How we decide a discount is real every threshold, published

A discount is a claim about two prices. Most sites compare with a crossed-out number nobody ever paid. We compare only against prices we measured ourselves — and the rules below are the ones the engine actually runs on, read from the same file it reads.

1. We record what a hotel actually costs

Every day we ask our supplier what a stay really costs for specific dates, and we keep the answer. Not a headline rate — the price for those dates, that occupancy, that board. One reading is worth little; a series is worth everything.

2. A hotel’s own baseline

A hotel’s baseline is the median of its own measured prices for the same dates. We call a baseline reliable only when we have enough of it:

10separate measurements, at minimum
14 daysthe readings must span at least this long

Below that we do not call anything a discount against the hotel’s own level. A short series can be a coincidence.

3. When we say a price is genuinely low

There are exactly two ways a price can qualify, and we always say which one:

−10% or moreBelow its own measured median. The strongest evidence we have: this hotel, these dates, its own history.
−22% or moreBelow comparable hotels. Used when the hotel’s own history is not yet reliable. The comparison is the median of hotels with the same star rating, in the same place, for the same dates — and only when at least 10 such hotels exist, so the median means something.

4. What we refuse to show

Anything more than 60% below the median of its own class is dropped, not celebrated. Star ratings from suppliers are sometimes wrong, and a “4-star for €11 a night” is a mislabelled hotel, not a bargain. Past that line the data is more likely broken than the price is good — and what we do not understand, we do not show.

We also drop anything we have not re-measured in the last 60 hours. A stale price is not a measurement.

5. The TOP SAVING mark

The mark is not a fixed number. It is the 90th percentile of the savings actually on our front page right now — so it always means “among the very best we currently measure”, not “above some figure we once picked”. It additionally requires at least €100 saved and at least 50% below the comparison, so a large percentage on a cheap room does not earn it on its own.

6. When a destination gets its own page

A place appears at our index and gets its own page only when it has real, current measurements behind it:

3+different hotels measured below their level
2+separate date windows, so one lucky week is not a trend
max 3offers from any single hotel, so one property cannot fill a page

7. Renovation data

Where a hotel has a sourced building record, we show it — the year it was last renovated, with the quote and the link it came from. That data is not ours: it comes from HotelChrono, which publishes a year only when a named source backs it. We treat a renovation as recent news for 3 years — so in 2026 that means 2023 onward.

What this is not

It is not a prediction. We do not tell you a price will fall, because we do not know. It is not every hotel on earth either — it is the hotels we measure, and the list is at Hotels we measure. And it is not a guarantee of availability: the price you see is the price we last recorded, and it is re-checked with the supplier before you pay.