Alpharooms ridiculous pricing

zaksmum

Just looked at Alpharooms where there is a listing for 7 nights in the Tenerife Sol Hotel, costing £714 half board, in November.

This is advertised as being a saving of 95% on the full price of £14,571.63!

How can Alpharooms try to convince people that this hotel's full price is nearly £15K for a week half board?

Surely it's false advertising?

daytona0

If they want to set their initial price at 14k then they are perfectly entited to do so Just as you would be entitled to accept or decline that offer.

It might be false advertising but in reality nobody is going to look at that and think "what a cracking dea I'm getting!l". They are just going to chuckle at it for a moment, check the website to make sure it is legitimate and check other websites to book with.

Alice_Walker

It sounds like a mistake. These things happen, neither humans nor computers are perfect.

mije1983

Probably should have been £1457 and the decimal point has been put it the wrong place.

maninthestreet

mije1983 wrote: »

Probably should have been £1457 and the decimal point has been put it the wrong place.

What I thought as well.

bod1467

But how would that give a saving of 95% if they were now selling at £714?

Le_Kirk

Might be false advertising but it is correct maths! Seems like an invitation to walk (run) away.

shaun_from_Africa

mije1983 wrote: »

Probably should have been £1457 and the decimal point has been put it the wrong place.

bod1467 wrote: »

But how would that give a saving of 95% if they were now selling at £714?

If someone at Alpharooms had entered the daily rate into their computer incorrectly by a factor of 10 then the % saving that shows up when a customer types in the length of their intended stay would also appear to be out by the same amount.

£714 is about 4.9% of £14571, so the booking system would think that a saving of 95% off the regular price was being applied to the reservation.

paddyrg

I stayed at a 'mystery hotel' which claimed a substantial discount, and it was clear the room was never, ever going to sell for 'full price'. Some vendors just use it to get an 'edge'

zaksmum

But they seem to be trying to con people into thinking they are saving 95% of the full price.

Dodgy practice at best!

mije1983

zaksmum wrote: »

But they seem to be trying to con people into thinking they are saving 95% of the full price.

Dodgy practice at best!

Have you let them know about the 'error'? As said above, if the price of the stay has been keyed in wrong, the % saving will also calculate wrong as I imagine that is worked out automatically when you select your dates.

Dodgy practice at worst, human error at best. Sometimes we just make mistakes in our jobs.

Of course if you have informed them of the error and they haven't bothered getting it changed, or these crazy prices are commonplace throughout their site, that's a whole different ball game.