We have been seeing a lot of these offers lately. Here’s what the offer looks like:

The basic offer:

• $50 off $100 Travelocity hotel booking (Sounds good so far)

Fine Print:

• Minimum 2 nights (Sounds okay so far)
• Cannot stack gift cards (So if you buy 2 of these and hope to use them in one transaction — not possible)
• Minimum $250 for both nights exclusive of taxes (Not good)

The deal is not $50 off $100, but rather $50 off $250 + taxes or a 20% discount. That does not sound as good as 50% off. Honest advertising would be nice — so this belongs in the bad deals category for deceptive advertising. This type of promotion, even if at the end of the day does save the consumer some money, does not build goodwill with consumers since most do not read the fine print.