Are they simply showing pricier offers, or are they showing the exact same offers but with the prices raised? The former is annoying but not inherently evil, but the latter would be terrible.
http://www.pricingforprofit.com/pricing-explained/differenti...
We sure as hell _experimented_ to see if the decrease in conversions by bumping margins (and hence prices) up was worthwhile in terms of total profit.
I'd happily make an argument that if the first is morally "OK" then so is the second…
Did you also test a popup saying "Hi, you're a first-time visitor to our website, we can discount this room rate 10% if you book today"? :)
They are instead offerent more expensive hotels to Mac users - on the reasonable assumption that Mac owners are higher spenders compared to somebody connecting from a free PC in a public library.
[...] search results for hotels in cities including Las Vegas,
Orlando, Philadelphia and Boston were the same for both Macs and PCs.
A New York search turned up more expensive hotels for Mac users, but
only after the first 20 listed.
[...] A Mac search for a hotel in Miami Beach for two nights in July
displayed costlier boutique hotels on the first page of results, such
as Sagamore, the Art Hotel and the Boulan South Beach, that weren't
displayed on the PC's first page. Among hotels appearing in both searches,
some pricier options (such as the $212 Eden Roc Renaissance and the $397
Fontainebleau) were listed higher on the Mac. [...]With e-commerce it only makes sense to put the best-fit offers in the front of the store, for everyone involved.
Or, owning a Mac may be positively correlated with having less disposable income, since the higher price of a Mac took more of your disposable income to purchase.