WARNING, check your Price Performance Dashboard for major errors
The "Price Performance Dashboard" under the "Analytics" heading inside Extranet is causing problems.
This represents BDCs price-crawling BOTS that go round comparing prices with other OTAs. If they find lower prices elsewhere it lowers your "Price Quality Score", once below a certain level BDC will then start throwing discounts at your rates but without your permission.
However, their BOTs are mostly wrong! I have been through my list and followed their claims very closely. Same dates, searched in same country, on same format, same booking 100%. In EVERY case their claimed price found in WRONG. Following the booking through to final price shows pricing as it should be, not what BDC claims.
I am currently in chats with BDC about this but I'm getting the same hopeless excuses and total denial. "Computer says no" (Little Britain fans will know how I mean that one).
Yet another massive bug in their system (or is it deliberate?) that they refuse to admit to or fix.
Really not happy about this.
I have a different experience. I checked my rates on Trivago. I have a problem with Expedia, they automaticly matching/lowering prices to be more competitive. Basicly I am not able to put higher rate on Expedia, so we're kind of forced to match rates on all channels. Not sure if bots are recognizing AirBnB though. I am annoyed that Expedia offers then lower rate what I actually set. Now I am still not sure if I get paid less, or are those "discounts" from their pocket. My BDC rates are displayed correctly on the web. But expedia's are not, which causes the conflict with performance on BDC.
Just a reminder to keep an eye this, seriously.
I'm still having trouble with it and BDC are ignoring comms on the matter!
Today I've compared the rate for two nights in august on Booking.com and Expedia. Expedia showed this time the actual rate, but Booking.com showed 30€ lower rate. I've contacted BDC and they explained, that if the system somehow recognize the lower rate on other OTA's, they can automaticly lower the price. The difference pays BDC, they deduct this amount from the commission invoice. So you get paid in full. Basicly they want to attract / keep a potential booker. So lookslike all leading OTA's are doing the similar practice.
I've no problem with price matching and all that you have said pibomarco .
My gripe is that BDC's system is gathering incorrect prices i.e. prices seen not including "taxes" or not the real final price. Then comparing that to the final price on BDC.
All the OTAs have a different approach to the first price they show compared to the final one. This is where the BDC comparison falls on its behind.
It takes a competitors first price price and then beats it with a better final price. It could be just an excuse to be the cheapest on the market. This also drives your listing score down with the price quality score.
Then the other OTAs match that and...
What is your score? They also told me that price ranking actually does not affect the listing ranking and overall performance.. Price quality score is hard to reach properly, because we can not compete with big hotels. My account manager told me to ignore this score. Basicly for that reason I made the same rates and all taxes included on all OTA's. I think the ultimate goal will be some kind of agreement, that base rates will actually be the same on all OTA's. Otherwise they're going to dig their own "grave". :)
I was told the opposite, i.e. all part of our overall ranking. My price quality score has recently been intermittently low because of the aforementioned. This is also shown by BDC now slipping to fourth slot, from first, on bookings for me, behind Hotels.com, direct and local which have all increased.
I have made all my final prices equal but OTAs will fiddle with them. The instigator was Agoda who are currently behaving and BDC is now the problem.
Unfortunately and in particular, Agoda and BDC want to be the cheapest, not equal and I agree it is counter productive and "grave-digging" tactics.
Hello guys, because I have a similar problem, obviously we are talking about a total bug in the BDC system. From my observations until now, I have to tell you what I found:
1. Expedia - fairly accurate prices, they only advertise at Hotels/com. In other channels, such as ebookers, for example, they advertise PKG prices directly as final customer prices. That is, you can book a hotel only, but at a price we provide them for packages with a flight ticket. That is, these people compete with themselves.
2. Expedia, by default, gives a 10% discount => book 10 nights, take 1 free. The problem is that again on some of their sites, they give this discount without the condition of booking 10 nights, just by registering with your e-mail. So they force us to compete with ourselves.
3. Nustay - a huge problem. Huge. These people take prices from all and advertise our hotels at prices lower than us. How do they do it? They give part of the commission they take from sites like Expedia and BDC as a discount. The problem is that Booking, deny giving them a price, which is a lie - they give them. This problem I do not know how to solve it?