Why does Google Hotels show a lower price than my website?

Google doesn't sell rooms. Its booking module lists prices from partners, which Google describes as "hotel owners, online travel agencies, metasearch engines, and other travel providers", and says it supplements them with "additional data obtained by Google from across the web" (Google Travel Help (opens in a new tab)).

Three things on that panel matter here:

• Paid links are marked "Ads" and listed under "Featured options" (Google Travel Help (opens in a new tab)). Free booking links are unpaid, and ranked separately from the ads (Google Hotel Center Help (opens in a new tab)).
• The official site badge goes only to the hotel itself or a partner sending the hotel's own rates: an owner, a direct supplier, a CRS or an integration partner. An OTA never gets it (Google Hotel Center Help (opens in a new tab)).
• A price with an asterisk (*) is a customised price. It can depend on the device, on being signed in to Google, or on an audience list (Google Travel Help (opens in a new tab)).

Hotels and booking sites can sign up to list their prices at no cost (Google Hotel Center Help (opens in a new tab)). That's why the list for your hotel can include names you've never dealt with.

Rule these out before you chase anyone. They take minutes.

Is it starred?

An asterisked price may be a members' price, a mobile price or a price for signed-in users. Google requires member rates to be marked as such and bookable once the guest signs up or signs in (Price Accuracy Policy (opens in a new tab)). A starred members' price is still a lower price, but it's a different problem from a leaked rate. Our Booking.com guide covers member prices and mobile rates on that channel.

Is it the same stay?

Click through. Compare the room, the board, the cancellation terms, the number of guests and the dates with what you sell on your own site. A room-only, non-refundable offer against your breakfast-included flexible rate isn't an undercut. It's two different products. Comparing like for like is the whole job.

Is it the full price?

Google requires partners to include every mandatory tax and fee in the price they send, and to show the same breakdown on their booking page (Taxes and Fees Policy (opens in a new tab)). Compare the final total on the seller's booking page, not the headline figure.

Is your own price right?

If the seller only looks cheap because your official-site price on Google is missing or out of date, the problem is your own feed. That comes from your booking engine or connectivity partner, so ask them first.

Once you've ruled those out, the seller is really cheaper. It's almost always one of these.

Online travel agencies you don't contract with

Smaller online agencies and regional OTAs. Many don't hold a contract with you. They buy your rooms from a wholesaler or a bedbank and resell them at their own price.

Wholesalers and bedbanks

Companies that buy rooms from hotels at a net rate and sell them on to tour operators, travel agents and websites. Some sell to consumers through their own sites or through affiliates. Hotels usually give them a net rate meant to be bundled into a package or sold only to the trade.

Affiliates and resellers

Websites that don't hold inventory at all. They take rates from a bedbank or a larger OTA's affiliate programme and list them under their own name.

Metasearch sites that pass rates along

Google's own policy covers partners that "surface prices from other booking providers" and send users off-site to book (Referral Experience Policy (opens in a new tab)). The name on Google may not be the company that actually takes the booking.

Not every unknown seller is a leak

Some of them are sister brands of OTAs you already work with, or channels your channel manager connects without your noticing. Check your channel manager's partner list before you assume the worst.

A wholesale rate is a net rate: the hotel's price before the reseller adds its margin. It's usually priced below your public rate on the understanding that it won't be sold to the public on its own. It goes inside a flight-and-hotel package, or behind a travel agent's login.

Rate leakage is what happens when that understanding breaks:

1. You give a wholesaler a net rate for packages.
2. The wholesaler sells it on to a second wholesaler or a bedbank, which may never have agreed to your terms.
3. Somewhere down that chain, a website sells the room on its own, with a small margin, for less than your public price.
4. That website sends its prices to Google Hotels, or to a metasearch partner that does.

Lighthouse, which sells parity tools to hotels, puts it plainly: "many wholesalers are selling contracted rates to uncontracted OTAs" (Lighthouse, 2019 (opens in a new tab)).

Two things make it worse. Dynamic wholesale rates, pegged to a fixed discount off your public rate, often open far more of your inventory than an old fixed allocation did (the same Lighthouse post makes this point). And the longer the chain, the less anyone in it knows your terms.

You can't fix a leak until you know which contract it came from. Work through these in order.

1. Record what you saw

Write down the seller's name as Google shows it, the date, the guests, the room, the board, the cancellation terms, the total and the currency. Take a screenshot of Google and of the seller's booking page. Offers change within hours, so this is your evidence.

2. Read the offer

A room name that isn't one of yours, room-only when you never sell room-only, or cancellation terms you never loaded: each one points to a rate that left through a wholesale contract rather than your channel manager. Check whether the rate exists anywhere in your extranets or channel manager. If it doesn't, it came from outside.

3. Make a test booking yourself

This is the most reliable way to trace it. Book the offer yourself, ideally a refundable one, or one far enough out to cancel. Then watch how the reservation reaches you. It arrives through one of your partners, and that partner is your source, or the first link in the chain. The booking reference, the rate code and the voucher usually tell you which one.

