Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - What is up with Kayak's pricing?

Over the last few weeks, i've searched Kayak for hotels and thought I found a great price to submit for a BRG, only to find out that when i click on the link to book to match up the rooms, the price goes up to match or exceed the hotel's website. Seems pretty misleading that they keep showing a lower price on one of their listed sites (or even on their own) and then you try to book and it is a different price. Anybody else seeing this? Example...this Saturday (Aug 4th) in Omaha...Kayak lists Hilton Omaha at $96 (via Easy Click Travel), Hilton's own website shows it at $119...but go to book on Kayak, price changes to $119.

I've noticed that as well. Also, they will always list the Kayak price as the 'bolded' price, even if there is a lower price. Example: You are looking for a hotel in city X, and set the filter to pay under $150/night (or sort by price and only look for hotels up to $150). Hotel Y is available at $139/night on various other sites, but because Kayak only has it available for $169, you miss it because Kayak will sort/filter/show it with the $169 price.

I always assumed that Kayak cached the last search results, and didn't re-search until you click through and try to purchase the room. That doesn't really bug me too much... but it's a serious flaw if Kayak filters the price based on the Kayak price instead of the lowest price. :(

The problem is even worse when you search for a price in different currencies than US$ when they do a very low exchange rate conversion. And they seem to forget to add the tax on the initial Kayak price.

Complain to Kayak. I did and nothing was ever done. This has been going on since they started posting KAYAK prices.
Maybe if enough people complain they will do something.
Their response to me was they did not see what I see.

I think they actually encourage this as it allows them to show up with better prices in other met search/comparison shopping engines. Plus their algorithm works like that and only caches prices once a day or less so I would not be surprised to see this to stick around.

Also I found major descrpencay when choosing +/- 3 days for international fare. The day you have searched always looks comparatively cheaper than other days. I think it's more to do with a glitch in the search in the matrix rather than a marketing ploy.

With a billion dollar IPO to be coming out, they can certainly cache more than once a day. !

I noticed this always happens with one particular site they quote: Agoda. The quoted rate on Kayak is always less than the one shown on Agoda's site itself after you click on it. Perhaps, the data provided is outdated but it borders on false advertising.

We are assuming it's a Kayak issue. I have always felt it was with the provider you click through to that offers the price. It would be to their advantage, not necessarily Kayak's, to make available fares to sites like Kayak that are not really available. Many people will just take the upped price and shrug it off. I have noticed this on almost all aggregating travel sites (Kayak,Hipmonk, Ex, Trav. etc.