I booked a room at the Park Plaza in Beijing on Agoda.com recently. For those who don't want to read my whole story, I'll simply report that the price I was shown when I entered from Kayak was a couple of dollars cheaper than the price when I entered from TripAdvisor, and both were MUCH cheaper than when I entered from ebates (Rakuten). Has anyone else noticed this and found an even cheaper way in? The price when entering from Kayak and TA is definitely cheaper than other sites, at least for the hotel I booked. I read in another thread here that Agoda is owned by Priceline, and I recall from past experience that prices did go up if you came in from ebates, so I guess that part should not be surprising (and no, the rebate amount did not cover the increase in price).

Here's my story. I booked a room a couple of weeks ago and realized after I had booked that I had chosen the pay in advance rate (but with free cancellation). I then decided to cancel the reservation and rebook with the option to pay 2 days prior to my visit. Bad move! When I went to rebook, the price was higher than I had booked at! (I should have rebooked first and then cancelled!) So I didn't end up rebooking and went back to the site several days later to try again. Couldn't get the cheap price and found my open Trip Advisor tab and clicked Agoda from there again and voila -- cheap price! So I booked. I subsequently found that by going in thru Kayak I got an even cheaper price, but I wasn't up for cancelling and rebooking again to save $4 on a $300 charge.

Oddly on the original book/cancel transactions, Chase ended up refunding 15c (USD) less than they charged me on my CSR, even though the purchase and refund were dated the same day.