What rate parity is, and how to check it for your hotel
Rate parity means a room costs the same on every booking site as on the hotel's own website. When a booking site sells it for less, a guest who was ready to book with you books there instead, and you pay that site a commission on a booking that was already yours. You can check it yourself in a few minutes, as long as you compare like with like.
A OneHorizyn guide. Updated .
Why a booking site ends up cheaper
It is rarely because you gave that site a lower price. The usual reasons are:
- The site pays for a discount out of its own commission, to win the booking.
- The lower price is for signed-in members or for the site's app, and is shown to everyone on a price list.
- A rate meant for travel agents or tour operators has been passed on and is being sold to the public.
- The site shows a non-refundable price beside your flexible one, so the two are not the same offer.
Each has a different fix, so the first job is to find out which one you are looking at.
How to check it by hand
- 1Search for your hotel by name on Google and open its price list (Google Hotels), which shows what each booking site charges.
- 2Pick a night, with one room and two adults. A hostel checks one bed for one guest.
- 3Note your own website's price and each booking site's price for that night.
- 4Open the cheaper site's own page: the price on Google is a summary, and the booking page is what a guest pays.
- 5Compare the same thing: the same room, the same cancellation terms, the same meals, and tax in or out on both.
- 6Repeat for several nights, weekdays and weekends. One night proves little.
The step most often skipped is the cancellation terms. A non-refundable price that is lower than your flexible one is not an undercut, and chasing it wastes a favour with the site.
What to do when a site is cheaper
- Save the evidence first: a screenshot of the site's booking page and of your own, for the same night, with the date you took it.
- Write to your contact at the site with the nights and the screenshots, and ask for the price to be matched.
- If the price comes from a rate you gave to agents or wholesalers, find which partner passed it on. The room name and the conditions on the page usually point to it.
- Check again a week later. A price that is corrected for one night often comes back on the next.
How often to check
Prices move every day, so a check once a quarter finds only what happens to be wrong that morning. A check every week, across the coming month of nights, shows which site is cheaper and how often, which is what you need to raise it with them.
