(Click on the image for Washington Consumers' Checkbook report)
- It’s the oldest sales trick in the book: Tell customers demand is high and supply low, and if they don’t act quickly an offer will disappear. Many hotel-booking websites take this tactic to extremes. Shop for rooms on many of them, and search results issue constant warnings about scarcity.
- Among sites we tested, Priceline had the most claims of room shortages. For the 10 searches we conducted using it, on average 21 of its first 25 listings had warnings about low availability. Orbitz was the next-worst in this department, with more than half the listings giving warnings about shortages. And the other six websites also advertised shortages that typically don’t really exist.
- We found several sites don’t try to stress out their customers: Google.com/travel, Kayak, momondo, Travelzoo, and trivago don’t display these kinds of warnings. But it’s difficult to give them much credit, given that all these sites are operated by Booking or Expedia, which also own the websites that do display misleading claims about availability. Plus, Kayak, et al., often send you to sister sites that deceive.