A customer using the booking site Traveluro says she was asked to leave a tip when booking a hotel.
The Reddit user @sash187 posted a screenshot of her booking page with Traveluro with the caption, “Tip on a hotel booking site!?”
In the screenshot, @sash187 was booking a hotel for four nights that came to a total cost of $168. At the bottom of the page there were three options to leave a tip for the booking site.
Starting at the lowest with a 0.8% tip of $7.50, to the highest option of 1.6% tip, $15.00.
Tip on a hotel booking site!?@#?%!$%
byu/sash187 inEndTipping
“I’d legit cancel and book directly from the hotel if I saw this,” one user responded to @sash187’s post.
Another user says, “ALWAYS BOOK DIRECT! Because if anything goes wrong with your reservation, they’ll tell you you have to speak with Booking… or whatever third party was used.”
“Exactly. Go to the hotel. It’s worth the minimal extra amount,” one agrees.
@sahs187’s post was in the Reddit group r/EndTipping. Their page states they are, “Advocating for a system where U.S. workers aren’t reliant on tips (e.g., 20% rolled into menu price)”
Hotel Engine says a few ways to tell if you’re being scammed by a booking website is “A blurry or unofficial logo, Prices that seem a little too low, even for a great deal, URLs that aren’t straightforward (such as hotels4u.123.com), An HTTP URL instead of an HTTPS URL (the “S” shows that the link is secure), especially on the checkout page.”
Other signs could be, “Claims that your account has been suspended or breached, Requests for you to reset your password or pay a fine, Only non-secure payment options (Bitcoin, bank transfer, etc., but no option to pay with debit/credit) and Odd letters/characters/symbols in place of other letters (like “ç” instead of “c”) in the website text.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Traveluro via email.
In recent headlines, a Booking.com customer says her credit card information was stolen for her Era’s Tour hotel stay. Another angry customer says Booking.com scammed her into a “trash hotel.”