> Most hotel chains guarantee the lowest rates on their websites To be clear: My response is not about OTA vs Google. It's OTA vs hotel. Various OTAs used to

> Most hotel chains guarantee the lowest rates on their websites To be clear: My response is not about OTA vs Google. It's OTA vs hotel. Various OTAs used to have clauses in their contracts prohibiting this. See e.g. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ad48f831-75c3-4832-960e-c378fe53e30a https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ad48f831-75c3.... They made them switch terms. Before that it was pretty much impossible for a hotel to offer a lower rate through their website. Consumers were being hurt (by OTAs) due to not being able to offer lower rates in their own website. It only changed after EU stepped in. Nowadays you see that you can book directly with the hotel, immediately become a member for free and immediately get a discount for that booking. Before the lowest rate was usually via the OTA. Then obviously people will book via the OTA.