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#21
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Hotel price fixing
Martin wrote:
That's my experience too. Even in a hotel with 50 odd rooms which had only 4 rooms occupied. And how did you know, that there were only 4 rooms occupied? Greetings from Cologne Andreas |
#22
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Hotel price fixing
Bill wrote:
Now walk into a hotel at 6:00pm and ask for a room and see what they ask for it. Anyone who walks in off the street for a room gets charged the top rate. NACK Some travel journalist tried it in several cities in Germany and the countries around Germany. In 5% they got a higher rate, in 45% the same rate and in 50% a lower rate. Greetings from Cologne Andreas |
#23
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Hotel price fixing
Erilar wrote:
Sometimes it seems to be impossible to reserve a room directly, at least on line. Yes, the hotel can choose a cutoff in the systems. So if they say 1 day, you cannot reserve the room for the same day or last minute. Greetings from Cologne Andreas |
#25
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Hotel price fixing
"tim....." wrote:
And what's that got to do with banning "no discounting" clauses in internet reseller contracts. The OFT are tackling what is basically a cartel/monopoly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Can't see how it is a monopoly There are at least a dozen hotel resellers advertising their service in the marketplace. Which has no differences in the rates because of the rate parity. And some of these systems are taking a big volume in the market of one country (p.e. HRS and hotel.de are one company together and they have 50% of the german market). That means if they say we want 35% commission from the hotels most hotels will be afraid to throw them out because of these 50% in the german market. Hello, did you ever hear about Anti Trust Laws? As a consumer, I'm not interested in how to get the beat price for e.g. the Marriott at wherever. I'm interested in the best value for say, 60 Euro pn. But you don't get the best rate if in all systems the rates are the same. If System A only takes 10% commission and system B 18% and system C 25%, and the hotel can make the decision the sell the room in system A for 60 EUR in system B for 65 EUR and in system C for 70 EUR, than you can search for the best rate. And only than any price compare system would make sence - if they will list the system A, because with this system they make less money. Greetings from Cologne Andreas |
#26
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Hotel price fixing
"Andreas H. Zappel" wrote in message
... wrote: Yes, it's much cheaper to book accomodation online. Moreover, I have never booked a hotel room or a flight without having compared prices before. There are a lot of travel search engines that can do this for free. I often use http://bookinghunter.com . Which makes a lot of sence, because of the rate parity part in the contracts of the hotel reservation systems. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rubbish "the rate parity part in the contracts" does nothing at all to encourage hotels to want to sell rooms at discount through internet booking sites. They do this for the reasons that I have already indicated. You could argue that without this clause they wouldn't be prepared to sell this way. And I would counter with, "they would soon find that they lost so much trade to competitors who weren't so strict, that (with a few exceptions) they have no choice". tim |
#27
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Hotel price fixing
"Andreas H. Zappel" wrote in message
... Martin wrote: The hotel reception get the rates from the local managment. The rates in reservation systems are made from a regional or national sales office. Choose a individual hotel and the rate at the reception is the same or better, because they don't need to pay the commission, than in the reservation systems. In UK & France I know from experience that the reception charges the maximum price. Of course there may be places that don't. Very easy solutrion: I tell the reception, that I saw the room for a lower rate online, so I will book the room online and let them pay the commission. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But the reason that I am "knocking" on the door of the hotel is because I don't have the means to book online and therefore don't have the means to find out what that online price is, if I did In would have done so!. And I can't use the price from two weeks ago because most hotels don't offer the same online price for today, as they do for a booking on two or three weeks notice. OK, so I'm a luddite who doesn't travel the world with a 3G phone, but that's my choice, but this doesn't negate the principle. tim |
#28
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Hotel price fixing
"Andreas H. Zappel" wrote in message
... "tim....." wrote: And what's that got to do with banning "no discounting" clauses in internet reseller contracts. The OFT are tackling what is basically a cartel/monopoly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Can't see how it is a monopoly There are at least a dozen hotel resellers advertising their service in the marketplace. Which has no differences in the rates because of the rate parity. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yep. The whole point of this discussion is that this practice appears illegal. So I'm considering the situation once it is removed from the contract. But even with it, you can still find different rates for the same hotel on different sites. They just have different booking conditions. tim |
#29
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Hotel price fixing
"Andreas H. Zappel" wrote in message
news Bill wrote: Now walk into a hotel at 6:00pm and ask for a room and see what they ask for it. Anyone who walks in off the street for a room gets charged the top rate. NACK Some travel journalist tried it in several cities in Germany and the countries around Germany. In 5% they got a higher rate, in 45% the same rate and in 50% a lower rate. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I should like to know the basis of this test. It is not my experience! 1) Are they comparing walk up price with a "booked today" internet price or a booked three weeks ago internet price. Quite often internet booked today rates are rack. The discount come from booking in advance, not from using the net to make the booking. So a comparison with a booked on the net today rate, is IMHO a worthless test. 2) Did they they haggle for a better price - Brits don't like haggling so I'd only considering a comparison with "opening offer" as a valid test. tim |
#30
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Hotel price fixing
"Andreas H. Zappel" wrote in message
... "tim....." wrote: And what's that got to do with banning "no discounting" clauses in internet reseller contracts. The OFT are tackling what is basically a cartel/monopoly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Can't see how it is a monopoly There are at least a dozen hotel resellers advertising their service in the marketplace. Which has no differences in the rates because of the rate parity. And some of these systems are taking a big volume in the market of one country (p.e. HRS and hotel.de are one company together and they have 50% of the german market). That means if they say we want 35% commission from the hotels most hotels will be afraid to throw them out because of these 50% in the german market. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't agree. There are plenty of other resellers that they could use. IME it's always the hotel that sets the base rate. Some hotels offer 50 or even 70% discount through resellers. Others offer 5-10% at most. So if a reseller wants a bigger cut, you just offer them a higher basic price. You just need to be on the list at the price which the punter likes to get enough business. tim |
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