What’s bad about that? It’s clear as crystal. 2X plus 1X. Triple.
Well, “three times less” could also mean
a) 1/4 the price
b) Item A is at 10% discount, Item B is at 30% discount
Not the most obvious or intuitive but also not out of the realms of plausibility
You got this wrong!!
If I get a bowl of 100 spoons of ice-cream, 97 of those spoons won’t have fat.
So if I choose to eat the “correct” 97 spoons, and feed the other three to my wife, I haven’t consumed any fat. 
You guys are adorable.
The word you are looking for is “semantically.” There is nothing wrong with the syntax of the sentence.
If the product costs X, 3 times is 3X. 3 times less is X - 3X = -2X ?
Yes, among people who treat language as a completely logical construct. Which it is not.
I hate these phrasings for that reason, because you don’t know for certain WTF anyone is trying to convey. Don’t try doing math on language. People don’t treat language as math. Or, that is, some people do, and others don’t. Hence the confusion.
What’s bad is that a lot of people, even smart ones like Chronos, get it wrong. And unlike “3 times less”, it’s totally ambiguous. No one should use that construct any more. I haven’t seen the same problem with “X times as much”.
It’s still somewhat ambiguous, I’d argue. To me, “twice as much” clearly means 2X, but I can see somebody making an argument for 2X+X or 3X. It’s tricky.
Now, “two times MORE” should mean 2X + X but, still, language ain’t math, so it can mean different things to different people.
For some reason, though, there doesn’t seem to be confusion if you say “10% more”. Of course that means 110% total. I was always taught that “as much” and “more” had clear and distinct interpretations, but obviously not everyone makes the same distinction.
Actually, I asked this before - Is "X times as much" the same as "X times more"? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board and we couldn’t get consensus the last time either.
If X/3 is “three times less” and X/2 is “two times less”, can I characterize X/1 as “one times less”?
Two times more is x2. 200% more is x3. Why? I don’t know, but that’s how those phrasings are always used.
Huh?
Look, if two times more is x2, that implies that one times more is x1. So one times more means the very same amount. I hope you can see how preposterous that is.
Two times = 200%
Ergo, two times more = 200% more. Both of them mean x3.
That may be how those phrasings are used, but only by people who are wrong.
Norma Loquendi laughs at your futile attempts to control her.
Which neatly explains why nobody ever uses the phrase “one times more”.
Actually, nobody uses it because it’s stilted and awkward. There is nothing arithmetically incoherent about it.
Idioms are irrational but not stupid.
Yeah.
So what about “0.5 times more”? The usage is a bit rare, but not unheard of (pg 11–sorry for the pdf, but it’s the first unambiguous use I could find). It refers to 150% in that document.
I also wonder what people’s stance on “again as much” is. As in “half again as much” or “twice again as much”. I consider these to be 150% and 300% respectively.
Actually, b) is the only one that can have meaning.
And even then, its having meaning relies on the non-discounted value being specified.