Booking system tricks: how to buy flights and book hotels cheaper

Every time I buy air tickets or book hotels on the Internet, I get the impression that some experienced cheat is playing against me, and for some reason I constantly fall for his tricks. In this article, I want to share my own experience of how not to fall for the tricks of hotel and airline bookers. Redundancy tricks deserve special attention.

There are only 2-3 places left

In fact, this is the most primitive gimmick and never in my life have I checked into a crowded hotel. Booking.com almost always shows such data that there are almost no places and you need to hurry. No need to rush, work with your head. On my last trip to Italy, I specifically asked the owners of the hotel, an elderly couple, if it was true that they had everything. Not true - only 4 rooms out of 16 were occupied.

Immediately on the screenshot you can see how incredibly the price has dropped and how lucky I am - only 1 room and a discount!:)

Domestic Ostrovok.ru plays the same games with us:

Islet's comment: The number of rooms is not a trick of the Islet, we do not play such games. The number of rooms that you see on the website ostrovok.ru is the real number of rooms that the hotel has provided for sale, and not because we have another 100,500, and we are thus catching up with demand. Each (especially large chains) hotel has its own room sales system, and services are one of the ways. If the Ostrovok website says that there is only one number left, it really is only one.

If there is no language barrier, dial the hotel over the phone and ask them for prices and availability. Finding a phone is not difficult, and you will be very surprised how the reality of the same booking.com differs from the reality of the hotel itself - a lot of places, prices are lower, you will also be offered a free breakfast to sell a room, a discount program and much, much more.

You will always be offered something that is more expensive

Systems live on a percentage of sales, and therefore the first issue is not the most profitable for you. Again, we do not react to spoilers and systematically search for what we really need.

Runaway price

In sales, there are concepts such as cold selling and hot selling. If you see a ticket for the first time and found it in an incredible way by coming from another site, then the offer shown to you is a cold sale. This ticket is often very profitable and you really want to buy it. But you, as a rational person, go to the services and airline sites you are familiar with. Then you come back warmed up and click on the best ticket BUY. I guarantee you that the price will go up. And the more you study the terms of reservation, docking, duration and alternatives, the more the price rises. It can really grow by leaps and bounds.

Here is an example of choosing a ticket on the OneTwoTrip.ru website, which I often use, which does not prevent them from gambling with me:

The first search for a ticket and studying the conditions of carriage and other data warming up my status as a buyer from the side of the reservation system:

Search again with the decision to buy this ticket after 4 minutes:

Lucky for my system - it has my story and confidence that with a high probability I will make a purchase:) But let's go to this site and perform a search in Incognito mode in Google Chrome - a ticket began to cost from 12, 490 rubles. already 13, 297 rubles. - the price of my thought is already 807 rubles.

This is the price I have as a new and cold customer for the same flight (we came from a different computer from a German IP address)!

And of course there are only 1-2 seats left, but most often we fly in half-empty planes.

The same thing happens on all reservation systems, and I chose this one for tests because I constantly use it due to the convenience of the interface and the bonus system, which completely loses its meaning with such price changes. Choose carefully and find the most convenient, and buy from Incognito mode or from your home / work computer.

Here are examples from Reddit that booking systems can be a lot cooler than my example:

+ $ 180 for tickets to the Philippines

+ $ 100 for a lover of "efpyachechnaya"

+ $ 500 for thoughts while planning a trip to Rome

Who is sweet

If you bought yourself a Mac, and not a half as cheap PC, then you are sweet. If you're backing up from your iPhone, you're sweet. If you live in the USA, another European country, then you are sweet. For example, Orbitz is showing Apple users higher pricing offerings. Those. the prices are the same for everyone, but in the same request, the Apple user receives higher-priced requests.

The advice here is simple - use proxies from poor or rational countries (like Germany), buy from Windows or Ubuntu.

Here is an example of an issue for a flight from New York to Reykjavik on the same round trip dates. The first search was carried out using the US proxy, the second - Germany. Prices speak for themselves even after converting Euros to dollars:)

Be spontaneous

When choosing tickets, many booking systems allow you to set both exact dates and ± 3 days. Choose floating dates and tickets are often cheaper at the time of purchase. And book your tickets in advance, much in advance - 3-6 months. So your behavior will not be able to drag through any system according to its algorithms. See prices constantly and buy from Incognito mode, or better from another computer altogether.