On Orbitz, Mac Users Offered Pricier Hotels First

An anonymous reader writes "Travel site Orbitz found out that Mac users tend to select pricier rooms and swanky hotels. So, from now on, they will show more expensive hotel options to Mac users than to PC users. This is why, although I am a Mac user, my Firefox agent string says 'Windows XP' :)" The (paywalled) WSJ report on which Reuter's summary is based carries Orbitz' s softer explanation, which is that the results by platform are an experiment based mostly on presentation and search-result ordering rather than actually naming higher prices based on OS: "[T]he company isn't showing the same room to different users at different prices. They also pointed out that users can opt to rank results by price."

Comments

Well, duh

[crazyjj]

A smug sense of superiority requires constant maintenance.

Re:Well, duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus, slashdot.

Re:Well, duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac or PC users?

Yes

Re:Well, duh

[jellomizer]

Well not kool aid, but fine wines.

As the company stated they are not offering the same room at different rates, however it is showing the nicer hotels first. If there were enough Linux users to make a difference I would expect that they would give them, the roach motels first.

These systems will try to correlate as much information as possible to give its views the most relevant results. if a Mac User is shown on average to buy a hotel that is 10% more then the cheapest, then orbits to offer the best results will give the 10% above the cheapest as its first options so its customers are not hunting down the list.

Re:Well, duh

[Tr3vin]

You mac users keep on drinking the kool aid.

It is actually Flavor Aid. It is a bit cheaper (so that we can still afford macs) and is also the trusted drink mix of cults since 1978.

Re:Well, duh

[Dupple]

I assume Linux users will sleep in a dumpster. After all, it's FOSS

Free Open Sleeping Space!

-----------

I hope everyone has their sense of humour switched on today

Re:Well, duh

[buglista]

It's not doing the same damn thing - read the fine summary at least. It's showing different more expensive hotels, not adding a 30% Mac mark up!

Re:Well, duh

[boristdog]

I assume Linux users will sleep in a dumpster. After all, it's FOSS

Free Open Sleeping Space!

Don't be silly, Dumpsters are proprietary. They have connectors to fit only certain types of garbage trucks for emptying.

Now cardboard boxes, THOSE are universal.

Re:Well, duh

[wealthychef]

I think you'd have to explain your own motivation, but I think those come under the banner of "enjoying the technical exploration." I think that's a motivator for many Linux lovers. Personally going through all that work to get Mac OS working on a PC defeats the primary points of Mac OS X -- easy integration, low maintenance and quick startup times, for example. But knock yourself out! I use Linux and Mac at work. I avoid Windows if I can as I feel it has both a second class GUI and a second class command line. Windows 7 is definitely a decent offering though compared to earlier efforts. Each have their place, clearly. There is no "best answer for everyone."

Re:Well, duh

[PoolOfThought]

TFA is simply acknowledging what we already know, that Apple users have no problem paying more for things. Is that REALLY so surprising?

Except that's not what is being acknowledged. They're not paying more for the same thing.

They're paying more for things that they consider to be nicer or in some way more advantageous to them. In the hotel case maybe they are getting one that is closer to their destination or where they're more likely to meet someone famous. Maybe they just prefer the pillows at one vs the other. But they're not simply willing to pay more for the same thing - they're willing to part with more money if they feel like they're getting something better in return.

Ah it makes sense now.

[grub]

This makes sense.

When I was looking for accommodations in San Francisco from my MacBook Air, I was offered the executive suite at the 'Beef Chunks in Gravy Bath House'. I could never figure that one out.

Re:Ah it makes sense now.

[Shrike82]

This makes sense.

Indeed. Most travel sites, and general shopping sites, initially organise things by what they call "Relevance", and in many cases this is a totally ambiguous term! Relevance for them can surely mean which supplier paid them the most for advertising. Organising results based on someone's hardware, if a correlation can be shown between the hardware and end choices for accommodation in this case, actually seems pretty sensible and less sinister than what I'd usually expect.

Looking forward to reading all the paranoid and rage filled comments though...

Linux users

[GameboyRMH]

...will see offers for "escort services"

Users browsing with IE will be offered a helmet and padded walls.

Users logged into Facebook will be given the option to reduce their costs by selling video from hidden cameras inside the hotel room.

Re:Linux users

[Golddess]

Even nerds living in their mother's basement go to conventions that are too far to drive to / be driven to.

Re:Linux users

[Samantha Wright]

The solution to that is clearly a mesh network of mothers' basements, not any of the above.

Re:Linux users

[An ominous Cow art]

I'm imagining a Beowulf Cluster of mothers' basements...

Re:Linux users

[hippo]

It's called slashdot.org

Suprised This Doesn't Happen More Often

[rsmith-mac]

To be honest I'm surprised we don't see this kind of thing more often. Not just on travel sites, but on any kind of site that doesn't have strict MSRP pricing such as Amazon. Certain platforms absolutely attract certain demographics, and unlike tracking/profiling you don't have to spend time building as profile as all of this data is conveniently offered up by the browser with page requests.

XP? Why stop there?

[davidbrit2]

Change it to Windows ME, and you can get the senior discounts.

In other news

[DarkOx]

Study shows people driving luxury cars tended to park them outside nicer restaurants

Is anyone really surprised?

[onyxruby]

Really, is anyone seriously surprised by this? People who value convenience and having someone provide a service for them instead of doing something themselves might hold those same values for other things like paying for hotels. In other words people who are willing to pay 30% more for hardware might be willing to pay 30% more for other things too!!!

Marketers have figured this out. Next big surprise, organic shopping markets are full of Lexus and Mercedes cars? I think this really advanced concept might have been taught in the second week of marketing 101, maybe?

Linux users

[goombah99]

Linux users would be given the address of a home depot, a list of vacant lot sites, and a "makefile" for building a hotel. Unfortunately, there would be library dependencies with links to unmaintained building codes.