That's not exactly the fault of booking.com though. Hotels have learned that if they want people to book directly with them (which gets them more money), they need to make it attractive to customers. They can't really offer a lower price than booking.com and hotels.com due to contracts they have with those companies so instead they offer a reward scheme and exclude bookings not made directly with them.
They also sometimes offer lower "member only" price for members of their reward scheme as a way to get around their contract (in that case the lower price they provide than booking.com is not public but only restricted to members so it's not a breach of contract).
That said, I don't use booking.com, I find their dark patterns too deceptive for me.
Re:How Booking.com manipulates users
by skrebbel on Thursday September 21, 2017 @07:11AM
(#15302250)
> That's not exactly the fault of booking.com though.
> They can't really offer a lower price than booking.com and hotels.com due to contracts
See, it is the fault of booking.com. I'm not saying I'd have done it differently in their position, but their demand that hotels charge the same via booking.com as directly (even while booking.com gets a cut) is the direct cause of complicated reward schemes like this.
One of the Best Western emails encouraged me to sign up for their rewards scheme. Having liked Best Western hotels previously, I signed up, and downloaded the app onto my phone. To get rewards for the booking I just needed the Best Western booking ref. number.
There wasn't one. Just the booking.com ref. number on their Emails, and no ref. number on the Best Western ones.
Once at the hotel I asked for the Best Western booking ref. number and was told "As you've booked through booking.com you don't qualify for rewards on this stay, sorry."
So that will be my first AND last use of booking.com. Fool me once and all that.