[danpalmer]

Because there are hundreds of hotels with a hundred different websites or no website at all in any given city, and hotel rooms are largely fungible. I want to sleep somewhere and I have a budget. Searching hotel by hotel is infeasible even if you can find them, and you often can't.

A "middleman", or search engine, or discovery system, or price comparison site, is worth a lot to me and to most travellers.

Edit: it's worth a lot when you... don't speak the language in the country the hotel is in... when you want the consumer protections of the country you or the middleman is based in... these sorts of concerns are much more of an issue in some parts of the world, and this might be reflected in the fact that Booking.com grew up in Europe.

[Moru]

Yes, but you don't have to book with the search engine. I search with hotels.com and then book by calling the hotel. Every other time I used hotels.com or booking.com the booking didn't exist when I arrived at the hotel...

[danpalmer]

I would generally rather book with a bigger company, especially when travelling abroad where I may not be knowledgeable of local language, customs, or consumer protections. If I buy from Booking UK I get UK consumer protections, even if that hotel does not provide those. In some parts that's worth a fair bit. Calling the hotel only works if you speak the language. I've also only ever seen identical pricing when I've checked hotel websites.

Perhaps perspectives are based on whether you're booking domestically or not. Domestically you get the same protections, same language, not much benefit. In the US most of the market is domestic.

[IKantRead]

> Perhaps perspectives are based on whether you're booking domestically or not.

I've had the best success when traveling abroad booking directly. Anyone in the hospitality industry is going to have someone on staff with enough English to assist you, and most of the nicest places are smaller hotels that often don't work well with big booking companies.

> If I buy from Booking UK I get UK consumer protections

I worked in a travel startup (not Booking), there's a lot of fine print to all those "protections" that will leave you high and dry in most cases.

Only use 3rd party apps for search, never book directly through them especially, in my experience, for International travel.

[danpalmer]

I'll take letter-of-the-law fine print consumer protections over "eh, sorry" any day.

You're right that we're lucky as English speakers, there's often someone to help, but that's not true of most other languages. Small places can provide some of the best experiences I agree, but finding them and getting in contact can be difficult.

[starik36]

Do you find you get a better deal by calling the hotel directly?

[jll29]

Booking get 15% of the transaction so it makes sense to ask for 10% off when calling the hotel directly (which increases the profit of the hotel by and saves you some).

[Moru]

Eccept that is breach of contract with the booking service and can cost them the contract[1]. Since everyone is using booking.com or hotels.com, they will quickly shut down due to no customers. Hostage situation.

[1] At least last time I looked into it. Haven't had a change to travel since a few years.

[garciasn]

I just tell them that I saw a better deal on gestures broadly the Internet and they give me some discounted rate.

This happens all the time with every single type of service provider, why would some shitty service like Booking.com get to mandate no one can offer any other discounts?

What, just because there's some sort of aggregator service out there that you've partnered with you are not allowed to offer coupons, discounts, or your own booking services yourself? I would find that VERY difficult to believe.

Plus, based on what we're hearing everywhere, potentially losing your contract w/Booking.com seems like a blessing.

[Moru]

The hotels are required to have the same price on direct contact as they post on hotels.com so no. But I can be certain that there is actually a room waiting for me when I arrive. I have been standing there enough times with a booking confirmation in hand but the hotel not finding any booking and out of rooms. So far they managed to get me somewhere to sleep even though they have had to pay to house me at another hotel a couple of times.

[scarface_74]

They have to have the same price for “non members”. You can sign up for free to the hotels loyalty program and book a lower price.

You also get points if it is a chain hotel that can be used for future stays. The points can be worth from 7% to 20% of the cost based on what combination of base points, credit cards, and status you have.

[dandy23]

If I'm not remembering wrong, since a while back, in EU the hotels are free to set their prices lower even if they are on Booking.com.

[Moru]

I'm very happy to hear that

[satvikpendem]

I get worse deals calling the hotel, usually, as Booking gives better discounts and they buy room inventory at bulk prices to resell.

[danpalmer]

This varies, some inventory is bought "wholesale", other inventory is on-demand reselling. Booking has a range of terms and systems for different regions, types, volumes, etc.

[afandian]

I guess that’s why grubhub faked restaurants’ websites. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20321260

[FireBeyond]

And heavily implied they were the restaurant with fake phone numbers too.

You'd call a number, "I can take your order for XYZ whenever you're ready!"

"Is this XYZ restaurant?"

No yes or no answer, just "What's your order for XYZ restaurant?"

[olddustytrail]

I guess I've been using booking.com for a decade or so and this has literally never happened to me.

[wink]

Now I'm curious, what countries were those hotels in? Never happened to me in Europe (from the top of my head: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, England, Scotland, Czech Republic, Croatia) - just over 50 bookings/different hotels.

[Moru]

It was all in Stockholm for work. Sometimes I had a co-worker along that booked his own room and that one was lost too.

