OTA Price Parity: what the same room really costs on five sites.

What the sample shows.

Cheapest-site wins across the sample.

Each of the 20 hotel-date checks has exactly one cheapest quote. Every one of the five sites was cheapest at least once, which is the study's practical takeaway: the only reliable method is comparing the all-in total for your specific room and dates.

Every hotel-date check in the sample.

The complete sample: for each hotel and stay date, the cheapest and priciest all-in quote across the five sites, the spread between them, and which site was cheapest. All totals were captured on 2026-08-13 in USD with taxes and fees included.

How this study is built.

On the capture date, the same room type at each hotel was priced for a one-night stay on each stay date across the five OTAs, signed out, in USD, taxes and fees included, cancellation terms matched. Totals are rounded to the nearest dollar. The stay dates sampled were 2026-09-18 and 2026-11-20, chosen as one near-term and one farther-out booking window. The sample covers 10 hotels across five cities and three price tiers, so it illustrates the mechanics described in the parity explainer rather than ranking any site overall. Spreads are rounded to one decimal place; a check counts as effective parity at a spread of 2% or less and as wide at 5% or more. The capture is a snapshot: quotes on other days, for other rooms, or while signed in will differ, which is itself the study's point. A factual error is corrected with a dated note rather than a silent edit.

Common questions about the study

What does the OTA Price Parity study measure?

It prices the identical room at the same hotel for the same stay date across Agoda, Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, and Trip.com on a single capture date, then reports the spread between the cheapest and priciest all-in quote, which site was cheapest in each check, and how often the winner changed between the two sampled stay dates.

Is one booking site consistently cheapest?

No. In this sample every one of the five sites was cheapest at least once, and at several hotels the cheapest site for one stay date was not the cheapest for the other. The reliable method is comparing the all-in total for your specific room and dates rather than defaulting to one site.

How were the prices collected?

All quotes were captured on the study's stated date, signed out, in USD, with taxes and fees included, for the same room type and matching cancellation terms, then rounded to the nearest dollar. Signed-in member rates and package rates were deliberately excluded because they sit outside public rate parity.

Why do the same rooms show different prices at all?

Rate parity between hotels and their booking partners has sanctioned gaps: member pricing, package rates, and differences in how taxes, fees, and currency are displayed. The parity explainer on this site walks through each mechanism; this study measures how large the resulting gaps were on one capture date.

Does cashback change which site is cheapest?

It can. Cashback is a percentage of the booking value on eligible platforms, so a site whose all-in total is slightly higher can end up cheaper net of cashback. Compare the all-in totals first, then apply each platform's live ShopBack rate as a separate layer.

Will the study be repeated?

The capture is a dated snapshot and is preserved as published. Future editions would ship as new dated captures rather than edits to this one, so any figure quoted from this page stays true to its stated date.

Keep reading.

The study pairs with the parity explainer for the mechanics behind these gaps, the Travel Cashback Rate Index for what each booking site pays in cashback, and the effective-price guide for how cashback changes the net cost.