgrade.
    My point/question still stands.

    • 

      boomramada on 10/09/2019 - 14:10

      Maybe that's the best that manager allowed to discount?
      I gave up on ringing them directly, most of the time it almost as same as booking websites, but booking websites i get some cash back.
      But I found out if the hotel belong to some sort of reward program, can get better discounts but not much.

      • 

        biltong2go on 10/09/2019 - 14:12

        +1

        That's all true; you're referring to the best price that they're allowed to offer on their standard rates / "rack-rates".
        I'm talking about price-matching, where a 3rd-party website (Expedia) offers a better deal than their rack-rates.
        Most hotel-chains offer a price-match guarantee.
        In this case, Mantra Group offers to price match and beat it by 5% (Mantra Group Price Promise)

        • 

          boomramada on 10/09/2019 - 14:25

          @biltong2go: One of my other theory would be their accounting been slack and include booking commissions as part of their costing so there rack-rates got no room of adjustment. Accountant can comment on this lol

          • 

            biltong2go on 10/09/2019 - 14:32

            +1

            @boomramada: Yeah that's a good theory;
            it also applies to retailers such as JB Hifi, where their staff see their "cost price" and refuse to go lower,
            but really their "cost price" is not their true cost price, for many reasons, including that the product distributor offers rebates on their sales.
            I have 1 other theory:
            Apparently sometimes Expedia or PriceLine pre-purchase the rooms from the hotel group at a cheaper price, and then get stuck with stock of rooms that they can't get rid of, so they discount the price, sometimes at a loss to Expedia (the flipside is that other times they make a tidy profit on these same rooms, which offsets this loss). But, even then, the actual hotel still makes a profit on the room, even if it's cheap, and they should be able to price-match.

        • 

          Hector on 11/09/2019 - 15:33

          @biltong2go: speak w sales at the specific hotel … not the central booking call centre

          Tell them what you have offered on Expedia, ask them what they can do.

          Pick the best of the two prices

    • 

      Bonbi on 10/09/2019 - 14:12

      +5

      This has literally never happened to me in all of my travels.

• 

  Tech5 on 10/09/2019 - 14:09

  +4

  Some hotels are very good with the price match. Big chains like Hilton will beat the lower rate by 25%

  • 

    HighAndDry on 10/09/2019 - 15:39

    +2

    Big chains like Hilton will beat the lower rate by 25%

    That really just means big chains are charging a lot over their break even to begin with so they can discount more…

    • 

      Tech5 on 10/09/2019 - 15:41

      That seems very likely. They would be charging by demand rather than by a fixed profit margin

    • 

      Bmann999 on 20/11/2019 - 06:52

      +1

      They can offer to beat the rate by 25% because they make it nearly impossible to claim! I recently tried this with Hilton - Expedia, Hotels.com etc had some cheaper rates, but the "Free Cancellation Before" dates were always 1-2 days different which means that Hilton doesn't have to price beat.

• 

  kctt on 10/09/2019 - 14:29

  Does your booking via expedia include free wifi? If it does not then the hotel is not entitled to give you free wifi.
  I never had problem with bookings via booking sites like expedia, booking, orbitz. That would be more than 100 bookings over the years.
  If you have time, maybe do little experiment with the ones that asked you why not book direct with them but through "evil corporation". Call them and ask to price match with the cheapest booking site you find.
  I bet they want you to book direct at full price (or 5% off full price at best) to support them instead of paying less for your own benefit & "support evil corporation".

  • 

    Quantumcat on 10/09/2019 - 14:48

    +2

    You mean "obligated" rather than "entitled"

• 

  biltong2go on 10/09/2019 - 14:35

  To all those that seem to be offended that Expedia might be an "evil corporation",
  you may be unaware of their practise of contractually preventing hotels from releasing prices cheaper than their travel websites ("parity clauses"), and then they take 10-15% of the hotel's booking fee.
  There exists a duopoly of travel-booking websites (Expedia and Priceline own 85% of them),
  and by preventing fair competition of pricing, it is cartel-like behaviour that prevents a free market, where both hotels and consumers lose out.
  See this episode of The Checkout

  • 

    boomramada on 10/09/2019 - 14:43

    +1

    That's old news, since then;

    In 2016 an ACCC-led reform allowed hotels to offer cheaper rates over the phone, in person, or to loyalty members – but they cannot advertise those rates online.

    • 

      biltong2go on 10/09/2019 - 14:54

      Thanks for that, that's great news, albeit I reckon more work needs to be done.
      Something else seems to be going on that this hotel pretty much refused to price-match, despite ACCC's blessings to do so.
      I had a similar incident about 18 months ago at Hotel Pan Pacific in Perth (also Accor Group) who declined to price-match me for now good reason, while I was standing there in the lobby with the booking app open in front of them.

