Is this this legal? certainly not ethical?
hotel 1 night is $137, activate either CW or SB and price jumps to $145. logout of either and its back to $137
Booking.com Price Increases When Activating Cashrewards or ShopBack
Lmocha on 02/03/2021 - 22:53
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Legal? Ethical? It’s a business - buy elsewhere.
So how you think the website pays cash rewards?
So now you realise how doggy is the cash back business.
Not tracked, or tracked but you actually paying more. Your choice. They win.
Go down a rabbit hole with this one.
Call accommodation directly and quote Booking.com price and they will beat it by 10%
(Hotels not allowed to offer lower online price)And you will realise that your cashback is on $137 ( or less) even if you pay $145. This is why i don t use any of these cashback website as "you don t really save" but you will more out of pocket.
I was using it for years and hundreds of bookings over 9 years, and never saw this before, even when they were doing $15 cash back for a single booking.
But yes, it might be hotel specific. Going direct to the hotel website, their price is almost 50% more.
Calling them may yeild a better price, i could try.
This hasn't happened to me yet. Must be hotel specific.
I have noticed though that prices on some hotels change depending on whether you use the booking.com desktop site, mobile site or app. Same thing with expedia and agoda. It's getting harder to find the best hotel deal these days.
Have never had this happen to me but have certainly heard plenty of other people have been hit with increased fees when using cash back.
I always check prices and only use cashback when ready to book.
Not yet encountered a price jump when getting cashback…,it maybe specific to certain hotels or sale prices.
Merged from Cashrewards / ShopBack Fake Economy ? Cheaper to Book Direct on Booking.com
I have found this multiple times while booking hotels, In theory, the cashback companies sound great 6% cashback and the recent 14% cashback as well sounds good.
Invariably when I try to book it, I have two separate chrome users with one going direct and the other via a cashback site. The same hotel for the same dates and same rooms, via a cashback site is usually more expensive by roughly the percentage of the cashback.
See this example 4408 for direct versus 4640 through ShopBack with a difference of $232 exactly ~ 5%.
These guys think it's a joke to offer a cashback then jack up prices.
So it was cheaper to book direct rather than book via ShopBack and take the gamble on if the cashback actually comes through. It's a Dodgy business model and false economies.
See this screenshot for an example, and see the right side with the window via Shopback.
And then wait 90 days to get your discount
Just wanted to chime in here - I found the exact same thing. When I open the site via Cashrewards, I get a price 5% higher than the standard price in the app. Quite disappointing, effectively making Cashrewards useless in this case.
Yes, totally agree. I am facing the same price jacking issue using Shopback/Cashrewards and booking.com
This is wrong practice!I just went through to use cashrewards 12% through Agoda..over 100 dollars more per night.. such a scam. Booked through the normal price without linking through and it somehow tracked…we will see
fake news