How is booking dot com almost always cheaper?N

[Wandie]

How does booking dot com always offer hotel prices for cheaper than other websites? It’s often cheaper than direct booking too.

For example, I’m looking at a particular hotel.

Direct: £120 a night on website or £107 if booked over the phone.
Expedia: £107 a night.
Booking . com: £107 a night but for a Deluxe room rather than standard (£23 more a night on other websites)

How do they do this? Am I ripping the hotel off? Will they ‘resent’ us for paying so little?

I think they reduce their commission. I have the Booking.con app on my phone and it’s always cheaper than using Chrome because I’m a “Genius level” user on the app.

Hotels want to sell their rooms at whatever price they can. It is always better to have an occupied room than an empty room. As long as you pay more than it costs to feed you breakfast and clean your room, they are better off than if you didn't come at all. That is why hotel prices vary so much.

I have the Booking.conapp on my phone and it’s always cheaper than using Chrome because I’m a “Genius level” user on the app.
My partner has this too, but there have been a few times over the last couple of years where I have had a slightly cheaper price, on chrome, not logged in. So its bulshit half the time.

We've had much cheaper ringing direct and asking them to match or beat it. Apparently their commission is eye watering.

Only once have I ever found booking direct with the hotel cheaper than either Booking or Expedia. This summer, coincidentally, but it's a hotel (Austria) with all the "perks" that both sites offer (payment at property, able to cancel up to 2 days beforehand, etc)
Last year (Lake Garda) booking directly would have been £400 more.

Because you get the rooms that are inferior, no window, not as nice maybe. That’s my experience anyway

Never ever had that happen. Aside from the fact that you choose the size of room when you book.

Hotels always honour the booking.com rate if you email them directly. (And appreciate you doing so)

I think it’s because booking.com buys a load of rooms upfront for X price and then sells them on so gets to set the customer price. I could be wrong though.

No, that's not how it works. Your booking is always with the hotel. Then they have to pay commission to booking dot com .

If you book directly with the hotel and they match the booking com price, they are already 15% better off through not paying commission, so you're not ripping them off.

It can vary so always worth checking the price for booking direct. We've just saved 100 Euros on a 5 night stay booking direct.
Have almost always used booking.com for a variety of reasons and on a couple of occasions hotels have told us 'if you come back again, book direct it will be cheaper' - hence checking for the recent booking

This is such cool information. Thank you!

Idk probably because fuck tonnes of people book through them so hotels want to be on their and so offer a cheaper price