This is a pretty good read. I REALLY hate booking both air travel and hotel rooms as I ALWAYS get the feeling that I'm getting fucked. It always just feels like I know someone is getting the same room on the same night or the same flight for cheaper than me. I never feel like I've won, so to speak. When booking air travel, if I can, I like to book with Southwest just because it feels better. I may be able to get a cheaper flight with some other airline by going through Priceline et. al., but I feel dirty and cheated (somehow) doing it. I just want to deal directly with the person who has the room or the flight and know that I'm getting a fair price. Is that too much to ask for?
When booking flights (and probably hotels) use incognito mode. I was booking a flight direct with united.com the other day - found the flight at ~$400 and was entering information. Got sidetracked and the booking session timed out so I started again. New price for the exact same thing: ~$700. Incognito mode (or just clearing cookies as I've heard of this happening but never saw it myself) and it was back to the old price.
Get a govt id or something that looks legit (most clerks don't want to piss you off during check in). Almost all of the big chains set their lowest rates to match CONUS rates or a certain amount over it and its almost always their best rate. I don't understand feeling fucked though, if you feel bad / can't afford an extra 10-20% over their lowest possible rate you should just stay at a discount chain. Some of them are a pretty good value, like the MicroTel chain
Human nature is incompatible with a rational sense of fairness. Everybody could start off happy with the price they paid, but upon discovering other people are also happy, will become unhappy.
You have to understand that people are, despite economics, not rational maximizers.
Most people would rather have a fair deal than a better deal - for example, if you offer to split "found money": split $100 with someone 90/10, they will probably turn it down, whereas if you offer to split $10 50/50, they'll probably say yes.
