Is price matching in online shopping a scam?
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&#x27;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&#x27;s not how it works - &quot;price matching&quot; is just a language used to increase conversion for sellers with trusted brand (e.g. Booking.com vs some cheaper website the customers don&#x27;t trust), where they promise the price will be as low as anywhere on the internet, but actually, this rarely&#x2F;never happens.<p>Given that a lot of industries where price matching applies (concerts &amp; transportation tickets, accomodation) also almost always utilize  dynamic pricing, by the time of processing a price matching request by the seller, competitor&#x27;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&#x27;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.<p>Hacker News, have you ever managed to get a price match on a hotel&#x2F;concert&#x2F;flight ticket? Any tips? Is there a business incentive there I didn&#x27;t mention that could be useful in my future claims?