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I've completely sworn off third-party booking services. They never know what's going on and when anything goes wrong they just tell you they can't help you. The

by imgabe 4y ago

I've completely sworn off third-party booking services. They never know what's going on and when anything goes wrong they just tell you they can't help you. Then the place tells you that they can't help you because you didn't book through them and they just point fingers at each other. Better to book directly from whatever hotel / airline / whatever you want to use. Whatever savings you might get is not worth it and a lot of times hotels appreciate direct bookings and they're cheaper anyway.

bmitc 4y ago
I agree. It never seems to go right. The third party either has the wrong room availability, wrong room type, wrong price, etc. And I actually side with the hotels because it’s exactly as if someone else bought the room for you and messed up, which the hotel can’t really deal with but they usually try. And for the most part, hotels seem like one of the last places you can still get actual customer service with.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  I think most places that require you to pay $100-200/day for the privilege of using them still have customer service.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    Most of the time those are very poor customer service
  - JamesianP 4y ago
    Sadly that's comparable to rent in some places these days, so not so special. But yes I've always been pretty happy with the level of service personally.
    - saghm 4y ago
      Yeah, the rent for my girlfriend and I is within that range, and the first two months we were in the apartment there were a total of six or seven days where our apartment had no heat and management would not answer our calls or emails until the city stepped in due to the number of complaints that we and our neighbors were filing. On the other hand, the hotel we stayed in for a bit during one of those stints had amazing customer service! They let us decide each day by 11 AM whether or not we wanted to extend our stay, and when we finally got confirmation that the heat in our apartment was working, they decided to let us stay until 1 PM with no extra charge just to save us some trouble.
  - em500 4y ago
    Serious question: how much do you think a full time customer service agent should be paid? (Some background: I've worked at customer service in the past.)
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      Depends on the rest of the hotel/hospitality equation. I imagine they can be paid more than they are and still have the hotel be profitable, but I have no idea what a reasonable amount looks like.
SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
Some locations have no option to book outside of the third party service, unfortunately. I visited Peru recently and was only able to book directly with the stay on about 1/4 of the occasions.
petedoyle 4y ago
I've spent ~150 nights in hotels in the past year, and it's super rare that booking directly is cheaper. I almost always save like 30% on Hotels.com/HotelTonight/etc. I recently wanted to extend a stay and the front desk quoted me $120/nt while Hotels.com was $107 (plus 10% back as a reward, so ~$96). I wish that weren't the case because this is 100% true: > never know what's going on and when anything goes wrong they just tell you they can't help you. Then the place tells you that they can't help you because you didn't book through them and they just point fingers at each other. I've come to rely greatly on in-app ratings/reviews before booking.
- rebuilder 4y ago
  Here, hotels have deals with booking.com etc that forbid them to post lower rates on their own websites. However, if you call to reserve, you get a discount code. I don’t know if that’s a more global practice or not.
  - dogecoinbase 4y ago
    This is exactly correct. You have to call them.
    - petedoyle 4y ago
      Oh, that's great to know. Thank you both, I'll definitely try this!! :)
    - RedShift1 4y ago
      I'd rather pay the premium than calling :-/
      - jterrys 4y ago
        Ah, the extra tax for the socially introverted
      - Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
        Same here... I'm one of those archetypical millennials that hate phone calls. Over the year I have learned to overcome my aversion to calls when making one is beneficial, but a call to someone totally unknown, and not in my native language, is one of the cases where... yeah, I'd pay the premium too.
sumedh 4y ago
> they're cheaper anyway. Sometimes they are not cheaper, the price on their site is higher compared to what you see on booking.com. Some hotels dont have a website and I dont like to book using the phone.
xivzgrev 4y ago
100% agree. You can also ask a hotel for free upgrades when you check in because you booked directly. Doesn’t always work but once in a while it does.
girvo 4y ago
Not only is it often cheaper to book directly through the hotel, they often upgrade you to a nicer suite at least here in Aus whenever I've done that. My grandfather taught me a decade ago (more even) to use Wotif (now Expedia) and similar to find places, then call directly. For someone who definitely did not grow up with this sort of tech, he was quite excellent at working the boundaries of tech and people to get good results.
- dcdc123 4y ago
  I’ve tried booking through hotels directly and it’s never been cheaper. It is so weird. I usually end up using hotels.com which is just one of many booking services owned by Expedia.
  - girvo 4y ago
    Have to call them -- they often have contracts that mean they can't offer cheaper rates online, but are happy to over the phone. Though it's possibly down to where you're staying I guess, but I've had good luck doing that in Australia, the UK and a couple places around Europe! And worst-case, they'll match it usually, and I'd rather be booked directly to avoid the crap that the article is discussing
  - vinaypai 4y ago
    I'm seen this too, and it's bizarre that adding a middleman actually is cheaper.
- 3np 4y ago
  While I've had that as well, I've also had occasions where the hotel staff replies "oh yeah, to get the cheaper rates you'll have to go through <agent-site-with-lower-list-price>" when calling them, or even trying to extend an existing reservation at the desk. Norms do seem to vary between regions and countries.
daniel-cussen 4y ago
BluSyn 4y ago
I've had this exact experience with third-party brokers so many times. I now use third-party sites just for searching and price comparisons, but always book direct with hotel / airline. Usually they give miles / points / benefits you wouldn't get otherwise.
wodenokoto 4y ago
> Whatever savings you might get is not worth it and a lot of times hotels appreciate direct bookings and they're cheaper anyway. Come again? You lose out on saving using hotel instead of third-party booking service, but at least the hotel is cheaper?
laundermaf 4y ago
For flights yes, for hotels I suppose it varies on location. In South East Asia hotels are cheaper on Agoda and even contacting the hosts directly wouldn't get you a better price most of the time. It's a waste of time to try so I stopped doing that.

by imgabe 4y ago

bmitc 4y ago

I agree. It never seems to go right. The third party either has the wrong room availability, wrong room type, wrong price, etc. And I actually side with the hotels because it’s exactly as if someone else bought the room for you and messed up, which the hotel can’t really deal with but they usually try. And for the most part, hotels seem like one of the last places you can still get actual customer service with.