  • 

    HighAndDry on 10/09/2019 - 15:40

    There exists a duopoly of travel-booking websites… and by preventing fair competition of pricing…

    That makes no sense. There's no duopoly or monopoly, because every hotel is free to book customers directly.

    • 

      boomramada on 10/09/2019 - 15:46

      I think OP was referring to The Checkout, there is only TWO major booking parent companies. Back in the days(pre 2016), if you sign up with one, you not allowed to have your own pricing even over the phone or for loyalty members.

  • 

    JimmyF on 10/09/2019 - 16:53

    +1

    they take 10-15% of the hotel's booking fee.

    10% is a good deal to being in the business. Uber takes 25% of what is pays drives and 35% for ubereats orders!

• 

  Seraphin7 on 10/09/2019 - 14:36

  +3

  OP:

  Every time I book through an Expedia website (Orbitz, Cheaptickets, etc), and check-in to a hotel, the reception ask me why I would support such an evil corporation like Expedia.

  Also OP:

  I've had at least 1 reception person say that.

  • 

    biltong2go on 10/09/2019 - 14:37

    -3

    Yes, let's get caught up on that little detail. Everything else I said is irrelevant, right?

    • 

      Seraphin7 on 10/09/2019 - 14:42

      +5

      If "every time" being the same as "at least once" is a little detail, then …

      More generally, I've never had the experience of either a hotel chastising me for booking through a third party, attempting to withhold privileges such as WiFi from me for booking through a third party, or unable to at least match the price offered via a third party.

      Your experience is so radically different from mine (and it would seem others) as to suggest that you have conflated something that's happened once, perhaps with another occasion where there was a misunderstanding on free Wifi into this whole industry of attempting to berate and deceive you into not using third party sites.

• 

  Meho2026 on 10/09/2019 - 15:02

  +1

  https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/480549

• 

  TheMindsetTraveller on 10/09/2019 - 15:44

  +2

  Firstly, I wouldn't rely on what front desk staff tell me [I stay in about 80nights a year in hotels]

  Secondly, a quick look at the Peppers Resorts site, I could not see an official Best Rate Guarantee (or equivalent) type program.

  If the second part of my comment is correct, then the hotel manager can offer whatever he wants really - even if the price on another OTA is better than theirs.

  I have used a variety of BRG type claims (Hilton, Marriott, then Starwood, Swissotel) and been regularly successful over the past 12-13 years. What happens there is BRG claim gets processed "independently" of the hotel you are claiming against - so their head office might process your claim so that there is no undue influence / make up wild reasons (at the hotel level) for denying a claim etc.

  • 

    biltong2go on 10/09/2019 - 16:00

    Thanks for that.
    A couple of points:

    "a quick look at the Peppers Resorts site, I could not see an official Best Rate Guarantee (or equivalent) type program."

    See Mantra Group Price Promise
    I had been a member of Mantra Plus since about a week before this booking.
    It's also worth noting that Mantra group was acquired by Accor Group, who also have a price-match policy, albeit this particular property (Peppers Waymouth) is not yet listed on the Accor website.

    "What happens there is BRG claim gets processed "independently" of the hotel you are claiming against - so their head office might process your claim so that there is no undue influence / make up wild reasons (at the hotel level) for denying a claim etc."

    That makes total sense, but I called their reservation line twice last night around 2am, in both cases they wanted to put me through directly to the hotel reception, who wanted me to wait until the morning when the duty manager was in. I complained that my 3rd-party price might change by then but he just said it probably won't.
    So basically this hotel is inconsistent with your comment: they didn't want to do the booking / price match independently, they wanted the duty manager to do it.
    The duty manager just played dumb and offered me 5% off their rack rate.
    I ended up booking through Orbitz (Expedia), and I'm so confused as to why they didn't want to price match / have me book direct.

    • 

      TheMindsetTraveller on 10/09/2019 - 16:14

      +1

      Thanks for showing me the Price Promise link.

      Interesting that they would refer you back to the hotel in question. I remember this happened with Swissotel before they got taken over by Accor as well. Swissotel Hotel had a 50% off the first night, so we had single nights booked at the Sydney property. We were staying there for $85 per night for a 5* hotel right on Pitt St Mall.

      • 

        biltong2go on 10/09/2019 - 16:19

        Haha, nothing in the fineprint about consecutive bookings? Or perhaps you did each booking under a different guest's name? It could have been a deliberate loop-hole for marketing purposes, or alternatively they just got OzBargained by you :P

• 

  MrBillions on 17/11/2019 - 14:57

  Accor group biggest liars when it comes to price match…one year battle with them