Booking a hotel for your next holiday could be hundreds of pounds cheaper with some providers if it’s made on your phone, a consumer champion finds.
Expedia, Hotels.com and Booking.com offer customers who book through their smartphone up to 40% off, according to a Which? Travel study.
Out of 50 listings checked by the consumer champion, 15 on Booking.com had a cut-price deal for mobile-only reservations. This is confirmed by an alert to the user declaring: “You’re getting a reduced rate compared to the rate available on a computer or laptop”.
Using the special pricing, an apartment for the weekend in Edinburgh was £60 cheaper when booked on a mobile phone.
For the other two providers, Expedia and Hotels.com, the opposite was the case when it came to whether a laptop or mobile was cheaper.
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Half of the offers advertised on Hotels.com as mobile exclusives were indeed the same price as when using a laptop to secure the deal. This was the case for four out of the 10 prices checked by Which? Travel for Expedia.
In some bookings, when there was a genuine discount, the benefits were far less than advertised.
One hotel in Seville was promoted with a 40% off deal if you opted to book using your phone, which came to £235. However, when using a laptop, the full price was £274, just £39 in difference, equal to around 15%.
It is an issue that Which? believes could breach the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations.
Following the study, the consumer champion passed the results on to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
Further inaccurate prices
As well as booking discrepancies whether you use your phone or laptop, there were further inaccurate prices promoted if you choose to go through the travel site’s app.
For example, Hotels.com claims you could be 20% better off choosing to book through an app, but there was no difference from using a regular mobile phone browser.
But with Booking.com, there were savings to be had on a weekend stay in Porto, particularly if you signed up for its ‘Genius’ loyalty programme.
A £206 booking dropped to £187 when booked on a laptop, but if you signed up to a Genius account, that slipped down further to £169.
To bag the best deals ahead of the summer, the consumer champion recommends spending time to compare prices across a range of booking sites. This range of searching methods extends to devices too, so they suggest mixing up booking the best deals for you on a laptop, mobile device, and app if the provider has one.
In response to the findings, a spokesperson for Expedia Group, which represents Hotels.com, said: “Expedia always aims to provide competitive rates and bring value to our customers. We are looking into the points raised by Which? and look forward to further discussions on the matter.”
As well as differing prices on your devices, jetsetters have been warned to be careful of fraudsters when booking their trip away, as holiday scams tripled in the first half of 2024.
