Guide

One price on the portal, another on your website. Where that comes from

This is one of those problems the owner notices only when a guest arrives with a printout or a phone screen. The owner sees their price in the dashboard, the guest sees a different one next to it, on the portal. Both can be true at the moment of entry, but together they destroy trust.

How the difference arises

The price on the portal was often entered once, when the listing was created. Afterwards it takes on a life of its own, in fields you do not check with every change. The price list on your website, by contrast, gets updated every season, when costs or the length of stay change. It takes only one of these places being missed.

The portal may also be adding a promotion on its end. Booking writes in section 1G of its How we work page that prices on the platform are set by the property, but that the service can fund rewards and other benefits out of its own pocket. So you see the base price, and the guest sees the discounted one. The difference does not have to come from an error in your arithmetic. It can arise in a setting you do not check together with the price list.

Fees shown separately are another common cause. The owner includes them in the price on their own website, while the portal may show them only at the booking summary. For you the total can be the same. For the guest the first number looks different, and that is the one they remember.

On top of that come the seasons. On the website the high season may start in a different week from the portal's. If each calendar has its own dates, the same night gets two different prices without any manual mistake.

Check it yourself

Pick one specific date and one room type. Open your website and the portal in two windows and write down exactly what the guest sees before booking. Do not compare the price from memory or from the owner's dashboard.

Who sees the mismatch first

The guest. You look at your prices in the dashboard and you know what you meant. The guest compares two windows side by side. In one they see your website, in the other the portal listing. They do not know the history of the change and they do not know which price came first.

If the difference only appears at payment, it is no longer a technical detail for the guest. It is information that they did not get the full answer before booking.

Why the guest trusts the portal

Because that is where they book. There they have their history of past stays, they see the rules and they know where to write when something goes wrong. The portal shows them the whole process on one screen and takes responsibility for how it runs, in a way they understand.

Your website is weaker in this comparison by definition. The guest is only just checking who you are, whether the price is current and whether anyone will answer a message. When they see two different prices, they choose the place where they already trust the process. That is usually the portal.

Where the same price can be shown differently today

Go through this list in order. Each point is a separate place to check, because one corrected price does not update the others.

Your own website. Check the price list, the calendar and the note about what the stay includes.
The property's listing on the portal. Open it as an ordinary guest, without the owner's dashboard view.
Promotion settings. See whether the portal changes the price for selected dates or guests.
Extra fees. Check cleaning, a child's stay, a pet and every fee shown at the end.
Different room types. Make sure the room's name and description mean the same thing in both places.
Seasons and dates. Compare the start and end of each season, not just a single price.
Old listings. Look for a listing you set up long ago or forgot about.
The message sent to the guest. Check whether the price given in your reply matches what they will see at the link.

Write down the date of the check as well. Prices and promotions can change before your next visit to the dashboard, so the fix alone is no proof the mismatch will not come back.

What to do when a guest arrives with a lower price

First listen to where they got it, and ask for the screen or the message from the portal. Do not settle the difference on the basis of what you remember. See whether it is a portal promotion, a fee added separately, or an ordinary discrepancy in the price list.

Then say plainly what you see in your confirmation and what you will check after they leave. If you can honestly honour the price the guest got before arrival, tell them so directly. If you cannot, do not pretend the guest's screen does not exist. Agree on a solution on the spot and write down exactly what needs fixing.

The worst thing is bouncing the guest between you and the portal. They do not know who entered the number, but they remember who kept them waiting for an answer.

How to fix this without guessing

Pick the source of truth. Decide where you record the current price, season and rules.
Make one table. Enter the room type, dates, base price and every fee separately.
Compare the guest's view. Checking the settings is not enough; open the booking page the way the guest does.
Fix all the places. After the change, go through the website, the portal, the messages and the old cards again.
Set the date of the next check. Repeat the comparison after a season or promotion change.

The short answer

The difference usually comes from several separate settings: an old price list, a promotion, fees shown in a different place, or seasons with different dates. The guest sees it first, and the portal wins their trust because there they have history and support. You can check this against your own data, date by date, without guessing which number is the right one.

You can do this yourself

Pick the nearest date when you take guests. Write down the price from your own website, the price from the portal, the fees and the conditions. Repeat this for every room type, then mark all the places where the result differs. At the end open the same pages on a phone, because that is the view your guest usually has.

If you have several portals, several seasons and old listings, the comparison grows into many evenings of work. Then I put all the sources side by side, list every place where the price differs, and hand you a list of fixes to make.

See what the audit covers