If they are caching the price data and that is why the prices can change dramatically at check out, then they should make this very clear and show how stale the data is. GMT time if you aren’t logged in or your time zone if you are logged in. It could be in an unobtrusive link or it could be displayed next to the quote.

At least, that way you’d know you were looking at last month’s (I’m being silly for emphasis) prices instead of today’s. Having a way besides check out to refresh the data would be nice also.

At a minimum, disclosing their data caching time frame would be useful. It would let us know how useful their quotes are. I’m probably fine with 15 minutes. 1 day or longer and I have no confidence. In between….

If you are price shopping, you could open multiple browser windows and compare that way. Then there would be no “returning” to a website. Though they could tell that you looked, waited an hour/day/whatever and then wanted to book. You could also check multiple browsers and/or computers. Mellie Mel’s comment on IE versus Firefox is interesting.

I just tried my old Netscape 7.2 – hotwire.com popped up a modal dialog that said:

————————————————–
You may not be able to see our low prices with an out-of-date browser. To ensure the best possible experience on the Hotwire.com site, we recommend upgrading to the most recent version of either Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, or Google Chrome.

While other browsers may work with our site, you may experience problems viewing web pages or booking successfully if you use an unsupported browser. You can download a new browser from one of the links below:

Download the latest version of Internet Explorer
Download the latest version of Mozilla Firefox
Download the latest version of Apple Safari
Download the latest version of Google Chrome
————————————————-

Received the same car rental quote as I just got on IE. Though it is $7/day higher than 2 days ago (quoted for 5 weeks out).

BTW, thanks for the explanation. That explains why I can never get the really good rates they display. Either that or they are doing bait and switch… How paranoid am I? :-)

Regarding the pricing games, I never thought about cookies until reading this. However they’ll typically they’ll jack prices up a few dollars on the weekend. What we just discovered today is that it’s consistently quoting a higher price when I using IE than when I use Firefox. Do they think IE users are less likely to compare prices??!

how can a price that has been *quoted* go up, down, sideways or backwards?

That’s the thing, Simon. Currently this is the only industry AFAIK where prices can change at the blink of an eye, and it’s definitely upsetting to see it go up midway.

One dilemma here is the actual vendors themselves, airline or hotel, change their prices at whim. While Hotwire or whoever can promise low prices, they debatably have little to no control over them.

Then again, Hotwire or whoever third party site never really promised they’d keep prices as they are. Why make promises one can’t keep, after all, except what they realistically could?

Personally I don’t use Hotwire because I want to know what hotel or so I’m possibly considering and maybe research about them. But it seems many people don’t seem to care about that as long as they get it mainly on price.

If that kind of market demand decreases or even ceases to exist, then likely so will Hotwire.

So, I don’t buy the fact that Hotwire claims they don’t look at prior searches by the same user.

That being said, I still use Hotwire often and find their prices reasonable especially if you use research sites like betterbidding.com to fine-tune your searches.

To be honest, Hotwire’s explanation sounds pretty implausible anyway, and even the way they couch it makes it seem like they don’t even really expect anyone to believe it – “yeah, by a staggering coincidence, the supplier’s price was $88 whenever he cleared his cache and $117 when he was logged in – heh, computers, eh?”

It’s insulting to expect people to buy things online if the retailer can’t promise to keep its price straight from one moment to another; if Hotwire can’t do this, it probably should sell off its computers and quietly disappear.

the rep said that the price could go UP when you checkout

What the Hotwaire rep said was this:

His price could have gone up, down, or stayed the same vs. his search results, depending on the available inventory.

But no, it doesn’t create any happy customer if the price especially goes up midway. Unfortunately not all travel agencies have full control over their vendors’ prices, which is why they never guarantee prices until they’re finally booked and paid.

It’ll probably be one of those things we’ll never really know, inspite of seeming proof to the contrary. OTOH, one can learn from this and somehow make it work to their advantage, right?

I can’t speak for Continental, but I can speak for SPG. Clearing cookies with SPG clears preferences which often prevents lower prices from being displayed. Such preferences include bed type, smoking type, and SET number. Some of these preferences may still be access by SPG.com even if you are not logged in.

All they have to do is show the current price instead of the cached price. How hard is this?

As explained above, the price is dependent on the supplier’s system. Let’s just say that usually presents challenges, especially if the supplier’s system changes price quickly, more so if that happens when the user’s about to grab it on the spot.

This is probably a poor attempt to simplify and explain, but high-traffic web sites use a lot of “computer resources” that tend to slow them down and create a potentially unpleasant experience. Some web sites create “caches” or copies of the searched-upon web page/s for sometimes a limited time to solve that problem, especially search engines like that of Hotwire or even the almighty Google. (which the latter can afford to spend like crazy given their deep pockets…)

Then again, in my experience dealing with people who complain about the price suddenly jumping up while about to book online, arguably they don’t know, understand, or even care how these things work, and simply want to get results based on what they’re willing to pay. Not that they’re required to know, understand or care, anyway, and vendors deal with them as best as they can.

It’s nice and good if the supplier, much more the travel agency or so, can “keep” the price as given when searched online. But of course, some (if not all) want to maximize their ability to make money, and some people tend to unrealistically expect the price to stay that way if they don’t book it there and then.

Me, I don’t expect the price to stay that way when searching online but not getting it right there. Getting upset over things not within our full control makes me pull out whatever semblance of hair I have left.