6 ms·

Huh, interesting idea. I personally deliberately book though Booking and alike because it's so nice to have everything hotel related in one place especially whe

Huh, interesting idea. I personally deliberately book though Booking and alike because it's so nice to have everything hotel related in one place especially when having long trips.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
I always buy directly from the hotel assuming that I will be treated better due to the hotel earning more money from me due to not having to pay commission to a travel agent. Also, I assume there is less probability of errors since when you reserve on a travel agent website, your reservation goes through an additional system before it gets to the hotel.
- HeavenFox 3y ago
  It actually could be the opposite: since the OTA guest can leave a bad review, hotels may treat them better.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Anyone can leave a review on Google Maps and TripAdvisor and the hotel brands’ website, I assume a review on an OTA would not be any more valuable. As a side note, I wonder if many people pay attention to reviews outside of extremely low rated places.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - achates 3y ago
      I do. One bad review doesn't make much difference to me but if I see a few mentioning the same issue I usually trust them.
- gretch 3y ago
  > I assume there is less probability of errors since when you reserve on a travel agent website, your reservation goes through an additional system before it gets to the hotel My intuition says the opposite. More moving pieces in the system, more fragility in integration of different systems.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Is that not the same as what I wrote?
    - gretch 3y ago
      Rereading it I think it’s ambiguous, and I definitely didn’t read what you intended (after clarification). The problem is that the phrase “I assume there is less probability of errors” is not attached to a condition. It’s a bit like that revolving ballerina dancer illusion
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        I see, but I was thinking the “Also” at the beginning of the second sentence attaches the conditions of the first sentence. So the second sentence could also be understood to start with “I always buy directly from the hotel…” Nevertheless, there is clearly a more clear way I could have wrote that comment.
- tut-urut-utut 3y ago
  I have yet to find an occasion where directly booking a hotel would give a better or even the same price as booking through booking and the likes.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    All the big hotel chains will usually give ~5% off for reserving directly since they pay ~15% to OTAs. They will require you to be a “rewards member”, but that is just checking a box since you already have to give them your personal information.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > They will require you to be a “rewards member”, but that is just checking a box since you already have to give them your personal information. I became a "rewards member" with a major hotel chain once. Never again. The deluge of spam I got was intolerable.
      - dividedbyzero 3y ago
        That, and the discounts they offer are weirdly misaligned with what I actually book and could possibly want. If a discount happens to actually be applicable for a trip I want to make, booking.com usually is still cheaper. But then I've never managed to get a better deal booking with a hotel directly, usually it's significantly more expensive with more restrictive cancellation policy, which is a shame as I don't really trust booking.com et al. Maybe it works like that because I'm in Europe and mostly booking there?
      - scarface74 3y ago
        You actually use your real email and not an email relay service?
        JohnFen 3y ago
        Yeah, it was a slipup.
- pythko 3y ago
  I agree; I’ve had multiple instances recently of booking through a third party where getting changes or refunds is very slow and clunky, if they will even do it at all. Contrast that to my experience with booking a hotel directly through their website, where I mistakenly booked the wrong dates. One phone call to the hotel and 2 minutes later they changed it with no hassle.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
  I imagine it's booking.com requirement that the hotel can't sell cheaper thought its own website, just like credit card companies forbid discounts for paying cash.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    The big hotel brands get around this by requiring customers to sign up for their rewards program to qualify for the discount.
  - vkou 3y ago
    Yeah, but when the hotel over-books, guess which customers are the first to get their reservation cancelled/sent to the room with a leaky ceiling. (It's going to be the Booking.com ones.)
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I do this as well. The fewer middlemen between me and the product or service I want, the better.
- time_to_smile 3y ago
