When she checked out of her hotel, usave rent a car it revealed the net rate it was charging her online travel agency — a number usave rent a car far lower than the one she was quoted. Now she wants the hotel to honor the lower price for her.
I get requests like hers with some regularity, and I normally tell them they re out of luck. If you bought hotel rooms in large blocks, usave rent a car you might qualify for a low rate, but not as a single traveler. But lately, I ve had second thoughts usave rent a car about that response, and I m thinking of mediating usave rent a car one of these cases. Maybe you can help me figure this out.
When she asked about the lower rate, a representative assured her that was the correct price. It s hard to imagine anyone arguing about a lower price on a room, so it must have been a brief conversation.
Well, I did see it and it says nothing about net rates. I asked for a refund and a supervisor offered me a $50 Expedia coupon, which I declined because I will not be doing further business with Expedia.
I would like a refund of the difference and also I feel that people should be warned that such a thing can happen. AARP offers this link as a means for senior citizens to get good travel rates and I feel that this did not happen usave rent a car here.
Fact is, many businesses have wholesale and retail rates, and it s generally understood that the way they make money is by marking up the product. Expedia bought thousands of rooms from Wyndham, and then resold them to guests like Brouhard to make a profit.
From my perspective, Brouhard s motives matter. Had she found out about the Wyndham usave rent a car rate error on FlyerTalk or via one of the Boarding Area blogs, and booked a few rooms for her and her friends, knowing full well that this was a rate error, I would have sent her my polite form rejection letter. (Booking a fat-finger fare when you know better is stealing — no two ways about it.)
But Brouhard found the rate through AARP, and she probably assumed the association had negotiated usave rent a car an even more aggressive usave rent a car discount on her behalf when she saw the final hotel rate. And a hotel representative verified the rate, too, when she checked out.
Cherity, how do you add a markup to a hotel rate? I thought travel agents only make a percentage or fixed commission from a given hotel rate. Can you simply add an extra amount the guest will pay at checkout? I am confused.
Tony, you can have a contracted rate with any hotel. Our agency has contracted net rates with scores usave rent a car of hotels. If we sell them, we charge the client in house, usave rent a car so we are the vendor. We also have contracts with some hotels for special discounts and commissions. Those we pass the credit card to the hotel and the hotel pays us.
Yes, but what leads you to believe that the Expedia rate wasn t the best / cheapest rate available to her? (ie. the net price is off the table, because that rate isn t available to the general public)
What I have yet to see is a situation where I get a NET rate, I add a mark-up, and the hotel collects the total at checkout and pays me my markup like he does my commission. Some airlines do it for their bulk fares.
But are you expecting too much from AARP? They use their clout as a big organization to negotiate bulk discounts. I don t think they bill themselves as being able to get the best possible price at every property. As in this case, the hotel had an internal promotion how can AARP (or anyone, usave rent a car for that matter) keep track of all those in real time? If anyone knows of such a place, please clue me in! As far as my experience goes, you just have to do the legwork yourself, no?
I am an AARP member for the past 15-yrs. Several years ago, I needed to purchase homeowners insurance for a manufactured home (only a few companies offer it). I saw an ad in the AARP mag offering the insurance at a member discounted price . I called the number and got a quote, which I thought was high. (it was a special number for AARP members only). I then decided to call the company direct and got a quote for a lot less!!?? The difference in quotes was what AARP was making as an endorsement fee, or their mark-up. Not, as you say, really helping their members save.
Simply stated, each room type will be offered to the general public for the same price. usave rent a car But opaque deals, club prices, and free nights might not be included usave rent a car in rate parity . So theoretically she will get the same rate regardless of channel. However, the trick around rate parity is to get something free from the hotel so they wont violate rate parity.That is why I have been eyeing the Stay 2 and get 20; or Stay 3 and get 30 deals. Those deals ard most probably not covered by rate parity.
She is. Didn t she think [incorrectly] AARP surprised her with a lower rate when she checked out? But really, how difficult is it for AARP to note that Wyndhams have Stay 3 Save 30% or similar deals and tell members to check first since this is higher than the standard 15% AARP hotel discount?
