Booking.com Apartment Price Increases

...the rate goes up? Is that a thing? Prices fluctuate the more you look at a property?...

If my understanding is correct (and I might be wrong), then yes, it is a "thing". Many sites place "cookies" on your computer when you visit the site. Then, as you go back to the site, the "cookie" knows you are really interested, and ups the price. You might try browsing in "incognito" mode, erasing your cookies before you visit the site, or getting completely off the computer and starting all over again. Or all three. I started messing with computers in the early 80s, but am far from being a computer whiz, so I'm sure there are those who can offer better insights and solutions. Hope this is of some help.

There is always rumor of such things, but they rarely get proven. But clear your cookies (imagine what that meant in the '70s) and if it is happening it will go away.

One reason you could be seeing an uptick in prices 10 months prior is that there may be a convention or two, or other special events in the city you’re looking at and demand is starting to rise for that time period. I often use Booking.com and have noticed the opposite for accommodations in Croatia and Puglia, Italy. I just booked a room yesterday for $100 less than I had booked it just a few days ago. Prices in Slovenia, Zagreb and the Dalmatian coast seem to be weakening for September.
I’m thinking maybe Europeans are pulling back on their travel this year or the supply has saturated the market with too many accommodations. It certainly seems like there is weak demand in certain markets.
Not so in Rome, Venice and the Dolomites, though.

I usually have a price point acceptable to me. Then I book regarding that price point. Most always with refundable. If price goes up I am lucky to have gotten the lower price. If price goes down, I can cancel and rebook.. I do not know what is suspicious about changing prices.
If you keep returning to the same property to look at it, are you not interested? So book it if the price is OK by you.

janet_kupfer,
I have booked with Booking.com and have had the price go down. So I booked at the new, lower price and cancelled the original. In January 2024 our 5 nights at a hotel on Waikiki Beach went down almost $700.00 for the same room. I think the price change comes from the property and depends on the availability of rooms vs demand. I have never found the price to go up, and I have been booking through them for about 20 years now. Just my guess. I also have used Hotels.com and Gites-de-France, as well personal recommendations for booking direct. So, lots of different experiences, and overall no complaints.
One plus for Booking.com, I get quick and efficient responses when I have had any questions, changes, etc. Turnaround hearing back from the property through Booking.com has never been more than a day, and I chalk that up to the 8 or 9 time zones separation.

Janet,
I forgot to add I always book refundable. We are in our 80's, so who knows what is on the horizon?

Does no one scrub their brower history and cookies regularly?

Personally, the cookie monster is a myth and price increases are most likely a reflection of supply and demand as dates inch closer.

What is the economic benefit to a provider to place their first party cookies to cause rates to increase every time you land on their site and conducted a search? Especially with the availability of refundable rates and price sensitive customers. Why inch up your rates for one customer because they're constantly searching yet continue to display lower prices to others?

Just have someone on a different computer and wifi check the same place. If the price is lower, you know it is the cookie monster. If the price is still high...the owner raised the prices because he improve his occupancy numbers.

Dynamic pricing is normal today. It is part of so called revenue management.

For identifying a user there is no cookie needed - it just makes it easier.

Maybe I'm too cynical, but big companies are highly motivated to squeeze money out of customers these days. We believe my wife has seen prices rise after a few queries. Our browsers do automatically clear cookies but every time a browser sends a query, the website can see the I/P address it is coming from, and everything from our house always comes from the same I/P. If you suspect "dynamic pricing" is squeezing a few more bucks out of you, you could try this:

(1) Exit out of your laptop's browser
(2) On your cellphone, activate the "wifi hotspot"
(3) Connect your laptop to your cellphone wifi hotspot. You will now be a different I/P.
(4) Start up your browser and check the prices again.

Alternatively, you could connect your laptop or cellphone to a different wifi somewhere else.

Most places offered on booking.com are also offered through other channels, such as their own website. It’s often worth checking for that even if you like the booking.com price, and more do if that site seems to be playing pricing games.

I’ve been looking for a trip for Paris in March and I’ve made several changes so I’m searching quite often. Plus I’m checking to see if maybe some prices of places I like to go down if they’re not booked. So far I have not noticed any prices going up and I’ve never cleared a cookie.

