Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

If "2 rooms left" isn't true, it's not a nudge -- it's fraud. (The author is misusing the industry term "nudge" in UX, which is about which default option is selected, or which option you're guided towards most easily.)

Honestly I always assumed that on large booking websites, "2 rooms left" would be at least "legally" accurate somehow (like there are 12 rooms left, but only 2 of that exact arbitrary configuration of precisely 198 square feet).

Because if not, wouldn't they be opening themselves to a class-action suit some smart lawyers would be taking advantage of? Isn't that why we have class-action suits in the first place? (Whereas an individual property site, I'm less likely to trust because who's going to bother suing.)

If it's a lie, how are Expedia, Priceline etc. not being sued?

I don't think, it's "2 rooms left at the hotel" or even "2 rooms in the hotel left (at this price)". I believe it can be "2 rooms left on [whatever booking site]" — perhaps because there is additional room inventory withheld from the web site. Or that additional rooms are currently "unpriced" in the database, and that price is generated at display time.

So after you book the room, another room can be added to the available inventory, and now there are "two rooms left at this price" again.

I did a bit of traveling last summer (mostly using Hotels.com ). There were times when I booked the "last room" and then checked again after booking and there was magically another "last room" available at the same price.

I've had the experience of needing to book 4 airplane tickets through a reseller, and having a hunch it would be cheaper to book in 2 goes since there were only "2 tickets left at this price". Since they had 24hr cancellation, I took the chance, booked 2 tickets, and was right, after a few minutes, 2 more tickets were available at the original price.

The formulation I'm used to is "2 seats left (at this price)", the parenthesized text generally being a smaller font. I'm assuming that's how the "legal" accuracy is coming into play here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com