Is price matching in online shopping a scam?

2 points by gpjanik ↗ HN
Price matching is a promise from a seller (typically, and intermediary) that if you find a good somewhere cheaper, they will return you the difference (after you already paid the more expensive price). The premise is that it's better to make some profit, or even a small loss (with a view to, maybe, keep the customer for a profitable transaction at another time) than sink sales costs and walk away with nothing. However, in my perception, it's not how it works - "price matching" is just a language used to increase conversion for sellers with trusted brand (e.g. Booking.com vs some cheaper website the customers don't trust), where they promise the price will be as low as anywhere on the internet, but actually, this rarely/never happens.

Given that a lot of industries where price matching applies (concerts & transportation tickets, accomodation) also almost always utilize dynamic pricing, by the time of processing a price matching request by the seller, competitor's website almost certainly will change the price to something more expensive. On top of this, the price matching procedures (all sort of price comparison engines I've seen) are designed to be slow (e.g. 24h response time) and generally speaking, in spite of trying (multiple times, including big companies like the aforementioned Booking.com), I never succeeded to get a price matching return.

Hacker News, have you ever managed to get a price match on a hotel/concert/flight ticket? Any tips? Is there a business incentive there I didn't mention that could be useful in my future claims?

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