A tax-related near-homicide averted

The lad and I live about 45 minutes outside of the big smug, so if we want to soak up some of that Prius-driving, sushi-eating hippy magic in a trendy bar-du-jour we have to get the Caltrain (and do the Cinderella dash about 10:30pm), get a taxi (and simper as we realize how much it cost the next morning) or book a hotel. 

One of the things that I am pretty awesome at (in addition to my navigation skills and my baking) is my ability to source cracking hotel deals in the best locations. Its not really that tough, with the arsenal of comparison sites at your fingertips, but it does take a bit of cross-checking. You check against google maps for location, check the cost of parking (very important in SF! $30 minimum. Its a freakin' joke!) and check tripadvisor. Weighing up all these fellas gives you a spanking deal 90% of the time.

Well, that was all from the UK. Now I'm in the US it should be the same, surely? SURELY??

Aw hell no! After spending 2 hours doing my usual trick and finding a splendid little boutique hotel on Union Square I click though to book and BOOM! The price jumps up by $50 to include the previously unincluded sales tax (an apparently arbitrary 14%) and the mystical 'city tax' of 2.5%. What? WHAT?? Why would I ever, EVER need to compare prices without tax. As I'm sure I've mentioned before I WILL ALWAYS NEED TO PAY THE TAX so why quote anything without it? 

And, even more frustratingly all the different comparison sites seem to include tax/exclude tax at random, so they seem to compare apples with oranges and, sometimes, badgers.

Having stamped my little feet at the fucking ridiculousness of the situation I suddenly realized that the site I had been looking at was now showing a 'total price' including all taxes. What had changed in the last 10 minutes? Had I missed something?

It turns out that I had spotted an awesome little trick that shows that these sites know their audiences. Most of them have a little flag and a title currency indicator somewhere near the top. When you select the stars and stripes it automatically chooses the greens. The interesting news is that if you select the little Union Jack and then change the GBP to USD it still shows the prices in dollars, but, in a nod to the sensibleness of the British consumer, it gives you the TOTAL price you're going to pay including taxes and fees. I nearly cried! All this extra information at my finger tips! No hidden charges! I could actually make value decisions with the numbers I had in front of my tired little peepers. God save the Queen!

So, in short, if you want to compare the total price in $$$ including taxes, make sure you select the Union Jack instead of the Stars and Stripes, and change the currency to USD.