[flashback2199]

Google Maps shows hotels and prices now. That's what I've been using lately. I book on the actual hotel website. Always choosing the cancellable booking option in case plans change. Often it's the only option, but not always.

[at_a_remove]

The problem is that hotel rooms only appear fungible: a space that is a rectangular solid, with a bed. Sounds easy.

However, in reality, people want more than a place to lay immobile for roughly eight hours. These are not commodities. Check-in time. Check-out time. Type of bed. Bathroom? Bathroom with tub? Bathroom with waterjet tub? Pets? Dogs? View. Floor. Proximity to whatever. Bedbugs. Television, microwave, refrigerator, coffee pot, hair dryer. Free wifi? Breakfast? "Continental" breakfast?

If "hotel room" were some kind of spec, it might take years to hammer it out. And then hotels may or may not be honest about their rooms, or even understand the spec. Then there's the periodic keeping the listings up to date. "We had to take the TV out last week, it was on the fritz." "This room was upgraded." When was the last bedbug check? Finally, who is the system of record for any given room? And then the discount policies, wowza.

Looks fungible, really isn't. These aren't pork bellies.

[prepend]

I really don’t care about any of the things you mention. I literally only want a room with a bed and a bathroom. And maybe I’ll sort my three stars and up or something.

There’s a lot of variability, but it’s also pretty impossible to know at a non-commodity level unless I’ve stayed there before or do a ton of research.

I’m not going to trust anything online for the latest bedbug check. Id like to know, but let me know how they factors into your decision making process.

[scarface_74]

That’s the great thing about booking directly especially with a chain hotel. If you don’t like it, you can cancel the rest of your reservation and only pay for the time you are there. With travel portals it’s much harder.

Even if you’re not happy with the response from the hotel - and I’ve never had a problem with a chain hotel making things right, I can call corporate customer service.

[danpalmer]

These are all the reasons I said "largely" fungible.

You're right there's certainly no formal spec here and everyone is going to have the things they care about that others may not, but for any given person there are going to be many places that satisfy their needs, basically interchangeably.

[b8]

I've been using Booking.com, and then booking via the Hotel's site after I find the one I want to stay at. I suppose you could Google to find their number if they don't a website.

[bombcar]

You can still search and then book directly. Enough of that would perhaps make booking fix their issues.

[lotsofpulp]

I search and then call/email the hotel directly to see if they want to give me a lower price for buying directly so they avoid 15%+ commissions to the travel agent.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

How successful are you? I assume that the person picking up the phone does not care about the extra booking, nor do they have the authority to offer spot deals.

Maybe I am wrong and this is a common tactic?

[r_hoods_ghost]

Not the op, but it's the opposite, at least in the UK. I worked in hospitality as a yoof, was manager of a small hotel and a receptionist in big (independent) 5 stars. I absolutely did care about extra bookings because I got a big commission on walk-ins and a smaller commission on phone bookings. I also had leeway to discount rooms on a sliding scale down to "barely covers the cleaning costs" levels on the night. As a booker if I have the time I still call places up and can usually get a decent discount if they have availability, especially off season or last minute.

[lotsofpulp]

I estimate 50% success. I find it more successful when emailing the sales person, or the manager directly.

[bruceb]

I have tried this but most of the time its the same price, sometimes it is more. Even standing in person at hotel the person at the desk cant even match the online price. Not empowered to.

[orra]

> Even standing in person at hotel the person at the desk cant even match the online price. Not empowered to.

True, but not uncommon! Captive market.

[jksflkjl3jk3]

In many countries, the majority of hotels do not have a way to book directly. The just use Booking/Agoda.

[scarface_74]

I stay loyal to two hotel brands - Hilton and Hyatt for the most part.

The very reason I don’t use third party portals is because it’s always a hassle when you need to make any changes.

Last year I booked a week at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District for a hybrid work/personal trip.

We arrived late that night and we were not impressed. We went downstairs the next morning, shortened our stay to that one night. Paid it and moved over to another hotel - the Hilton Parc 55. This would have been much more of a headache if not impossible going through a third party portal.

I’ve also increased my stay by a day before arriving and the published price had changed. I called the hotel and asked them to extend my stay by one day at the original price - no problem.

I was a customer of the hotel, not the third party portal.

In my specific case, I am Diamond with Hilton and Globalist with Hyatt. I would get no status benefits or points for going through the portal.

That incident in S.F. I mentioned? When I changed hotels I got an upgrade for free to the “fitness room” with a gym inside the room.

[wink]

That sounds cool but I'm not sure how realistic that would be for most people, esp. international. There are about 2-3 hotel chains I can think about here in Europe where I have had more than one stay, i.e. where I used the same chain in a different city.

JFTR, my last stay in Prague I paid 80 EUR for a perfectly fine Hotel room, the cheapest room in the Prague Hilton I can find (being flexible for whole Oct+Nov) is 130EUR, usually more like 140+, close to double.

So I suppose if I had to just take a different room in a different hotel every fifth time (and that never happened to me) I'd still be about equal with the price.