Aeolun 4y ago
I think most places that require you to pay $100-200/day for the privilege of using them still have customer service.
- tomrod 4y ago
  Most of the time those are very poor customer service
- JamesianP 4y ago
  Sadly that's comparable to rent in some places these days, so not so special. But yes I've always been pretty happy with the level of service personally.
  - saghm 4y ago
    Yeah, the rent for my girlfriend and I is within that range, and the first two months we were in the apartment there were a total of six or seven days where our apartment had no heat and management would not answer our calls or emails until the city stepped in due to the number of complaints that we and our neighbors were filing. On the other hand, the hotel we stayed in for a bit during one of those stints had amazing customer service! They let us decide each day by 11 AM whether or not we wanted to extend our stay, and when we finally got confirmation that the heat in our apartment was working, they decided to let us stay until 1 PM with no extra charge just to save us some trouble.
- em500 4y ago
  Serious question: how much do you think a full time customer service agent should be paid? (Some background: I've worked at customer service in the past.)
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Depends on the rest of the hotel/hospitality equation. I imagine they can be paid more than they are and still have the hotel be profitable, but I have no idea what a reasonable amount looks like.

SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago

Some locations have no option to book outside of the third party service, unfortunately. I visited Peru recently and was only able to book directly with the stay on about 1/4 of the occasions.

petedoyle 4y ago

I've spent ~150 nights in hotels in the past year, and it's super rare that booking directly is cheaper. I almost always save like 30% on Hotels.com/HotelTonight/etc. I recently wanted to extend a stay and the front desk quoted me $120/nt while Hotels.com was $107 (plus 10% back as a reward, so ~$96). I wish that weren't the case because this is 100% true: > never know what's going on and when anything goes wrong they just tell you they can't help you. Then the place tells you that they can't help you because you didn't book through them and they just point fingers at each other. I've come to rely greatly on in-app ratings/reviews before booking.

rebuilder 4y ago
Here, hotels have deals with booking.com etc that forbid them to post lower rates on their own websites. However, if you call to reserve, you get a discount code. I don’t know if that’s a more global practice or not.
- dogecoinbase 4y ago
  This is exactly correct. You have to call them.
  - petedoyle 4y ago
    Oh, that's great to know. Thank you both, I'll definitely try this!! :)
  - RedShift1 4y ago
    I'd rather pay the premium than calling :-/
    - jterrys 4y ago
      Ah, the extra tax for the socially introverted
    - Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
      Same here... I'm one of those archetypical millennials that hate phone calls. Over the year I have learned to overcome my aversion to calls when making one is beneficial, but a call to someone totally unknown, and not in my native language, is one of the cases where... yeah, I'd pay the premium too.

sumedh 4y ago

> they're cheaper anyway. Sometimes they are not cheaper, the price on their site is higher compared to what you see on booking.com. Some hotels dont have a website and I dont like to book using the phone.

xivzgrev 4y ago

100% agree. You can also ask a hotel for free upgrades when you check in because you booked directly. Doesn’t always work but once in a while it does.

girvo 4y ago

Not only is it often cheaper to book directly through the hotel, they often upgrade you to a nicer suite at least here in Aus whenever I've done that. My grandfather taught me a decade ago (more even) to use Wotif (now Expedia) and similar to find places, then call directly. For someone who definitely did not grow up with this sort of tech, he was quite excellent at working the boundaries of tech and people to get good results.

dcdc123 4y ago
I’ve tried booking through hotels directly and it’s never been cheaper. It is so weird. I usually end up using hotels.com which is just one of many booking services owned by Expedia.
- girvo 4y ago
  Have to call them -- they often have contracts that mean they can't offer cheaper rates online, but are happy to over the phone. Though it's possibly down to where you're staying I guess, but I've had good luck doing that in Australia, the UK and a couple places around Europe! And worst-case, they'll match it usually, and I'd rather be booked directly to avoid the crap that the article is discussing
- vinaypai 4y ago
  I'm seen this too, and it's bizarre that adding a middleman actually is cheaper.
3np 4y ago
While I've had that as well, I've also had occasions where the hotel staff replies "oh yeah, to get the cheaper rates you'll have to go through <agent-site-with-lower-list-price>" when calling them, or even trying to extend an existing reservation at the desk. Norms do seem to vary between regions and countries.

daniel-cussen 4y ago

BluSyn 4y ago

I've had this exact experience with third-party brokers so many times. I now use third-party sites just for searching and price comparisons, but always book direct with hotel / airline. Usually they give miles / points / benefits you wouldn't get otherwise.

wodenokoto 4y ago

> Whatever savings you might get is not worth it and a lot of times hotels appreciate direct bookings and they're cheaper anyway. Come again? You lose out on saving using hotel instead of third-party booking service, but at least the hotel is cheaper?

laundermaf 4y ago

For flights yes, for hotels I suppose it varies on location. In South East Asia hotels are cheaper on Agoda and even contacting the hosts directly wouldn't get you a better price most of the time. It's a waste of time to try so I stopped doing that.