I do often see prices going down. . I just rebooked a trip to Boston and got a much better hotel because the prices went down I’ve done a lot of research on this and it’s basically a myth, if it was true, then places like Google flights would’ve long ago gone out of business.

And that you believe it’s only it also happens with airfare. Yesterday, I rebooked that trip to Paris because even though I have checked those flights almost daily for the first time flying directly from Atlanta became cheaper than connections.

So by checking every day and not clearing cookies, I somehow I should save myself both money and time on this trip. according to the cookie theory I should be paying more. Oh well.

And for those you planning to come up with reasons why I’ got lucky- every time I search, I’m logged into my account on all these sites because I automatically login on my iPhone. so no I wasn’t incognito and didn’t realize it.

You should know that there is definitely a difference between a mobile price and what shows on your PC. There is also genius pricing.

Interesting footnote to hotel rates in Paris for last year’s 2024 Summer Olympics: Early in 2024, Paris hotel rates for late July/early August were cited as being double and triple and even higher than the usual summer rates. As July approached, and it was clear there were thousands of vacant rooms available during the Olympics— average prices for Paris hotel rooms collapsed.

Kenko's right - as an observer fbis was fascinating. So, contrary to what one would have thought, those who booked early for the Olympics were penalized, while prices really came down for those who decided last-minute. I think this was a pretty extreme exception though.

I am looking at 3 trips this year. Simple trips with 1 or 2 hotels each, so 6 total.

Based on what was said here I checked on Booking.com 4 hotels in 3 countries 3 times each today using a laptop on european wifi, a european telephone data service and a US telephone with a US IP data service. Never cleared my cookies. So a total of 9 checks per hotel. Same price every time. I guess I am lucky.

You should know that there is definitely a difference between a mobile price and what shows on your PC. There is also genius pricing.

B-i-n-g-o!

Price discrimination is a thing, whether its based on use of app vs mobile browser vs PC, location discrimination, search history, and so on and dressed up as "personalization".

https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/hotel-booking-sites-overcharge-bay-area-travelers-20025145.php

https://www.the-independent.com/travel/news-and-advice/hotel-booking-online-expedia-pricing-phone-laptop-b2585646.html

From Northeastern University https://personalization.ccs.neu.edu/static/pdf/imc151-hannak.pdf

Like I said, I got lucky.

I always check Booking.com because I like their interface. Then I check the hotel. If Booking com is more or less the same, I use them, again for the interface. Otherwise I book with the hotel. But I have noticed that on rare occasions, the cancelation policy is better on booking.com than with the hotel (never the other way around so far), then I might pay booking.com a little extra for that.

Noticed the articles had trouble finding issues with booking.com.

Bottom line is if I pay a fair price, a few dollars doesn't matter.

Thank you, VAP, for providing those very interesting links.

I would like to point out that there are human beings involved in updating hotel rates supplied to the internet sites like booking.com, as well as the corporate websites. Sometimes an anomalous result is human error, not calculated discrimination. Sometimes that human error benefits the customer. We've probably all read about the occasional fat-fingered give-away airfare. I've never seen one of those.

I book 20 to 30 European hotel rooms (or occasionally other lodgings) each year, most of them not long before arrival. I usually compare the booking.com rate (where I do my initial research) to the hotel's (or chain's) own website. There's no clear pattern of differences, though I suspect booking.com has bumped up what it adds for overhead in the last year or two; I'm more often seeing advantageous rates on hotel's websites now.

It's my impression the databases for all booking options don't necessarily get updated at exactly the same time. That's one reason I think it's smart to check multiple websites before making a reservation.

The clearest example of human error I've found was at a business-class chain hotel in Helsinki in the summer of 2022. That's probably a low-demand period for that sort of hotel, which is why it looked like a good option for me (a budget traveler). When I went to the corporate website and checked the Internet rate and the senior rate, I was surprised to see a room with breakfast priced at only 4 euros per day more than a room without breakfast. It was an expansive, buffet breakfast, elsewhere adding over 10 euros a day to the hotel rate. Someone must have goofed when they updated the rates--not adjusting both of them. The goof didn't show up in booking.com's offerings, just on the chain's website. This was an internal inconsistency on the chain website, not an example of giving an extra benefit to people who booked directly.