BEWARE THOMSONS! - They increase the price during booking process

Beacon_Bright

Last evening, a Friday, we decided to look for a late booking of a week's holiday in mid September.

After various searches we settled on one at £523 per person with Thomsons. On the last screen of the booking process, just as we were about to pay, a notice appeared on the screen announcing "The price of your holiday has changed. Whilst you've been on the site, the price of the holiday has increased by £72.00. Your new total price is shown below"

Understandably unhappy with this, we phoned up to protest. Over three calls to three different Thomsons' employees, we were glibly told by each that prices are changing all the time and they must have gone up during the booking process. Not happy, but hey!, we had selected this holiday and didn't want to face going through the whole process of selecting an alternative holiday, we decided to pay this increased price.

By now the booking had timed-out so we started the process again. And guess what? the same holiday was still advertised at £523, even though, by now, over an hour had gone by. We went through the booking process again, and on the same final screen, at payment time, we got the same message saying the price had gone up by £72 whilst we'd been on the site. We booked and paid for the holiday at the new increased price.

Out of curiosity, we took another look 2 hours later: The holiday was STILL being advertised at £523 and again on the final, payment, screen up came the notice stating the price had increased while I had been on their site.

For over 3 hours to my knowledge, and I suspect for a lot longer, Thomsons had advertised one price only to increase that price at the point of payment. And this was on a Friday evening which I would think is the time they sell the most holidays online. Just think how much extra profit they make and how many extra customers they hook in by falsely advertising the price of their holidays.

Once you go through the full process of searching for holiday deals, researching the available hotels and resorts, and finally settling on a particular holiday, I wager most people would just pay the extra rather than repeating the lengthy selection process - which is just as likely to end up with the same dirty trick.

Beware of Thomsons' tricks ........

HoofeHearted

What you should have done is clear out all your cookies, including flash cookies and tried again. Alternatively try another browser.

Lots of sites manipulate prices by viewing your browsing history on their site.

Beacon_Bright

Yes, I did that when I tried again two hours later: I'd used Firefox for the initial sessions, but changed to Chrome for the later one, the one after 9 o'clock. I was still getting the same price increase on the payment page.

It's useful to know the holiday companies use your browsing history like this. I suppose it follows that other big businesses do also. I think I'll get into the habit of deleting my cookies more frequently.

Westin

I suspect it is to do with how they cache data rather than cookies on your computer.

To reduce the search return times the system probably caches the data at a fairly regular period (but perhaps only once a day) and your holiday search is based upon the prices pulled from the data held. When you start to progress through the booking flow and actually make the reservation, live pricing and availability is used, hence the price fluctuation.

I don't think it is unique to Thomson, in fact I had the same happen when pricing up a Thomas Cook holiday to Egypt this week. I think this is also often the issue with people like Travel Republic and On the Beach who often have comments made on this forum about prices rising. The latter two however seem to have the increased prices highlighted AFTER someone has made the booking.

If you look again today, or say 24hrs later, I'd hope and expect that the featured price has changed and closer to, or match, what you ended up paying.

Anyway, I'm not defending this practice. I find it annoying as well but I guess it's the pay back for us all expecting immediate search results, after all who these days wants to wait more than a few seconds before a search starts to display results. It was only a few years ago we would be used to seeing the timer clock spinning for 30 seconds or so until we got results displayed. Now results appear almost immediately.

One final positive - I notice it also works both ways. I have found examples of the price actually dropping down once in the booking flow.

Beacon_Bright

Thank you for your detailed and authoritative reply. I have checked this morning and higher price is now correctly shown in the holiday search results.

You may well be correct. It seems a suspiciously convenient and profitable process for one price to be displayed in search results, which is the price potential customers use when comparing and considering the various deals on offer, and then at the last minute slipping in the amended, usually increased, figure at checkout.

It would also make true price comparison impossible.

It would also routinely show Thomson's Holidays as being better value that they really are.

There are too many obviously beneficial commercial benefits that accrue to Thomson by their hiking the price at the point of payment, for it to be anything other that a deliberate policy. In my opinion.

marsman802

For balance, as Westin says, I've also seen the reverse happen.

Mostly on Expedia from my experience. It's not a profiteering exercise if you also encounter circumstances where the price reduces and I have benefited from those this year for Vegas in fact.

I've always wondered why this happens and Westin has certainly given me the most plausible reason I've heard yet.

redmike123

We had this with Thomsons too, and it is really annoying. We have enjoyed some really cheap deals with them in the past, but we find that they are now really ridiculously expensive and there are other companies, with better reputations offering much better deals.

Archergirl

But it was mentioned BEFORE you booked and paid, you had the choice not to book, although it's not good at least you didn't get an email after you booked to say the price had increased, like I have read about from some companies.

Beacon_Bright

redmike123 wrote: »

We had this with Thomsons too, and it is really annoying. We have enjoyed some really cheap deals with them in the past, but we find that they are now really ridiculously expensive and there are other companies, with better reputations offering much better deals.

I think the next time we go for a quick holiday, we will be reluctant to consider another one from Thomsons. I suppose the acid test will be what we think of the holiday when we get there. I can't remember booking with Thomsons before, so they won't loose much business if I avoid them in the future.

Beacon_Bright

Archergirl wrote: »

But it was mentioned BEFORE you booked and paid, you had the choice not to book, although it's not good at least you didn't get an email after you booked to say the price had increased, like I have read about from some companies.

Yes, that's true; it's hard to believe some companies have done this to customers.

To advertise a holiday at one price and then hike it at checkout must be such a profitable marketing ploy for Thomson's that I cannot accept that it is anything other than deliberate. Especially when you consider that the discrepancy goes on for hours over a particularly busy period. I accept that prices change frequently and it therefor follows the change would occur during the time it takes to complete a booking. This would account for the occasional price reduction and increase at checkout. But remember, this lower price was still being displayed hours after the price had been increased.

budgetflyer

Its "Bait and Switch"
There is no justification for it. Easyjet, Jet 2 and Ryanair can give you live prices, so why cant Thomsons ?