  I worked for a travel startup for a bit and after that experience I only book airfare and hotels directly. Specifically with airfare, a 3rd party is not allowed to sell for less than the airline directly, so it's always better options since it is much easier to reschedule/cancel/refund directly with the airline. Plus, if you travel a lot, it is better to find a favorite airline and stick to them. Any bonus "features" offered by a 3rd party I can assure you are either not in your interest or actually a scam. I don't know if the pricing rules applies to hotels, but I'd rather pay extra then get to the hotel and be screwed over last minute because some 3rd party is trying something "clever" behind the scenes and it turns out it ruins your travel plans.
  - coldcode 3y ago
    Most contracts between an OTA and a hotel chain included language requiring no lower price when I worked for an OTA 10 years ago. Not sure about today, but would not surprise me that nothing changed. OTA's are useful as a comparison but you are always better off going direct. Other than TripAdvisor, most OTA brands are either owned by Expedia or Priceline, but they never let you know.
  - dividedbyzero 3y ago
    > Specifically with airfare, a 3rd party is not allowed to sell for less than the airline directly, so it's always better options since it is much easier to reschedule/cancel/refund directly with the airline. The last couple of flights I booked with Star Alliance were the same price on Lufthansa.com etc., but I got free checked luggage on booking.com/expedia and just hand luggage on lh.com.
  - scarface74 3y ago
    Also, if you have to change anything with the airline and you book through a third party, you either have to deal with the third party (and a painful phone call for Priceline) or they charge an extra fee like American.
- bubblethink 3y ago
  > I always buy directly from the hotel assuming that I will be treated better due to the hotel earning more money from me due to not having to pay commission to a travel agent. I have never found this to be true unfortunately. I have some conference related travel coming up, and the conference made some deal with Hilton for a special rate. Hilton's link wouldn't work, and I made 5 calls trying to get them to offer a discounted rate to no avail. Eventually had to book at a discounted rate on hotwire (same as the conference's rate), which presumably made Hilton 20-30% less. At scale, hotels are just operated like commodities. Unless you are really special (loyal and big spender), you won't get any special treatment.
  - RajT88 3y ago
    > Unless you are really special (loyal and big spender), you won't get any special treatment. Lifetime Platinum Marriott member here. The special treatment is OK. It is nice to get room upgrades and freebies, but that's little stuff. It doesn't get you a room magically when they are sold out, and you don't magically get a better rate when prices are high. The biggest benefit if you're traveling a lot is your points accrual rate is higher with status, which lets you more rapidly exchange points for things. The only sane way to spend points of course, is more hotel stays. Nothing else comes close value-wise. I recall running the numbers on that (points/dollar ratio), and you'd be a brazen fool to spend points on merchandise - when you compare the ratio of hotel stays to merchandise point cost, you realize that they have a 3-4x markup on the merchandise.
    - hattmall 3y ago
      >don't magically get a better rate when prices are high. That's when you spend your points. Though it depends severely on the brand. Marriott and Hilton are no longer great. But Wyndham and Hyatt are pretty amazing. Starwood, used to be good until Marriott bought them out.
      - Aeolun 3y ago
        Mariott is pretty good. The single time I stayed in a Hilton was so nasty I’ll never do it again.
- tobyjsullivan 3y ago
  I've tried to do this for years and ultimately been disappointed. Even on my latest hotel booking, the direct quote was 20% more than Expedia and that's not an isolated incident. I suspect this is partly predatory pricing on behalf of Expedia (charge the hotel 30%, discount the price 20%, get all the bookings and take the difference.) Yet I really can't justify spending the extra $400 to stand the moral high ground. Seems like something the hotels need to work out. They used to at least offer the same price and add in little things like "free wifi" and breakfast. I haven't seen that offer since the pre-covid years.
  - Gustomaximus 3y ago
    A few times Ive literally used an aggregator booking site at the lobby desk after asking to stay longer, and the hotels price is higher than online. I've assumed they do this as a combination of lazy tax plus they don't want to undercut aggregators as these might stop showing them if they know people will go direct to the hotel after searching.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Refusing to accept more money is just bad hotel management or ownership not aligning incentives properly.
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    Hmm, I guess I just only ever book through the hotel directly, so I never feel like I’m missing out. I don’t even know what the non-hotel pricing is. On the other hand, that always includes free wifi and breakfast.
- elzbardico 3y ago
  The travel agent is a more valuable customer for the hotel than you. Also, they have deep pockets and an army of lawyers.
benatkin 3y ago
I prefer the hotel website but only if it's a really good website.
drc500free 3y ago
Having worked in the travel industry, I recommend booking direct and organizing everything together with TripIt.

