Family books a $5,700 vacation, then discovers it costs less elsewhere: “we won’t receive any compensation”

If you regularly visit a travel agency’s website, you may notice that the price of a flight or hotel can change from one visit to the next. That is why you have probably heard people say, “Use incognito mode, trust me.”

Something even more frustrating happened to Tim (39) and Evelien (40), from Sint-Niklaas, Belgium. They booked a vacation package costing more than $5,700, only to discover moments later that the exact same trip was being offered for about $400 less through the company’s mobile app.

They missed out on nearly $400 by not using the app

For the past three years, the family has spent its vacations at the Three Corners Sea Beach Resort in Marsa Alam, Egypt. As they do every year, they booked the three-star resort for their fall vacation through the travel agency’s website.

“There was a 24 percent discount on the per-person price,” Tim explained. “As a result, an eight-day, all-inclusive trip cost about $820 per person instead of roughly $1,080. Since we had already had great experiences with the hotel and wanted to take advantage of the discount, we booked immediately. We are a blended family of seven, which brought the total cost to about $5,700.”

The couple thought they had secured an excellent deal until Evelien noticed that the company’s app was offering a much better promotion for the exact same resort.

“Through the app, there was suddenly a 25 percent discount on the identical trip, which lowered the per-person price from about $1,025 to around $760,” Tim said. “The numbers were completely different and significantly lower than what we had just paid on our laptop. For our family, that meant we paid roughly $400 more than necessary.”

The company’s explanation

According to the travel company their prices are determined dynamically based on the current availability and rates of flights, accommodations, and other travel services. Because pricing information may be refreshed at different stages of the search and booking process, rates can change before a reservation is finalized. Once a booking is confirmed, the price is fixed and cannot be adjusted to reflect any subsequent prices displayed online or through other channels.

However, Tim and Evelien felt that explanation was inadequate because the discrepancy did not occur on different days or at different times. The resort was being offered simultaneously on both the company’s website and app at significantly different prices.

Expressing his disappointment, Tim said: “We have been loyal customers of the company for years. You expect a little more. Even a small discount would have been a nice gesture. Instead, we just feel overlooked.”

Why is booking through an app often cheaper?

For travel companies, getting customers to download their mobile app is one of the most effective ways to build long-term loyalty.

Mobile apps allow companies to collect far more accurate and reliable user data than desktop websites, which depend heavily on cookies that are increasingly restricted or easily deleted.

By gaining a better understanding of a customer’s profile, location, recurring searches, and mobile browsing habits, companies can deliver more personalized offers and optimize their marketing campaigns much more efficiently than they can through a website.

As a result, the savings companies generate from having direct access to customer data, along with a dedicated channel for sending notifications, are often passed back to users in the form of exclusive app-only discounts.

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