Pricing News
There’s good news on the YHA web site for those is search of a Christmas bargain – the Association’s “Crunch Buster Sale” is offering beds in 60 hostels around the country for just £10 or £15 a night throughout the month of December.
It’s a shame that, thanks to flexible pricing, the sale price is sometimes less than the “from” price. For example, if your thrilled at the prospect of staying at Minehead for only £10 a night, the shine may be taken off when you discover that the normal price promoted on the hostel’s web page is £9.95.
That’s the problem with flexible pricing – if the only price you show with any prominence is the lowest price ever charged, anything above that mark looks like a rip-off, especially if it’s a “sale” price. Oh well, at least you can now find out the correct price for any given night if you can access the web site and know where to look. If you don’t know where to look – try clicking the “Check Availability” box on a hostel’s page. As well as availability, it also has the prices!
Even more buried on the site is even better news about pricing:
The Government’s decision to cut VAT from December 1st 2008 gives a much needed boost to YHA and will now enable us to freeze our price bands at 2008 levels throughout 2009.
So, for once, there won’t be anybody grumbling about excessive rises in overnight prices next year – because prices aren’t going to change at all!
STOP PRESS: A post in the uk.rec.youth-hostel points out an interesting case. Thurlby YH was already being promoted with a £9.95 per person per night midweek winter offer. Now, as a result of this “sale”, the midweek price has gone up by 5p!
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Can anyone explain the following to me? I noted on the website (under the Ambleside hostel listing) the following:
“Open every day of the year. There will be limited opening between 24th November 2008 and 15th February 2009 at YHA Ambleside.”
So, is it open or isn’t it? I read on to discover that prices at Ambleside are (for a dorm bed for an adult) ‘from £13.95′ per night (B & B pricing) and that the quoted prices are valid until 28th February 2009. Try as I might, I could not find anything at £13.95. Such was my suspicion that this low price did not exist that I trawled through all the days from tomorrow (22nd December 2008) until 28th February 2009.
Here’s what I found:
From 22 Dec to 28 Dec the following message was displayed:
“Sorry there is no on-line availability at the hostel you selected, or at the nearest alternatives. Please change your selection using the form on the right hand side or telephone 01629 592700.” Then the following prices were displayed:
29 Dec £15.95 30 Dec £15.95
(not £13.95, note!)
31 Dec Message as above 1 Jan £21.95
2 Jan £19.95 3 Jan £19.95
From thereon in the message was displayed except for the following dates (which are Friday and Saturday nights):
9 Jan £19.95 10 Jan £19.95
16 Jan £21.95 17 Jan £21.95
23 Jan £19.95 24 Jan £19.95
30 Jan £21.95 31 Jan £21.95
6 Feb £21.95 7 Feb £21.95
13 Feb £21.95 14 Feb £21.95
20 Feb £21.95 21 Feb £21.95
27 Feb £21.95 28 Feb £21.95
WHY IS THE YHA ADVERTISING ‘FROM £13.95′ WHEN THERE IS NOTHING DURING THE PERIOD INDICATED THAT IS AT THAT PRICE FOR AN ADULT? Sorry to shout but surely this is an offence against the Fair Trading Act (or some aspect of Consumer Law). People are going to see ‘from £13.95′ when in reality they are likely to be paying £21.95. What is going on?
Marie
The prices advertised are for the period 1 March 2008 – 28 Feb 2009 so you need to check back as well as forward.
There are a couple of possibilities about why you can’t find a £13-95 price between now and the end of Feb
1) Ambleside is currently on limited opening. It should be closed for a refurb but this is delayed so as there are only limited staff available the opening is limited to weekends only at the moment. It mey well have been that the £13-95 price was covered by some of the dates that the hostel is now not open.
2) Or the hostel is fully booked on the nights when the price is £13-95.
It’s not an offence under the Trades Description Act 1968 to advertise a lowest rate even if it’s only offered one night a year. You can be prosecuted if you advertise something as being at a sale price when it’s not been offered at the higher price e.g. “now £99-95 reduced from £149-99″ is an offence if you’ve not sold the goods at £149-99 previously.
The train companies work in exactly the same way over advance fares and I haven’t seen them being taken to task over it. If you advertise something at a certain price then you only have to have a limited number of those items available, once you’ve sold out, that’s it. There’s no obligation to have that price available at all times.
Thanks, Nigel. I tried checking back but the website doesn’t allow checking backwards, only forwards. How very handy!
Well it is an availability checker :) not much use for past days. (Also databases like that tend to rack up space if you use them cumulatively rather than keep refreshing the data, so from a sys admin point of view it’s sensible to keep it as small as possible.)
I did check forward through all of 2009 for Ambleside and I think the cheapest I found was £15-95 (some Sundays in March and November) but prices for Jan/Feb 2010 aren’t on their yet.