Thinking you have booked a holiday online and all you have done is given a ‘Switch & Bait’ company your credit card details, as the offer is fabricated.

Report this comment

Okay, full disclosure- I work for an online travel company. I think we (industry people) begin to understand the eccentricities of booking online and start to forget what its like to be part of the normal booking public.

That being said, “some websites “close down” in the early hours to update their databases”- Seriously? There are sites that DONT have dynamic databases/inventory? How do they still exist? That honestly scares me…

“Specials that dont exist” aka, clearing out inventory that doesn’t sell on the cheap. I’ve never worked for a company that would do something like this, (Thankfully) but have had a non travel experience that combined both slow databases and limited sale items- Bought a very expensive sale piano online, paid the full price and was told 3 days later that it was out of stock.

Of course I argued this until I got want I wanted and I would expect consumers to do the same with hotels. Hold them accountable!

The internet has moved past the point where inventory is updated every 20 hours and sales on websites with an international customer base can include 2 hotels in one city with limited allotment. Plus, if all else fails, people can always moan about it on twitter, I know I do

Report this comment

Its an old one but, I just want to know how much the holiday will cost.

Don’t make me go halfway through your booking process just to bring up all the taxes/ charges for essential ‘extras’ / booking fees etc. It wastes my time and annoys me, and I will end up going through your competitor who bundles everything up, even if they’re slightly more expensive.

Premium numbers I totally agree with, it makes no sense to me but then I guess people do still use them so why should they change?

I hate pop-ups, I’ve been on the web for far too many years and pop-ups have always meant to me dodgy sites serving malware, annoying smileys, ‘free’ screensavers or gambling. Do you want your brand to seem that cheap and nasty to me? Then don’t use them.

I have experienced several websites that take a long time to load (not just travel, one particular newspaper is bad for this) and if you watch what they’re trying to load it always seems to be some sort of tracking or advertising. If there is a business need for all these things to load then you should be making sure they don’t do it at the expense of your customer!

Report this comment

I agree with the comment re offers that are not there. We are an independant company and get our offers from all the major operators and advertise them in good faith – however although we are provided with new offers almost daily we are never informed when an offer is withdrawn or sold out.

Being a small company we cannot afford to employ someone just to keep on top of hundreds of offers we have. We have compliance rules to try and ensure we do not mislead clients and should we find that an offer has ended we try and get the same holiday at the nearest possible price to that quoted.

Report this comment

Preferred scheme applies not only to hotels, like in expedia not once when I was looking to rent a car on the top of list were showed not the best deals.

Report this comment

My pet peeve is basic, bad design. So many firms spend a fortune on advertising and marketing, then throw it away by leaving you screaming at the computer in frustration.

I’m sure that in most cases ‘good will through marketing’ minus ‘bad will through bad design’ is pretty close to nil.

Report this comment

Booking a holiday within a price range and having ‘amenities’ added on at checkout – ‘we never even used them’ I argued – “they were there if you wanted them”

As Perdita says above, – just tell me the price. I don’t care what your local tax laws are but do know what my budget is. One price for locals and another, higher, price for tourists? Surely thats illegal?

Report this comment

I agree with Perdita regarding websites that take too long to load – they can be a real pain. Not everyone has a really fast computer with a super-duper internet connection. Keep the sites simple and cut out all the unnecessary c***!

I have a quick question regarding those extras (e.g insurance) that are added by default when you book a ‘low-cost’ flight. I seem to remember reading an article a while back saying that this practice breached EU regulations. Does anyone know if that is actually the case?

Report this comment

A quick follow-up to my previous post. I’ve just noticed that the Thomson website contains a Flash banner advertising HMV. Why?

Report this comment

My biggest gripe is with travel companies. You look up a price, then return to find it has gone up. If you are naive you may just think the tickets are selling out. However, clear your internet browser cache and cookies and try again. Guess, what the prices haven’t gone up.

Can someone tell me why this happens?

Report this comment

@John- I haven’t seen this either, but would love to see an example of it? It could depend on the company, but pricing thats coming directly from hotels can go up and down dynamically as available room numbers change. Currency could play a part in that, but I don’t know why it would go back down on the refresh?

Report this comment

In Israel it is a given that tourists pay more. Not sure why as they should not have to pay tax, thus making it 17% cheaper! I live in Jerusalem and just booked my Chicago based parents-in-law 2 nights at a Jerusalem hotel that is part of a chain. I saved them $75 by booking it myself. I wonder when else we’ve all been ripped off like this.

Report this comment

It is odd how so many sites still exist with poor hosting and updates during peak times. One would think they would learn! Aaron

Report this comment

@John & Darren. I noticed a long while back that RyanAir do exactly the same thing with regard to cookies. I’ve since told friends & family to clear their cookie cache when browsing sites like these!

Report this comment