The large price shown on a hotel's search-results thumbnail is, in most cases, the lowest available rate for that property across any room type, any occupancy, and any dates within your search — not necessarily the rate for the specific room you'll actually end up choosing. It's an entry point, not a quote.
Clicking into the property page often reveals that headline rate belongs to a room type with limited or no view, a smaller square footage, or an occupancy of one guest when you searched for two. The room that actually fits your trip is frequently priced higher, sometimes considerably so, than the number that drew you in.
This isn't unique to any one platform — it's a near-universal convention across search-results design, because a lower headline number improves click-through rates. It's not deceptive in a strict sense, since the rate is real and bookable, but it's engineered to represent the best case rather than the typical case.
The fix is simple in practice: treat the search-results price as a floor for that property, not a quote, and do the real comparison at the room-selection page where you can see the specific room type, occupancy, and rate plan you'd actually be booking. That's the number worth comparing across platforms.
