This week in hotel prices

1. 1. 310 of 409 hotels had a listing 5% or more below the going rate

   In the October 3, 2026 snapshot, 310 of the 409 hotels with a price (75.8%) had at least one booking site listing the stay 5% or more below the going rate, the rate most sites agreed on. Where one did, the median gap was 18.3%, about $31 a night before taxes and fees. In the 15 earlier snapshots (each run counted on its own) the share ranged from 61.2% to 80.8%; this snapshot was inside that range.

2. 2. Vio.com and Super.com tied for the lowest price most often

   Among the 310 hotels with a listing 5% or more below the going rate, Vio.com and Super.com each had the lowest price at 49 (15.8%), then trivago DEALS at 39 and Traveluro at 31. At 279 of the 310 (90.0%), the cheapest listing named no room, so its price alone does not say which room it buys.

3. 3. At 42% of hotels, another site listed free cancellation for the same price or less

   At 171 of 409 hotels, the lowest rate on at least one of Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com or Agoda had no free cancellation while another site listed free cancellation for the same price or less (within 2%). The label is the one Google Hotels showed; the deadline and terms are on each site. More: is free cancellation worth it?

4. 4. Hotels priced again: the going rate was a median 0.8% higher

   We priced again the 239 hotels of 14 cities whose newest snapshot was the oldest; 233 had a going rate both times. For a stay 8 days later, at the same 35 days out, their going rate was a median 0.8% higher: more than 2% up at 113 and more than 2% down at 104. Of the 193 that had a listing 5% or more below the going rate before, 154 still had one, and at 48 of those the cheapest site was the same. Two different stays: this is how the same hotels' prices for the same lead time moved, not the same stay priced twice.

5. 5. 261 of 409 answers were priced for a traveler in the US

   Every search asked Google Hotels for prices for a traveler in the US, in US dollars. By the booking sites' links, 261 of the 409 answers with a price were priced for a visitor in the US, 143 for a visitor in another country and 5 named no country. A site that prices by the visitor's country can show a US traveler a different price: the caveat, with what we found.

Snapshot by snapshot

Each day the study priced its own set of cities, so these rows are not a price trend for the same hotels. Before taxes and fees, as the study's CSVs count them.

Method and data

The going rate is the rate the largest number of listings agree on, with ties broken low; a cheaper listing is one 5% or more below it. A new city's hotels are the first 20 hotel-type results Google Hotels returns for "hotels in city"; a city priced again keeps the hotels of its previous snapshot, each priced by its Google property token. Prices are as Google Hotels listed each site that day; sites it did not list are not in the data. Full method, every earlier snapshot and the caveats: the hotel price dispersion study. Each hotel's measured prices, all-in: hotel prices by city.

Per-hotel data for this snapshot (CC BY 4.0): hotel-price-dispersion-2026-10-r17-weekly.csv.