A lawsuit says Expedia ranks you lower when you're cheaper elsewhere
The offer strength score, Automatic Rate Match and VIP Access in your Partner Central are now part of a court case, built mostly from Expedia's own advice to hotels
by Markus Busch
Driving the news. Three guests sued Expedia in federal court in Seattle on October 2. They say they paid too much for hotel rooms, because Expedia makes hotels charge the same price on every website. Their complaint asks to speak for every guest who has booked a US hotel since October 2022, on the hotel's own website or on a site like Booking.com or Priceline.
They name two ways Expedia does it. Your contract. And where your hotel shows up in Expedia's search results.
Your contract. The complaint quotes Expedia's standard hotel agreement. The rate you give Expedia must be "equal to or better than" the rate on your own website. The same sentence carries one exception: hotels in Australia. Expedia dropped the rule there in 2019, after the Australian regulator looked into it, and still sells those hotels. The guests say that shows the rule isn't needed.
Your place in the results. This part is new. The guests point to four things you already see in Partner Central.
The first is your offer strength score. Expedia's own guide lists four things that make up the score. Rate competitiveness is number two.
The second is how likely you are to be booked. Expedia puts those hotels at the top. The guests argue that if your room is cheaper on Booking.com, fewer people book it on Expedia, and you slip down the list.
The third is Automatic Rate Match. According to the complaint, an Expedia case study ties matching your lowest rate elsewhere to more visibility.
The fourth is VIP Access. You need a strong offer strength score to get the badge, so your rate counts there too.
The top of the list is where the bookings are. By Expedia's own 2023 data, the first 10 hotels in its results get 62% of the clicks. Its guide also says the commission Expedia earns on your stay counts toward where you rank.
The complaint shows what this looks like with one room. A king at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Austin Downtown, non-refundable, March 4 to 6, 2027: $194.74 on Expedia, $194.74 on Booking.com, $194.74 on Hilton's own site.
The catch. Guests filed this, not hotels, and nothing is proven. Most of the evidence is Expedia's public advice to hotels, plus a 2016 Expedia paper and a tech vendor's blog. There is no internal Expedia document in it. One price everywhere at a Hilton can also be Hilton's own choice, and the complaint doesn't show otherwise.
A similar US case against Expedia, other booking sites and the big chains was thrown out more than a decade ago. That one said they worked together. This one says Expedia alone is too big. By the guests' count, Expedia takes 78% of what Americans spend booking hotels on online travel sites. Choice Hotels put it closer to 70% in 2024. Expedia had not commented by October 8.
What it means for hotels. Expedia tells you rate competitiveness counts. It doesn't tell you what it compares your rate with. That is the question in this case, and you can check your side of it this week. Open Partner Central and go to the visibility page. Read the rate competitiveness line and every price alert, and write down which website each one names. Then check whether Automatic Rate Match is on, and which rate it copies. This works outside the US too: Expedia publishes the same visibility guide in German, French and Italian.
In the EU, regulators confirmed in September that Booking.com no longer looks at your prices on other websites.
Nobody has made Expedia say whether it does.
Read also: Booking.com stopped watching your website in Europe. It still decides when to sell below your rate.
Enjoying this analysis?* Hospitality.today delivers daily insights on hotel distribution, AI trends, and travel commerce — straight to your inbox. Subscribe for free at Hospitality.today →