Misled by the Internet
You can checkout anytime you like
I really hated ads that try to target me. Or more accurately target my wallet. I wrote about Frogmore Cottage recently. A few days ago, this ad appeared in my homepage.
This ad is wrong on so many counts. It is not possible to book a stay at Frogmore Cottage. If you are not friends with anybody in the British royal family, you will not get invited. Its current occupant is on a blacklist which is why he was downgraded to the cottage. Even though the current occupants are not (relatively) wealthy, they are not going to start listing the cottage on Airbnb. Due to the last two recipients of the gift, there is also a stigma in staying in the Cottage. The current owner also has more luxurious places to house his guests.
Price
There is a saying that certain people do not want to be part of a club that wants them as a member. I can understand the rationale of that saying but having an exclusive lodging in an advertisement is meaningless. None of the residents in Frogmore Cottage paid a penny in rent. Or if they did, it was a sweetheart deal done behind closed doors.
Terms and Condition
There is a catch with living in the Frogmore Cottage. It is both at the majesty’s pleasure as well as dependent on the reign of the majesty. If the ruler buys the farm, you run a risk of losing your home. The term to describe it is grace and favour. The sad part is that the new landlord can’t even give you the common excuse “It is just business.” The new landlord will be related to the occupant.
New deal
Yesterday, there is now a price for a different hotel in England. Except that I could not find that specific hotel shown in the ad. None of the hotels advertised had a room available for the price listed in the ad.
It turned out that there was no such hotel. The picture is a stock photo. It is a bait and switch. The ad hopes to divert me to a landing page and then hopefully choose an actual alternative accommodation.
I understand the logic of using stock photos since you do not want the hotels to complain about favoritism. The other problem is that the site that I landed listed all the hotels that I assume are advertised on Bing.
The issue is that I was still given a meaningless price to a nonexistent hotel.
Final Offer
Today, there is an actual hotel that is mentioned. I guess the AI did not want me to sleep on the streets. There are two problems.
The price when I went in is not what is listed. It is different.
When I scrolled down, I saw another issue. It was giving me the price from a travel site. One of the sites not shown actually offered the price of $569. This is the part that confuses me. Why would I want to book a hotel via a middleman? In theory booking a hotel via a travel site should be identical to booking via the hotel. In practice, there can be a few catches. The middleman might not have a good relationship with the hotel. There are often markups since those travel sites are not charities. The customer is paying for them to keep their servers on. By the way, I also learnt something about websites. There are scammers who will operate a website that mimics an actual hotel or airline. It is also possible for Google or other search engine to send you to the fake site. I guess it is middlemen all the way down.
Last words
The price and the hotel are finally accurate. I do not have any clue why it wants me to stay at a hotel in an airport. It is going to costly travelling out of the airport.
