[TS-Andy]

Recently, I exercised the benefit accorded to royalty status of Golden Circle, a hotel chain under Shangri-la brand. To my surprise, it charged me more than double the room rate it charged me for other nights that I am able to book on-line. That to me was opportunistic on the part of the hotel although I am more than happy to pay a slight premium over the normal room rate for this benefit accorded.

Has anyone experienced similar situations?

[MartynSinclair]

[quote quote=905975]To my surprise, it charged me more than double the room rate it charged me for other nights that I am able to book on-line.[/quote]

it does not surprise me if the ‘on line’ were third party booking sites, where prices can vary dramatically. I recently tried to book 2 nights in Kitzbuhel for March using the hotel and 3rd party websites. The same hotel cost £940 for 2 nights on the hotel web site and £334 for 5 nights using a 3rd party booking site.

I frequently, hear guests complaining at SPG hotels where booking direct with the hotel is generally more expensive than the SPG (ooppps now Marriott) website…

[LuganoPirate]

I’ve not had this with hotels, though having Gold status rarely if ever, I’ve found, gives a better rate over Booking.com, but it does help with upgrades. However I have come across this with Hertz, where I have President’s Circle status. Looking to rent a car in South Africa through the local .co.za site for 3 days the cost was (converted) CHF 125.00 It then asked for me to login as as a member which I did so they would see my status on arrival, and the rental cost magically trebled! This higher rate applied booking through the .com or .ch site as well.

In the end we booked with Avis using Mrs’LP’s status with them and got the same rate. I will let Hertz know about this.

[IanFromHKG]

I wonder if the guaranteed rate is like the seat guarantee that some airlines offer their FFPs – only available for certain rates / fare buckets? That might explain the difference.

On a related note, on Sunday night I tried to rebook my business class flight to Nanjing oN Cathay Dragon in a couple of weeks’ time and was told the flight was full, so I asked how much it would cost to upgrade my D class ticket to J or C in order to get the guaranteed seat I thought I was entitled to as CX Diamond and was astonished to be told that the guaranteed business class seat benefit now only applies on CX and not KA. So I asked to downgrade my ticket to Y in order too get the guaranteed economy seat (that benefit applies to both airlines) – that seemed to be a lot harder than expected and I was told they would need to contact the ticketing desk. Since I was standing at the airport in Hong Kong, their home hub, at a desk above which was a large sign saying “Ticketing” I expressed a degree of surprise that this should be necessary. Ask was well in the end, they recalculated the fares and discovered (shock horror!) that economy was cheaper than business, downgraded me and gave me my guaranteed seat and only charged me a rebooking fee (a bit over 100 quid, which was annoying to get a crappier seat, but totally worthwhile to see my darling Senior Offspring for about double the time I would otherwise have seen her)

[capetonianm]

A company I used to work for had ‘corporate rates’ at a hotel where I often used to stay. I noticed on the hotel website that the rates they offered the general public started at about £80, whereas the corporate rate was set at £125. When I queried this I was told that the corporate rate guaranteed availability at any time, and was fully flexible, and for that they charged a premium.

I am not sure how common this might be in the industry, but it made sense.

1 user thanked author for this post.

[alainboy56]

I am an H.Honors Gold member and have often, on numerous occasions tried to make comparisons (if, in my view the rate was high) with other sites and can say that I have NEVER found the website of Hilton to give a higher rate for the same room. Sometimes only equal, but never higher. For this I must compliment them.

[EU_Flyer]

[quote quote=906689]A company I used to work for had ‘corporate rates’ at a hotel where I often used to stay. I noticed on the hotel website that the rates they offered the general public started at about £80, whereas the corporate rate was set at £125. When I queried this I was told that the corporate rate guaranteed availability at any time, and was fully flexible, and for that they charged a premium.

I am not sure how common this might be in the industry, but it made sense.[/quote]

That’s exactly how it works. Most of the promotional rates available on booking.com etc are non refundable or changeable. They’re aimed at leisure travellers who don’t need flexibility. Corporate rates, often company specific and with specific inclusions, are priced higher than promotional rates but include flexibility aimed at the corporate market, like flex fares do with the airlines.

1 user thanked author for this post.

capetonianm

[CathayLoyalist2]

…all part of what the travel industry calls, has called, Dynamic Pricing. It has it´s critics but …..

[Author]

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