Some hotels train the front desk to do the same with real bookings from a suspect seller: read the confirmation and note which partner it came through. Lighthouse suggests the same step (Lighthouse, 2019 (opens in a new tab)).

A test booking costs money and staff time, so save it for undercuts that repeat or that cost you real bookings.

4. Read the contract

Once you know the partner, check what you actually agreed:

• Can they sell the rate on its own, or only in a package or behind a login?
• Can they sell it on to other wholesalers? Must they name them?
• Can the rate appear on public sites or metasearch?
• What happens when they breach it: a warning, a suspended allocation, the end of the contract?

If the contract doesn't say, that's the first thing to change at renewal.

5. Fence the rate

Rate fencing means putting conditions on a rate so it can't be sold like a public room:

• Package-only or trade-only terms, written into the contract.
• A minimum stay, advance purchase or non-refundable terms that differ from your public rate.
• Room names or rate codes unique to each wholesaler, so a leaked offer shows where it came from.
• Net rates priced so they can't undercut you once a normal margin is added.

Then raise it with the partner. If it keeps happening, end the allocation.

Be clear about what Google polices. Its rules are about accuracy: the price a user sees on Google must be the price they can book on the partner's page (Referral Experience Policy (opens in a new tab)). Google says it validates prices regularly, "with a combination of automated tools and manual processes", and turns off most or all of a partner's ads and free booking links when its accuracy score falls to "At Risk" or "Failed" (Price Accuracy Policy (opens in a new tab)).

A cheaper price that really is bookable, from a partner that got your rooms through a wholesale chain, doesn't break Google's accuracy rules. That's a contract problem, and it's solved with the partner, not with Google.

When a report fits

Google's Prohibited Practices policy links to a "Google Hotels and Vacation Rentals issue report" form (Prohibited Practices Policy (opens in a new tab)). Its categories include:

• Price mismatch: the price on the partner's landing page doesn't match Google's.
• Unbookable rates.
• Inaccurate base rates, or inaccurate taxes and fees.
• Undisclosed private rates: members-only or similar prices not marked as such.
• Unauthorized inventory: the partner isn't authorised to sell the property it's showing.

Each form covers one partner and one issue, and asks for the Google Hotels link, the partner's landing page, the user country and screenshots (the form (opens in a new tab)). Google says it's "usually unable to respond to individual submissions".

Who can file it

The form asks for "Your Partner Name" and "Your Hotel Center ID", both required. In practice it's for Google Hotels partners. If your prices reach Google through your booking engine or a connectivity partner, it's that company that has a Hotel Center account. Send them your evidence and ask them to file it.

Hotel Center used to have a tool for reporting other partners' price violations. Google retired it as of 31 January 2024 (Google Hotel Center Help (opens in a new tab)). Older advice that tells you to file there is out of date.

If a CRS or integration partner shows the badge

If a third party sends your rates with the "official site" badge and you don't want it to, Google's answer is to ask that advertiser to stop sending your rates (Google Hotel Center Help (opens in a new tab)).

Everything above works for one stay on one day. The seller list on Google changes daily, and a leaked rate can run for weeks before a guest mentions it.

StayParity reads the sellers Google Hotels shows next to your hotel, alongside Booking.com and Expedia, and puts each price beside your direct price for the same stay. Where the offers say what they include, it matches room, guests, board, tax basis and cancellation first, so a room-only rate against your half-board doesn't raise a false alarm, and a comparison it can't match that closely is labelled Cheapest rooms. Each undercut goes into a list, with the seller's name, the stay date and the guests. It links to the seller's offer, which is where step 1 above starts. Reports export your undercuts to CSV when you need the history for a conversation with a partner.

Two limits, so you know what you're buying. For Google Hotels sellers, the price is the one Google lists: other sellers' sites aren't checked. A Booking.com or Expedia undercut is confirmed on that channel's own page when you've given us your listing there. And StayParity doesn't make test bookings. It tells you where and when you're undercut; this guide helps you find why.

Terms like BAR, bedbank and official site are in the glossary. Where the law stands on parity clauses in Europe is in our guide to EU rate parity rules. If you want your site to show guests that your price is the one to book, see the book-direct badge.

Can I make Google remove a seller from my hotel's listing?

Not directly. Google removes or penalises partners that break its policies, such as prices that aren't bookable or don't match the partner's site. A partner in the Google Hotels programme can report these through Google's issue report form. For a rate that is real and bookable, the fix is the contract it leaked from.

Is a wholesaler allowed to sell my rate on Google Hotels?

It depends on your contract. Google doesn't know what you agreed with a wholesaler. If the contract limits the rate to packages or trade sales, a standalone public sale breaks it. If it says nothing, it may not.

Why does Google show a seller I've never heard of?

Because that seller is a Google Hotels partner, or sells through one, and has your rooms from somewhere: usually a wholesaler, a bedbank or another agency's affiliate programme.

Does the "official site" price have to be the lowest?

No. It's the price your own booking engine or connectivity partner sends. Google's policy asks each partner to send the lowest rate it offers on its own site. It doesn't require the official site to beat everyone else.