Just because one website says it's out of rooms, that doesn't mean your hotel is full.
Here's what happens: A website pays a hotel for a limited number of so-called merchant-rate rooms. Merchant rates are lower rates negotiated by a website for a specific number, or block, of rooms. The rates are lower to the websites but not necessarily to the consumer.
When it runs out of its block of rooms, the site then hangs out the 'no-room-at-the-inn' sign and tries to steer customers to another, nearby hotel where merchant-rate rooms are available. It does this because its merchant rates are specially negotiated and are more profitable for the websites than selling through regular channels, says Henry Harteveldt, vice president and analyst with Forrester Research, a Connecticut-based online travel research firm.
'It is one of the most misleading, dishonest, reprehensible consumer business practices,' he says. 'Travel agencies that don't tell customers the whole truth end up risking the trust they spend hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and site design to build.'
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Source - Los Angeles Times
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