[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.