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...
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.
> 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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.