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Comment by myoffe | Hacker News Reader

I absolutely loath Booking.com's UX.

Whenever it's possible, I use something else, like HostelWorld. Their interface is clean, to the point, and the reviews and ratings can actually be trusted.

I'm happy someone did this website. I just came back from a long trip and every time somebody asked me why I hate Booking.com, I pointed exactly to some of the points that were made there. The fake sense of urgency, the cluttered UI. And the cherry on top: The fact they display the "total cost of all nights" in the results, instead of the per-night cost. That's not a misleading UX, it's just a bad UX decision.

But because of it's popularity amongst accommodation owners and travelers, its fall is unlikely.

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> The fact they display the "total cost of all nights" in the results, instead of the per-night cost. That's not a misleading UX, it's just a bad UX decision.

I prefer the total cost in the results, since that's what I'll ultimately pay. Why do you prefer per night? Doesn't that make you do the multiplication in your head?

I agree it’s better to display the “total cost of stay” in the search results, however that isn’t what Booking.com displays. As OP said they display the “total cost of all nights” which excludes taxes and cleaning/service fees.

A few weeks ago I stayed in an apartment in Austria which was €49 for one night, with a €45 cleaning fee... I thought that seemed a bit crazy (ok there were 7 of us, so still pretty good), but clicking through other results I saw all the properties in this area had similar fees. One had the same price per night and a €70 cleaning fee! I guess it’s a way to avoid taxes or such.

45€ doesn't sound like much. For a complete apartment cleanup, including bed linen and etc, you need at least three or four hours, so that's around 11-15€/hour. Seems quite reasonable for Austria.

Yeah for Austria it doesn't seem like a bad price, it's just weird that the price is nearly the same as the accomodation fee. And as a Brit the idea of any kind of service fee is pretty foreign in the first place (why not just include it in the advertised price?).

It's a fixed cost, so they use a fixed fee. If they just added a percentage to the price per night, people who stayed more days would be paying more despite not requiring more cleaning.

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