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How do I turn off price match?

Hi there,

Im new to bookings and no where can I find the answer to the simple question of how to turn off the price match feature. I do not want to price match or refund a difference when a guest finds a cheaper price somewhere else. Or is this feature just if the guests find a cheaper place for my listing? It is confusing. 

Thanks for any help you can give!


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Leandri Klopper 5 years ago

Hi there,

Thanks for sharing. Sadly, according to my knowledge, there is no way to turn it off because it's one of the features that Booking.com offers their members. Just like their Instant confirm policy.

The price match feature is mainly, once again according to my knowledge, only on your own property. So if you list it for cheaper somewhere else, Booking.com/Guest will ask you to lower it to that price. But I'm not 100% sure.

Hopefully other partners will have more insight.

Keep well!

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Robert 5 years ago

Seriously !

Have I just spent days working out a suitable pricing scheme to run on this site only to find you undermine it by enforcing a price match option ?

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Nah Uxibal Bea… 5 years ago

Hello Robert,

Welcome to Booking.com

I am also new to booking.com (about 4 months now) and was also concerned about the price matching. The way I understand it is that it is only for your own property, so if you are advertising your property cheaper on another site that price could be matched by booking.com. Below is the answer I received from another member when I asked the same question on the forum a few months ago:

"Thanks for sharing. Sadly, according to my knowledge, there is no way to turn it off because it's one of the features that Booking.com offers their members. Just like their Instant confirm policy. The price match feature is mainly, once again according to my knowledge, only on your own property. So if you list it for cheaper somewhere else, Booking.com/Guest will ask you to lower it to that price. But I'm not 100% sure."

So, I have all my prices consistent across all of my sites and have not had any issue with the matching feature. I hope this reply was helpful to you. Happy Booking!

Jeannette

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Robert 5 years ago

Thanks, yours was the post that prompted my slight rant.

If I'd have known about it up front or at least found an explanation in the help pages I'd have been less annoyed. Guessing a bit here but it does look like it can only be enforced for exactly the same offer and terms. The sites I use are all slightly different so won't really meet this criteria. the most likely impact of this is to annoy the guests and/or cause extra headaches for me trying to manage it.

Thanks for your reply.

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fluff 5 years ago

As far as I'm aware the price match policy covers ALL on line agents. If you pay more commission to one of the agents and try to load the price accordingly, their search bots will find a way to either get the booking from another site (affiliated somehow) or issue a discount coupon to the guest to equalise the pricing.

If you look in the T&Cs it is all stated there, under the magical term of "parity".

The only time I get annoyed is when an OTA issues a discount coupon to make themselves cheaper than other OTAs, I'm in a quarrel with one for this right now. Until resolved I've had no choice but to block them out to avoid a downward spiral of inter-price matching.

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Rottidog 4 years ago

I have just noticed the price match on my property and called them to ask why THEY are price matching on my behalf as a small B&B. THEY are offering to price match, not me, but it seems if a guest finds it cheaper elsewhere they take MY money! The only place my room is cheaper is on my own website where I offer a £10 a night discount and £1.50 off the cost of breakfast as I am not paying the commission. The agent I just spoke to said I was not allowed to offer a lower price but I am pretty sure there was a directive two or three years ago that stopped that practice in the UK - unfortunately that inbox disappeared when I moved house and closed down the property account. He argued that they should get the money as they provide the platform where people find us but he can't prove whether they find me on their site or simply by Googling so that argument doesn't hold water. If people have the intelligence to find me another way then the discount is their reward but I can't afford to pay the commission and the discount which is why I am not a preferred partner! Price matching with another booking site taking the same cut is one thing but the deal should not extend to our own websites. I did finally find this in the T&Cs and I think the thing that possibly exempts my site from this is that I don't have any booking conditions.......

"We Price Match" means the guarantee issued by Booking.com (under this or any similar name) stating that Booking.com offers the best rate for a room and that no lower rate can be found online for the equivalent room with the same check-in and check-out dates and the same booking conditions.

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Tegwaan Getaway 4 years ago

Hi all.

I haven't activated my listing here because I'm also worried about the price match thing. My main concern is about the commission rate: initially I didn't want to advertise here (and other websites) because 15% seems excessively high (both in relative terms, compared to other websites -- and i.m.o. in absolute terms, although that is debatable)... but then I realised that I could just increase the rates so that I get the same amount in my pocket at the end of the day (or night) -- which means likely I will get fewer bookings through that website (everything else being equal), but if people are happy to pay that difference just so they can go through that website, so be it.

But this Price Match Guarantee means I can't do that, which is unfair and very annoying. I have to pay them a commission -- no problem, I get that -- but let me decide how much I want in my pocket for every booking. It's competitive here and we have very small margins because we're just starting. It's crazy that I should get paid LESS for offering the same services + giving the guests the protection or whatever that the website offers. In fact I should be compensated for (and therefore allowed to charge more) for being bound to the site's specific conditions (e.g. cancellation policy) which may or may not suit me. It's the customer who should pay more for that extra protection.

Thanks fluff for the term "parity" and Rottidog for the paragraph from the T&Cs. I also see there that:

2.2.3 Booking.com shall be entitled to give a discount on the room price at its own costs up to the amount of the commission.

That makes more sense, but clause 2.2.1 doesn't say what would happen if the Accommodation doesn't "give Booking.com rate and availability parity"... Only termination? Perhaps that is spelled out somewhere else in the T&Cs but I haven't had time to read it all yet.

I also note that "parity" means same room, same dates, same number of guests, same amenities, same or better restrictions, etc. So I guess the only way out of this is to make sure the restrictions on Booking.com are worse (even just slightly) than on other websites.

Does that make sense?

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Rottidog 4 years ago

Tegwaan, unfortunately without their platform it is very difficult for us and others to get bookings in as they are the go-to site for lazy sheeple who like to do everything on their phone apps with as little effort as possible. They are a necessary evil as I have found out across four years with two properties. I tried Expedia (also 15% commission) and they were worse - didn't think that was possible - and smaller sites tailored to the demographics we attract yielded nothing and I paid for them.

I think the "get out of jail free card" is in the booking conditions as I have none on my own website so they can't insist on parity with it. So yes, making it different makes perfect sense.