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My experience has been the opposite. I find a place on booking/priceline/$whatever, then I go to the hotel's website, and it's ~30% more expensive. I'd prefer to go directly through the hotel, but they keep charging me more, which never made sense to me.
I travel a lot and it's extremely rare to find a better rate directly through the hotel than using booking, priceline or expedia. This websites usually get rooms in bulk to re sell
Booking is my least favorite and priceline is becoming my go-to. I do try to cross check the reviews and pictures from different websites. Sometimes a 9.5 on booking is a 3 stars on google
The commissions Booking.com and AirBnB take from the hotels are about 15-20%, fyi.
I'll just leave this here, I won't be using their services any more.
Booking directly with the hotel usually also makes it easier to resolve problems when things go wrong, rather than the hotel telling you (correctly) that you have to contact booking.com about it, and then booking.com trying to refuse any liability while you get bounced from pillar to post.
This is why I stopped using sites like Agoda for over a decade. Only time I don't book direct is when its through my credit card rewards portal, redeeming points for nights.
My wife has a friend who works as a hotel receptionist. She said they often give guests free upgrades when they book directly through the hotel website. I still use booking.com to get an overview of available hotels in an area. But once I've decided on a hotel, I'll try to go to their own website.
I was going to say, it's more of a discovery tool
Hotel? Trivago (it's a travel agency from Düsseldorf, Germany)
Trivago is owned by Expedia Group which is a US company
Nooooooooooooo~
This ad became such a good meme
Try getting a refund from this company, even if you depart the most ghetto, moldy place in existence and directly purchase another stay. I took pictures of the filth and it did not matter. You also can’t photograph a moldy smell.
We went in circles with these guys for 2 weeks. Basically, they called the place, the place said it was fine, therefore, it’s fine.
Pay direct. Pictures and reviews lie and Booking did not honor cancellation with 15% penalty. They kept it all. I’m still annoyed.
I went to Oslo once and when I checked I found a cheap stay like 25€/night. But apparently it was a scam and the listing doesn't exists, and many have fall for it and reported it and wrote about it in the reviews. Booking still keeps it and refuse to refund.
Stuff like that is infuriating and will cause me to actively avoid Booking.scam and other services. When users report something and biting is done... Like what is the point of even using your site!?
I normally use booking.com for about 3 times a year or so. Now just using it to browse and will book directly.