Huh, interesting idea. I personally deliberately book though Booking and alike because it's so nice to have everything hotel related in one place especially when having long trips.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

I always buy directly from the hotel assuming that I will be treated better due to the hotel earning more money from me due to not having to pay commission to a travel agent. Also, I assume there is less probability of errors since when you reserve on a travel agent website, your reservation goes through an additional system before it gets to the hotel.

HeavenFox 3y ago
It actually could be the opposite: since the OTA guest can leave a bad review, hotels may treat them better.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Anyone can leave a review on Google Maps and TripAdvisor and the hotel brands’ website, I assume a review on an OTA would not be any more valuable. As a side note, I wonder if many people pay attention to reviews outside of extremely low rated places.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - achates 3y ago
    I do. One bad review doesn't make much difference to me but if I see a few mentioning the same issue I usually trust them.
gretch 3y ago
> I assume there is less probability of errors since when you reserve on a travel agent website, your reservation goes through an additional system before it gets to the hotel My intuition says the opposite. More moving pieces in the system, more fragility in integration of different systems.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Is that not the same as what I wrote?
  - gretch 3y ago
    Rereading it I think it’s ambiguous, and I definitely didn’t read what you intended (after clarification). The problem is that the phrase “I assume there is less probability of errors” is not attached to a condition. It’s a bit like that revolving ballerina dancer illusion
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      I see, but I was thinking the “Also” at the beginning of the second sentence attaches the conditions of the first sentence. So the second sentence could also be understood to start with “I always buy directly from the hotel…” Nevertheless, there is clearly a more clear way I could have wrote that comment.
tut-urut-utut 3y ago
I have yet to find an occasion where directly booking a hotel would give a better or even the same price as booking through booking and the likes.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  All the big hotel chains will usually give ~5% off for reserving directly since they pay ~15% to OTAs. They will require you to be a “rewards member”, but that is just checking a box since you already have to give them your personal information.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > They will require you to be a “rewards member”, but that is just checking a box since you already have to give them your personal information. I became a "rewards member" with a major hotel chain once. Never again. The deluge of spam I got was intolerable.
    - dividedbyzero 3y ago
      That, and the discounts they offer are weirdly misaligned with what I actually book and could possibly want. If a discount happens to actually be applicable for a trip I want to make, booking.com usually is still cheaper. But then I've never managed to get a better deal booking with a hotel directly, usually it's significantly more expensive with more restrictive cancellation policy, which is a shame as I don't really trust booking.com et al. Maybe it works like that because I'm in Europe and mostly booking there?
    - scarface74 3y ago
      You actually use your real email and not an email relay service?
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        Yeah, it was a slipup.
pythko 3y ago
I agree; I’ve had multiple instances recently of booking through a third party where getting changes or refunds is very slow and clunky, if they will even do it at all. Contrast that to my experience with booking a hotel directly through their website, where I mistakenly booked the wrong dates. One phone call to the hotel and 2 minutes later they changed it with no hassle.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
I imagine it's booking.com requirement that the hotel can't sell cheaper thought its own website, just like credit card companies forbid discounts for paying cash.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  The big hotel brands get around this by requiring customers to sign up for their rewards program to qualify for the discount.
- vkou 3y ago
  Yeah, but when the hotel over-books, guess which customers are the first to get their reservation cancelled/sent to the room with a leaky ceiling. (It's going to be the Booking.com ones.)
JohnFen 3y ago
I do this as well. The fewer middlemen between me and the product or service I want, the better.
time_to_smile 3y ago
I worked for a travel startup for a bit and after that experience I only book airfare and hotels directly. Specifically with airfare, a 3rd party is not allowed to sell for less than the airline directly, so it's always better options since it is much easier to reschedule/cancel/refund directly with the airline. Plus, if you travel a lot, it is better to find a favorite airline and stick to them. Any bonus "features" offered by a 3rd party I can assure you are either not in your interest or actually a scam. I don't know if the pricing rules applies to hotels, but I'd rather pay extra then get to the hotel and be screwed over last minute because some 3rd party is trying something "clever" behind the scenes and it turns out it ruins your travel plans.
