[flictonic]

> 99% of the time, you’ll get the same or better deal by booking online with the hotel directly.

This is often repeated but I almost never find it to be true in reality. Particularly for non chain hotels, best case scenario is their prices are the same as booking.com but if I go through booking I'll get points and future discounts. This tier is never cheaper booking directly. Chain hotels where I have a non base tier status will sometimes be cheaper but even then usually not.

[coredog64]

For reasons, chains have to give the aggregators their best publicly available price. However, there is a loophole that loyalty users can be offered a lower price.

The chain still makes more money as they can avoid paying the aggregator a commission.

[haswell]

> This tier is never cheaper booking directly

Even if so, the issue I’ve encountered with booking services is a complete lack of options when things go wrong.

I had a situation where the hotel was actively trying to help me, but they had few options because the booking agent (Hotels.com) made it almost impossible to get support. The hotel person patiently stayed on the line with them for almost an hour going through escalation after escalation (I was deeply grateful).

Would have been a 5 minute fix if I’d booked with the hotel, and not every place would be willing to go to these lengths.

I hear you on the points thing. But I’ve started weighing the cost of those points against the likelihood of needing to make changes once I arrive somewhere. If it’s a reputable place that I stay regularly, I’m less worried.

[scarface_74]

I can get a lot more value out of hotel points between the points that the hotel gives you and what you can get from a cobranded credit card.

In the case of Hilton it’s 34x per dollar (worth around 20%) and Hyatt 9.5x per dollar also worth around 20% back.

[haswell]

That’s totally fair if you’re booking at well known and reputable places.

My point is that not every location fits this criteria, and the cost can be very real.

I fully shared your mindset until I had several major issues with smaller places that easily cost more than whatever value the points had.

I’m now more careful about who I use based on where I’m going. There’s still value in the points, no doubt, but risk as well.

[nocoiner]

Fair enough. Most of my experience tends to be with chains. But my impression is that the non-chain hotels I book don’t typically appear on aggregators so I’m usually booking with them directly in any event.