As i said, her feelings are misdirected. She really has no contest against Expedia because it did not do anything wrong. But now that she knows that hotels gives Expedia a huge discount, she should be looking at AARP to negotiate bigger discounts for its large member base.
Tony, you know that vendors give discounts on some rates, not all rates and they vary from vendor to vendor. AARP may have had a special with the vendor on that particular usave rent a car rate and it isn t their job to show all rates that don t benefit them.
Mediate? Absolutely not! It doesn t matter one iota, that she saw the net cost, as it s totally irrelevant to her contract. It s almost unfathomable, to believe that people feel that they have the right, to transact everything at cost. Or is this to be a new entitement ?
If you accidently see the net price after agreeing to a price, then tough luck. In my business I get jerks demanding the internet price after they ve agreed to my price and accepted delivery. Same deal. You agreed to a price and that s that.
She was the beneficiary of a mistake-and the hotel and Expedia should honor the mistaken pice and absorb the $86. Every seller has net and gross prices. If a grocery store somehow charges a customer its net price on an item, the manager doesn t come to customer s house the next day asking for the difference. Her beef isn t with AARP. It s with Expedia and Wyndham to work out who absorbs the $86 that s removed from her card.
Now that I know that AARP Travel Center is actually Expedia [they are one and the same] and she put her faith on AARP Travel Center, then I changed my mind and am also siding with the OP just like Sally.
Just like the OP said she thought that AARP found her a better rate while she was staying at the hotel. It s not her fault she could not distinguish between AARP and Expedia usave rent a car because in her case they were the same.
BULL! The cruise line NEVER gives the client the net rate they give them the SAME RATES the travel agent gets (and in a lot of cases, agents get LOWER rates). They pay the travel agent a commission based on that rate, or pocket it if booked in-house. I have clients usave rent a car book a rate over the weekend and turn over to me to handle details all the time and in most cases, I can get them a lower fare, or amenities.
See above NO direct bookings do NOT get net rates and yes, we can charge a SERVICE fee, but cannot claim it is higher than what they get from the cruise usave rent a car lines. usave rent a car And now cruise lines are cracking down on rebating, so there is a far more level playing field. :)
Well, if she shouldn t have seen the net price, it sounds like that s Expedia s fault or the hotel s fault-but not hers. So the price she should have seen was the price she was actually charged. I think it s hard to get customers to pay higher rates for things that they were originally charged a lower price for and then told that the lower price was a mistake and now they have to pay more, because the lack of transparency, correctness, or whatever gives them the wrong rate rightfully pisses them off. I don t disagree with the concept of tiered rates, but I do think that the customer has to be told the right rate from the beginning of the transaction if you want to hold them to that rate.
What is she the beneficiary of and what is the mistake? She has no beef with anyone and no vendor should absorb the $86. If you ran a business and a customer found out how much you paid for a product or service, are they entitled to your cost? You can search usave rent a car the internet for dealer cost ; but that doesn t mean that s what the dealer will negotiate to. If I sold my travel usave rent a car products at the price that the vendor charges me, I not only would be working for nothing; I d be working at a negative loss.
When I ve checked out of a hotel where I prepaid, the original price I paid was nowhere to be seen on the invoice. All I saw were incidentals like meals and parking. In my experience, the AAA and AARP rates can typically be cancelled, although this may have been different.
However, I have had issues where the freebies were odd. I booked one room via PL because it said that parking would be free. I printed it out (printed to PDF and saved it). I called the hotel and they couldn t see free parking. I went ahead anyways and I checked my PL reservation again. The bit that said free parking was no longer indicated. I tried anyways at the desk. The clerk went back, said she was going to talk to her manager, and I got free parking. I don t know how they worked out this with PL, but at least I didn t have to argue with anyone.
But as I re-read the article again and again and went to the AARP site, I realized that someone could easily be deceived into thinking that they are buying from a hotel with a great AARP senior rate but in reality they are brought to Expedia and given Expedia s rate. In other words, AARP has simply handed over their members to Expedia.
Sorry for the late reply, but I have issues viewing the comments from certain web browsers. For starters, I don t use GDS. So, it depends on the method of booking when marking up a rate. My sales a
No comments:
Post a Comment