Families booking half-term holidays may pay as much as 50% more on Booking.com if they use a computer rather than the travel company's smartphone app. A Mail on Sunday investigation
revealed that one London hotel charged an additional £200 per night when booked via a desktop computer.
On average, room prices for a family of four in the UK and Europe were 16% higher—around £50 more per night—when booked through a laptop or desktop during the half-term period. The biggest discrepancy found was at The Cumberland Hotel in London, where a family of four booking two rooms was charged £388 through the Booking.com app but a staggering £588 on the website—a 52% increase.
Experts have criticized this pricing model, saying it leaves families unknowingly paying much more than necessary.
In a comparison of 35 hotels in popular half-term destinations like Tenerife and Majorca, 30 hotels increased their prices between 4% and 52% for those booking through the website. Families of four booking two rooms paid an average of £49 more per night, while families of three booking one room paid £36 more.
For example, a family of four booking two rooms at the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Edinburgh was charged £538 on the website, £108 more than the app price. At the Royal Tenerife Country Club, the app price for an apartment was 30% lower than the website price—£182 compared to £237. In Majorca, the Melia Palma Marina charged 25% more on the website—£257 instead of £206 for two rooms.
Even for two adults with no children, six hotels charged an average of 10% more through the website. While some cheaper app prices were marked as "mobile-only," many were not, and there was no indication to web users that booking through the app could offer a better deal.
Consumer expert Helen Dewdney of The Complaining Cow called the practice "utterly bizarre," while Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, warned that families were being unfairly charged higher prices for their holidays without knowing it.
A spokesperson for Booking.com stated that hotels set their own prices and explained that "accommodation partners offer mobile-only rates as a way to appeal to customers." Photo by Dan Fuhry, Wikimedia commons.
