[distances]

I have never ever found a hotel to have the same or cheaper prices when booking directly on the hotel website. I travel in Europe.

For my last booking the difference was almost 20% (340€ at Hotels.com, 420€ direct booking). I don't know if they enforce some most favourable pricing rules or what, but one of the booking sites is always the cheaper option.

I would prefer to book directly so that the accommodation gets all the money, but I'm obviously not going to pay that much more just out of generosity.