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Comment by electic | Hacker News Reader

Question to anyone here who is familiar with this industry. Would one be able to save even more by just going to a wholesaler? I mean, with the right know how, can someone just buy from a wholesaler directly?

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I don't know about hotels since airbnb is almost always cheaper, but with flying you will almost always find cheaper flights going directly to the airline or using something like The Matrix [1] than using kayak, expedia etc. These companies used to be cheaper than going directly with an airline, but since they were so easy to use everyone uses them now and they charge high margins for that convenience, so the position has switched in the last 20 years.

I also use secretflying.com which is like skyscanner but better imho. Using these flight websites I normally get flights from Chicago to east asia in the lower $400 range roundtrip, the cheapest I've seen was $300 roundtrip from ORD>SIN!

[1] https://matrix.itasoftware.com/

wow, thank you so much. Great site. If anyone has any other tips/hacks etc, would love to hear about it.

I am not associated with the site below, but I find it useful to book itineraries that show up in Matrix (but you cannot book from them).

https://bookwithmatrix.com/

Also the original WSJ article is written by its Editorial Board (as opposed to their reporting arm). Editorial board can and does operate with its the owner's mandate, in most newspapers.

> I don't know about hotels since airbnb is almost always cheaper

AirBNB is super annoying. You have to agree to meet at a certain time. You have to hope they accept your booking. While booking you cannot sort by price, etc. AirBNB informs about demand causing prices to go up in popular periods. Then for most places you basically have to put in writing if you could pretty please rent the place. This while on any hotel you're accepted as long as the credit card check goes through.

I often book by first searching via Booking.com, then trying to book directly or searching for best rate.

I don't travel too often, but AirBNB being cheapest is not my experience. Maybe cheapest no matter the quality and convenience? A shared room is not the same as a hotel for instance. I don't want to feel bad about coming back at e.g. 3am. In a hotel that's pretty much fine. With AirBNB I stick to renting out the whole apartment and for those the prices are slightly above hotels prices (these apartments are often tiny btw).

I have a property in France and we use a combination of AirBnB and until now, Booking.com; on AirBnB we have it set to instant book— we essentially have a small hotel type property so we don’t go through the that whole “approval” theater. However I agree AirBnB IS annoying because most people trying to book us always want to ask dumb questions like “is your property still available” — well yes, that’s why you can instantly book. If it weren’t available then why would it be bookable? Presumably this is because most AirBnB hosts are non professional and don’t manage their availability calendar correctly (I suppose..)

For us, AirBnB is just another booking source but it’s fairly annoying.. I can definitely agree with you — just on the opposite site of the table (the property owner.)

It sounds like AirBnB would benefit from a feature where you can personally and automatically contact the booking customer to confirm the reservation. A sort of automatic email with your brand confirming the dates and other information. Or maybe do so by pressing a button. Or maybe just a status on the reservation: "Host has seen reservation and confirmed".

I have never used AirBnB, but I am loathe to rely too much on entirely electronic information, without a real human confirming it. Case in point: several restaurants claimed they'd be open on Christmas day on their websites, so we planned to pick up food for a gathering. When we arrived at the restaurant on the day, they were closed, at a time which was at least 2 hours before their posted closing time (which did include holiday hours). This caused a last-minute scramble to arrange food for people at short notice on Christmas day. If we had tried to reach an actual person on the phone, presumably this mixup would have been avoided.

If my travel arrangements depended upon the availability of an AirBnB, then I'd probably want to confirm with the host too. A major hotel isn't going to lose my reservation, but with AirBnB who knows. Maybe the host will be "out of town" that day and forgot to mark their property unavailable, just like the restaurants that "forget" to mention when they'll be closed.

(Have I mentioned how much I hate hate hate when businesses don't keep to their posted hours?)

'Presumably this is because most AirBnB hosts are non professional and don’t manage their availability calendar correctly (I suppose..)'

Most likely this, in my experience. I sometimes see some listings are crazy low prices (compared to similar properties) and would rather check they haven't made a mistake rather than go through the hassle of booking and being rejected.

As an aside to above, crazy low price doesn't always indicate poor quality on AirBnB - more often it's a switched on owner rather than a fool who thinks people are going to pay high-season prices in low-season.

It's not a dumb question, try to travel with airbnb and you will find that a lot of hosts do not update their calendar, when they get a booking via other avenue. It's especially frustrating, when the host enabled the instant booking.

As OTAs charge about 15-20% you should be able to get a better rate from the hotel directly. This could be via their website (recent development) or by just calling them (annoying). Further, the lowest rate at an OTA might be non-refundable while the hotel rate could be flexible.

Source for suggesting to call: Often mentioned by front desk staff at https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk/

What do you mean by wholesaler? You can certainly negotiate special rates directly with the hotels if you have the leverage. Wouldn’t be surprised if OTAs do the same. Same for Amex and the likes

Wholesalers are not supposed sell below the hotel’s rates. If they do, they’re likely violating their contract with the hotel.

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