Hotel booking sites overcharge Bay Area customers
Hotel booking platforms are accused of using location, device type and user data to quietly charge higher prices to customers in wealthier areas like San Francisco, while offering “promotional” discounts elsewhere. Commenters trade tactics for evading dynamic, personalized pricing (VPNs, mobile data, booking direct) and highlight broader concerns about opaque price discrimination, the power of intermediaries like Booking.com and Expedia, and the trade‑off between convenience, loyalty rewards and consumer protection when using third‑party portals.
Geolocation, VPNs, and Fingerprinting
- Many commenters discuss using VPNs, mobile data (esp. carrier CGNAT), and user‑agent spoofing to avoid location‑based pricing.
- Some expect booking platforms to further neutralize VPNs using fingerprinting and anti‑bot techniques, though others think it may not be worth it for “techie” edge cases.
- There is interest in tools that show prices from multiple locations and device profiles side‑by‑side; “antidetect” browsers already exist but are often used for fraud.
Third‑Party Booking Sites vs Direct Booking
- Strong recurring advice: use aggregators for search, then book directly with hotels/airlines for better service, easier changes, and loyalty points.
- Several report direct bookings now being cheaper or similar, reversing an earlier era when OTAs were often cheaper.
- Others say third‑party prices can still be significantly lower, especially in low‑occupancy or distressed markets.
- Experiences with booking.com and similar sites are mixed: some praise reliability and clarity, others describe botched reservations and painful customer support.
- Hotels often dislike OTAs due to commissions; some match OTA prices, others refuse or are contractually constrained.
Price Discrimination and Market Segmentation
- Many frame Bay Area up‑charges as classic price discrimination: charging more where willingness/ability to pay is higher.
- Comparisons are made to “country rates,” student discounts, hardback vs paperback books, and segmented product lines (e.g., chip binning, cookware branding).
- Some see most “product diversity” as disguised segmentation; others distinguish transparent product tiers from secret geo‑based pricing, which they find less palatable.
Regional and Device-Based Pricing Anecdotes
- Multiple anecdotes of “Australia tax” and other country‑based markups, sometimes so extreme that buying abroad plus travel was cheaper.
- Reports of higher prices on Macs or iPhones vs Windows/Android; some links to past coverage and recent ride‑hailing examples.
- Not all attempts to reproduce Bay Area markups succeed; methodology and inventory timing effects are noted as confounders.
Dynamic Pricing, Competition, and Ethics
- Several argue dynamic, individualized pricing is profit‑maximizing and will spread widely; others worry it extracts all consumer surplus (“zero dollars left over”).
- Ethical concerns include exploitation during disasters and of less tech‑savvy users; defenders liken it to progressive taxation or couponing.
- Debate over whether market forces alone can discipline such behavior; some call for regulation, others rely on reputation and competition.