Tell me your real rate, says HME.com editor Matt Warnock. Tell me your real rate, says HME.com editor Matt Warnock.

I live in the Middle East and, therefore, should be used to the custom of bartering.

One of the first pieces of lingo I picked up – after realising that taxi drivers continually referring to “backside” actually meant “behind” rather than the fact I put on quite a few kilos after arriving in Dubai – was the phrase “last price?”

I needed a laptop. Last price? Had to get a mobile. Last price? Fancied a new watch. Last price?

However, as fun as it was at times, sometimes I wished we could just deal in last prices straight away. Tell me how low you can reasonably go and I’ll tell you if I can afford it. Simple.

I’m starting to feel that way about hotels.

I was in a luxurious resort property last week where, a peek over the receptionist's shoulder revealed, a double room would set me back around US $625 per night.

Strange, I thought. Not because it was an excessive rate but because I’d just been told that, in reality, most guests were booking through agents at a rate closer to $250 per double room.

If hotels are willing to be so flexible which, in these times especially, is absolutely necessary, then why bother with rack rates at all?



Even in the UK – where trying to haggle with a market trader is likely to result in either uncontrollable laughter on their part, a look that would offend hardened criminals or, at the very least, a lesson in some of the more idiosyncratic elements of the English language – it’s normal for hotels to post rack rates that they have little expectation of ever being met.

Again, I ask, what’s the point?

Does it add prestige? Does it add appeal? Do guests really feel like they’re getting a better deal? I doubt it.

If anyone can explain the use of rack rates to me, tell me why they’re always so ridiculously inflated over real rate expectations and present a compelling argument for this practice, I’ll happily retract this opinion straight away.

Until then, however, I’ll be drinking in the Last Price Saloon.