I may be wrong but this may be the highest cashback ever offered for Booking.com.
I might have to cancel some bookings and re-book.
Excludes taxes, fees or additional extras
Cashback is only payable on Accommodation
From 19th Oct 2018 onwards, Cashback is also valid on purchases made on Booking.com app by clicking through the Shopback App
Booking.basic reservations are not applicable for Cashback
$30 for referrer, $5 for referee after referee qualifies.
Qualifying requirements for referee: 1. Made a minimum $20 online purchase (below exclusions apply), 2. Received a minimum $10 confirmed cashback online, 3. Added banking details to account.
Users will need to fulfil the referral criteria within 180 days from referee's sign-up date to unlock cashback. See all terms
I've seen instances where the price is definitely cheaper when cashback isn't activated. It appears to be on select hotels though and not all.
Have reported such instances to CR and SB.
Any affiliate link seems to change the price I've found. Even the mastercard discount isn't the full discount it makes out to be.
Fully agree with all of the above.
Since Shopback and Cashrewards are the ones promising the discount they should be held responsible for the false and misleading advertising.
Have reported the issue with Booking.com to both Shopback and Cashrewards,
This was the reply from Cashrewards:
Thanks so much for your enquiry in relation to prices showing through Cashrewards on the Booking.com website.
I can understand your concern over the variation of prices you have seen on Booking.com. The website information including all prices are generated on Booking.com and Cashrewards has no control over how the Booking.com website may decide to set their prices.
Cashrewards only acts as a referral service and receives information from the stores about purchases made by our members but does not control the prices that the websites set. A major store which is more technically sophisticated may choose to adjust pricing based on where links are coming from and this is controlled through their own website. We do not see many websites choosing to adjust their pricing in this way by it can happen.
I recommend that to avoid accepting a higher than expected price, you always compare prices of different travel sites that you click through to from Cashrewards and make an informed decision on the best offer available to you. The following link will provide a wide variety of travel sites offering cashback: https://www.cashrewards.com.au/travel-and-holidays#list
Let me know if you have further concerns and I will be happy to reply.
Have a good weekend.
Sincerely,
David
Member Services Team
CASHREWARDS Pty Limited
ABN 72 150 888 136
Copyright © CASHREWARDS
Since Shopback and Cashrewards are the ones promising the discount they should be held responsible for the false and misleading advertising.
Both are providing cashback and not a discount so it's quite a big difference. If anyone is to blame it's Booking.com as they're the ones changing the prices on their website. Cashback sites don't have that ability. They're just giving you a rebate AFTER you've made a purchase paid to them by Booking.com.
Heaps of other sites do it too though, like AliExpress who will filter out thousands of the cheaper products so unless they're already in your wishlist, you'll never find them.
Besides it's good to see Cashrewards responded ;)
Just yesterday I tried to book a motel in Singapore.
Originally i found the room using booking.com directl, then I realised that I can get a cash back and load the site via cash via CR.
My room suddenly became $24 more expensive as they removed the weekend discount of $24.
To be honest now I regret that I booked so many times using cashrewards for my U.S. trip.
I should have double checked the prices without CR.
Anyway, now I am sceptical about CR and SB at least when it is related to hotels.
sometimes it is cheaper sometimes it isn't. see my comment below.
Use travala it now has booking.com listings and will price match and it has 50usd cashback currently for new users.
ermmm cancel and re-book
Just book direct with accommodation, booking.com add at least 20%, usually more, keep the money in Australia!
Lies! I rarely find booking direct to be cheaper.
Yeah I read this online a lot but I've never found it true. At best, they're the same.
🙄 i see it every day, even if its the same price wouldn’t you feel better your money is going to the service provider not to some anonymous overseas company that bought out all of its competition?
That used to be the case, but the current contracts hotels sign with booking.com the hotels have to agree not to advertise lower prices.
To get around this hotel can offer codes for discounts, or different packages with inclusions not given on booking.com for only slightly more.
Probably about half my bookings are still through booking.com, with some random code that actually reduced the price. Also I normally book a room with free cancellation first and then rebook the cheaper no cancellation room close to the travel date when prices can be cheaper.
Also if your 'Genius' ranked on Booking.com, it's worth checking the price from a different browser without being logged as the 'Genius' special price is often more expensive.
What if I'm booking internationally?
You will usually get a different rate if you're
a) logged in
b) incognito w/ something like hotels combined/trivago
c) through a cash rewards
I don't usually use booking cause given that the rate is the same their CR is usually lower compared to say Agoda (which seems to have more free cancellations at the same price) [note also app gives better pricing]
What is the best way to book in your opinion? And with who?
as it does vary per hotel/given promos, if you're willing to go full hog i would at least compare
1) incognito w/ aggregator
2) incognito the same hotel via direct booking site (e.g. if they say rate is same across all sites, check which one has highest CR - check that click through rate is same as what you got before)
3) CR through to app (e.g. agoda)
in my experience: there are cases where your status/rewards can make the booking cheaper. i've had probably the most consistent experience with cashback on agoda onto app (while signed in) (which gave a free cancellation and one of the best rates). free cancellation is also more important to me as we tend to shift things around as we plan more activities
YMMV
That’s really helpful. Thanks
I have found using this link http://whitelabels.hotelopia.com/moneysaver to access hotelopia, can often find surprisingly good prices.
But the selection outside of major cities is small.
As an example, just did a quick search for Raddisson Blu Reykjavik for Dec 15-18 business double with Breakfast and free cancellations.
Through the Hotelopia link A$760.74
Booking.com Direct (logged in) $1092
Booking.com Direct (logged in)+Shopback $1092 (same this time, so 9% off that A$993.72)
That said there are a lot of bad prices there also, so I wouldn't start with a search of hotelopia, but once you have narrowed it down, it's worth a look especially for Europe.
Thank you! Re-booked my hotel for $65 cheaper :D
Booked this morning only 6%
That's first time shopback tracked my purchase within 10 minutes of booking ! Thanks OP
It's usually 10-20% cheaper if you don't go through ShopBack or any cashback sites in my experience.