I had a few horrible experiences with Booking.com and the others where I'd arrive at the hotel and they'd never heard of me, or I'd ask for an extra day in pers

I had a few horrible experiences with Booking.com and the others where I'd arrive at the hotel and they'd never heard of me, or I'd ask for an extra day in person but the hotel couldn't help me because I didn't book directly with them, or they didn't serve breakfast but Booking said they did and the hotel was in the middle of nowhere etc. I finally wised up. Hotels basically hate guests who book with a service like Booking.com and they will not lift a finger to help you if anything goes wrong. Now I use Booking.com, Kayak, etc to find hotels in the general area I need, then use google or DDG to find the website of the hotel (a process much easier said than done because the booking sites SEO the hell out of search engine results), then book directly with the hotel or its parent chain.