Hi all. I did a hotel booking a few days ago thru Agoda. Then, today I realised the price is more cheaper than few days back. Is it recommended to just cancel my previous booking and make a new booking? (it is free cancellation, btw). Thank you.

I'm not sure if there's a new system in place

However, my last experience with Agoda is there was never an option for you to choose whether to pay in your own currency or let the bank do the currency exchange like how Paypal always do it. They will show the final amount in foreign currency but when the payment day comes, everything is charged in MYR (currency conversion done by Agoda)

I'll be interested to know if the BOLDED part above is true.

Hi. Got a question. There's this ryokan I'm interested in and everywhere I searched (bBooking.com, this trusty Japanese site I use quite often...never used Agoda before) the total comes up to about JPY72,600/pax excluding the onsen tax of JPY450/pax. It's only on Agoda via TripAdvisor on my mobile that I found a similar package for about JPY54,300 including the onsen tax. When converted to local currency, that's about MYR2085 today. If I were to lock down the price in JPY now, does it matter even if I get charged more in conversion when it's time to pay, when everywhere else charges almost JPY20,000 more anyway? If this is the case, should I just throw caution to the wind and go with Agoda? Thanks in advance.

Whoops. Seems I quoted only the base price. The total price at Agoda including all service charges and taxes is JPY66,216, because it has a discount of JPY6,834 from the standard charge of JPY76,200, which is the price all other sites I've looked at are charging. And they're throwing in the JPY450/pax onsen tax as well while other sites exclude it. Whether or not they charge a bit more later in MYR compared to today, if it's ultimately quite a bit cheaper than others in JPY, then it stands to reason that I should go with Agoda, right? Or is there something I'm missing?

Sorry for the lengthy question but this place I'm considering isn't cheap and I want to cover all my bases before taking the plunge, since I've never used Agoda before.

Go with the pay now option OR pay later at property during check in option
- Pay now means you'll pay whatever Agoda quoted you today
- Pay later means you'll pay the property during check-in with JPY (in your case, it'll be 66,216 yen)

Actually, seeing as Agoda jacks up the price if you choose to pay through then later even if you set the display price to MYR on the grounds of adjusted conversion rate (if my understanding of older posts in this thread is correct),  what's to stop them from jacking it up even if you picked the property's currency as the display price? Like, if I agreed to pay JPY10k, the final price won't be jacked up to JPY12k or anything like that, will it? Can they even do that? Because while the first is plausible, the second just seems highly illegal. They can't do that, right? Whatever's stated on my credit card bill, that would be the bank's MYR conversion to whatever I agreed to in JPY, right? Does anyone have any idea?

Display price is one thing, transaction being completed in different currency is another. 

This whole thread started when I noticed my bookings were not charged in foreign currency and Agoda was doing the conversion from their end, and not from the bank's end (in the credit card bill, the Agoda transaction went through as MYR even though the hotel was a foreign hotel). So when Agoda is doing the conversion, the rates were higher and outright ridiculous in some cases when MYR was fluctuating madly back then. 

The loophole here lies in the final transaction's currency. I'm not sure how does Agoda works nowadays as some member mentioned recently that there's an option for you to complete your transaction completely in foreign currency which is acceptable (eg, Japan Hotel, charge in JPY, final transaction goes through in JPY with no conversion from Agoda's end, your credit card bank will handle the currency conversion hence your credit card bill will show the transaction in JPY + conversion details).

As long as your billing option is still JPY, if they quote you 10k JPY, you just have to make sure your credit card bill appear as 10k JPY (let the bank/Visa/MasterCard do the conversion during the payment date).

This is the same as using PayPal when purchasing online using foreign currency. Except PayPal gives you the option to choose how you want to be billed.
(i) Let PayPal handle the conversion and PayPal will bill you in your local currency
(ii) Let the bank/MasterCard/Visa handle the conversion PayPal will bill you in the specified currency -> always the cheaper option
https://i.imgur.com/5kUyPxT.png 

I see. I picked JPY as the display price and then, in the page where they ask you to input your credit card info, there's a drop down menu where I got to pick between JPY and MYR， I picked JPY. I'm hoping that will work because I'm seriously wary of Agoda after all that's been said here but the place I want to stay at is too expensive for me not to consider cheaper alternatives to stay there.
So the price offered at Agoda is JPY66,216, inclusive of everything but I will be charged via Agoda if I don't cancel about a week before the dates I booked.
And the price offered at the hotel's JP website is JPY69,300 and most likely not inclusive of bathing tax (which is another JPY1,350 total for us to be added on), which I can of course choose to pay at the hotel.
The difference is not a small one as the latter would come up to more than JPY4,000 more. In all your experience of traveling and using Agoda, which would you pick?

this topic only applicable for those who travel overseas? Local travel not a problem right?

evilhomura89 If pay at hotel/property, we pay directly to the hotel or still go through agoda? Which one better? Any cons of paying at property?