- coldcode 3y ago
  Most contracts between an OTA and a hotel chain included language requiring no lower price when I worked for an OTA 10 years ago. Not sure about today, but would not surprise me that nothing changed. OTA's are useful as a comparison but you are always better off going direct. Other than TripAdvisor, most OTA brands are either owned by Expedia or Priceline, but they never let you know.
- dividedbyzero 3y ago
  > Specifically with airfare, a 3rd party is not allowed to sell for less than the airline directly, so it's always better options since it is much easier to reschedule/cancel/refund directly with the airline. The last couple of flights I booked with Star Alliance were the same price on Lufthansa.com etc., but I got free checked luggage on booking.com/expedia and just hand luggage on lh.com.
- scarface74 3y ago
  Also, if you have to change anything with the airline and you book through a third party, you either have to deal with the third party (and a painful phone call for Priceline) or they charge an extra fee like American.
bubblethink 3y ago
> I always buy directly from the hotel assuming that I will be treated better due to the hotel earning more money from me due to not having to pay commission to a travel agent. I have never found this to be true unfortunately. I have some conference related travel coming up, and the conference made some deal with Hilton for a special rate. Hilton's link wouldn't work, and I made 5 calls trying to get them to offer a discounted rate to no avail. Eventually had to book at a discounted rate on hotwire (same as the conference's rate), which presumably made Hilton 20-30% less. At scale, hotels are just operated like commodities. Unless you are really special (loyal and big spender), you won't get any special treatment.
- RajT88 3y ago
  > Unless you are really special (loyal and big spender), you won't get any special treatment. Lifetime Platinum Marriott member here. The special treatment is OK. It is nice to get room upgrades and freebies, but that's little stuff. It doesn't get you a room magically when they are sold out, and you don't magically get a better rate when prices are high. The biggest benefit if you're traveling a lot is your points accrual rate is higher with status, which lets you more rapidly exchange points for things. The only sane way to spend points of course, is more hotel stays. Nothing else comes close value-wise. I recall running the numbers on that (points/dollar ratio), and you'd be a brazen fool to spend points on merchandise - when you compare the ratio of hotel stays to merchandise point cost, you realize that they have a 3-4x markup on the merchandise.
  - hattmall 3y ago
    >don't magically get a better rate when prices are high. That's when you spend your points. Though it depends severely on the brand. Marriott and Hilton are no longer great. But Wyndham and Hyatt are pretty amazing. Starwood, used to be good until Marriott bought them out.
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      Mariott is pretty good. The single time I stayed in a Hilton was so nasty I’ll never do it again.
tobyjsullivan 3y ago
I've tried to do this for years and ultimately been disappointed. Even on my latest hotel booking, the direct quote was 20% more than Expedia and that's not an isolated incident. I suspect this is partly predatory pricing on behalf of Expedia (charge the hotel 30%, discount the price 20%, get all the bookings and take the difference.) Yet I really can't justify spending the extra $400 to stand the moral high ground. Seems like something the hotels need to work out. They used to at least offer the same price and add in little things like "free wifi" and breakfast. I haven't seen that offer since the pre-covid years.
- Gustomaximus 3y ago
  A few times Ive literally used an aggregator booking site at the lobby desk after asking to stay longer, and the hotels price is higher than online. I've assumed they do this as a combination of lazy tax plus they don't want to undercut aggregators as these might stop showing them if they know people will go direct to the hotel after searching.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Refusing to accept more money is just bad hotel management or ownership not aligning incentives properly.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  Hmm, I guess I just only ever book through the hotel directly, so I never feel like I’m missing out. I don’t even know what the non-hotel pricing is. On the other hand, that always includes free wifi and breakfast.
elzbardico 3y ago
The travel agent is a more valuable customer for the hotel than you. Also, they have deep pockets and an army of lawyers.

benatkin 3y ago

I prefer the hotel website but only if it's a really good website.

drc500free 3y ago

Having worked in the travel industry, I recommend booking direct and organizing everything together with TripIt.