Book through the hotel or a booking site?

[AutumnSky]

I have been looking for Venice and Rome hotels for pre and post cruise stays. I've been reading lots of reviews for hotels, and some things have caught my attention. For instance, a few people mention getting a welcome drink, but most posters do not mention this. Or when there are mostly excellent reviews, some posters will mention that their room was in a less desirable part of the hotel, perhaps an annex, or that it was not one of the recently remodeled rooms. I was wondering if these are just the luck of the draw, or if there could be preferential treatment when booking directly through the hotel. Does anyone have any experience with this? In the US I usually book through the hotel's parent company, i.e. Best Western, Holiday Inn, etc., and I have limited experienced with booking hotels in Europe. Does it make a difference where one books the hotel?

[klfrodo]

I never book thru a booking site like hotels.com, Priceline, Expedia, etc

I used to in the past but experience taught me that I usually received the crappiest rooms, if overbooked I was the first to be bumped, I even had one hotel not give me a folio because I was Expedias customer, not theirs.

 

Anymore, I always book directly with the hotel,,,,after I've signed up for their rewards club or frequent guests club,,,,whatever you call it.

Now I receive comp upgrades, early check in, late check out benifits, high floor, low floor, comp wifi, etc

[Keith1010]

There are some people who book through hotel booking sites.

 

So, I can only speak for myself.

 

I prefer to book through the hotel site. If I have any special requests such as room location I note that on my reservation booking.

 

After I book I watch prices and if they go down in price I followup to get the lower price.

 

Keith

[John Bull]

I certainly use booking.com to research. :)

Their very user-friendly website gives stax of detail, photos, & bona-fide independent reviews, and their location maps show nearby alternatives.

 

For a one or two night stay, I'm too lazy to check elsewhere, including hotel's own website, but ............

- for a longer stay it's likely to be better to book direct.

- for many hotels, booking.com (and, I suspect, other booking websites) have a limited allocation of rooms. So a hotel which they show as having no availability for your dates possibly has availability by using the hotel's own website.

- yes, I suspect that the better rooms are allocated to direct bookings - though in our experience the best rooms (or the option to ask for a better room) go to earliest arrivals and late arrivals get Hobson's choice.

 

But I'll take issue with klfrodo on being bumped.

An over-booked hotel in Canada tried to cancel our late booking via booking.com. We knew nothing about it until we arrived, were welcomed & given our key - the hotel inadvertently also gave us a copy of an e-mail to them from booking.com. It was clear from the e-mail that they'd told booking.com they'd have to cancel due to an over-booking error, & booking.com's e-mail threatened them with massive sanctions if they failed to honour the booking. That gave me a lot of faith in booking.com :)

Our many dozens of other hotel bookings via booking.com have had no issues.

 

I have no hotel brand loyalties - I find that standards & prices vary too much between different hotels of the same brand. Hilton is a classic example of vastly differing prices, Best Western is a classic example of vastly differing standards.

Some booking websites now also have loyalty schemes - but I'm too well-satisfied or too lazy to investigate. :rolleyes:

 

I'd certainly advise using booking sites for research. Whether you book through one is a matter of personal choice.

 

Just MHO, as usual.

 

JB :)

[Nicki828]

We used booking.com for our recent stay in Rome. We had an amazing room. Exactly as described on the website.

[Flatbush Flyer]

If it's a chain like Hilton or Hyatt, we always use their direct booking for best deals or "AAA/Seniors/etc" and point accumulation.

For boutiques et al independents, we will book direct to assure best rooms (identified by research) though occasionally we use Tingo.com (trip advisor owned) to book because they monitor fares and issue automatic price drop match refunds.

[maryann ns]

We book direct whenever possible and keep copies of all correspondence.

 

However for some places we have used booking.com and have not had a problem. Be careful with venere.com which may have well hidden extra charges.

[CathyCruises]

I use Hotwire's Hot Rate hotels a lot, especially if it's for a one night stay. I look at the stars and the % of happy customers, never book anything if it's under 80%. I have been really pleased and have been doing it for years. I just got a Hyatt Regency in Chicago for $86, for example. If you go to better booking dot com, you can often figure out which hotel it is by using the amenities. My best, as I've quoted here before, was the Hilton Molino Stucky in Venice for $135/night, a fantastic deal.

 

I use venere for foreign travel because I can search for specific neighborhood, then I go to the hotel's website to compare pricing, terms, etc.

 

I agree that normally one will get the better locations, views, etc by booking directly, have to offset that against any pricing differential. Have to compare total price with taxes, fees, etc.

 

We just got back from a 7000 mile road trip to visit cruise buds in Canada. I booked a Hampton Inn ((Hilton family) on line directly and got a confirmation. When we got to the hotel the clerk said that was impossible, they'd been sold out for over a week, and I 'had put her into the negative'. Refused to honor our confirmed reservation. What a jerk. Then she sent me 14 miles further up the road, and away from my direction of travel, to a complete dump. So even booking directly apparently is no guarantee of getting a room!!

[love2cruisegal]

We have used booking sites in the past but not in a long time. We do use booking.com to find hotels and pricing, but book directly with hotel. Have checked pricing on booking.com after making reservations directly and all our hotels in Europe booked for next year are more expensive on booking.com. If the price goes down, the hotel will reduce the rate if you ask; already happened at our Barcelona hotel.

 

Will stick with direct booking unless using hotel websites as Hilton, Holiday Inn, etc.

[Got2Cruise]

When you book through a booking site, you, the consumer are considered a third party. If you have an issue with the hotel, you need to contact expedia, for example and not deal directly with the hotel. Furthermore, there usually is a cancellation fee involved with a booking site. I have had very good results booking directly through the hotel websites in several European countries including Greece. All of the websites are modern and encrypted, and include specials such as included breakfast. You use them just like a big brand USA chain.

[euro cruiser]

I adjust based on several variables but my first choice is usually to book direct.

 

I will book through a third party for a short stay, using hotwire and choosing star levels within a tight zip code area; however, I don't do this when traveling with certain members of my family who are, well, difficult.

 

I recently booked a hotel room in Copenhagen for one night through hotels.com because when I tried to book it direct the hotel site claimed they had no rooms available, but hotels.com booked it immediately for a decent price. The hotel was nice and there was no problem with the booking when we arrived.

[LondonTowner]

After reading various reviews and looking at booking websites I always book direct with the hotel. Far less likely to be overbooked as a direct client.

[Viv0828]

We generally compare prices booking through a chain hotel website and an online site such as kayak. The cheaper site wins!

 

We often book apartments when we are going to be in a place for a while. We generally use VRBO for that.

[diane.in.ny]

I book directly through the hotel site for the same reason I book directly with an airline. That makes ME their customer, not a second party booking site.

[slidergirl]

I work in the hotel business. I'll say 80% of the time you are OK if you book through an opaque travel site (expedia, ortbitz, price line, booking.com, etc). But, those 20% of the time, it's nasty. The hotel cannot deal with the guest directly - it must go through the booker. I've had people show up on the date they THOUGHT they had booked, only to find it the night before or the next night. Nothing I can do but tell you to contact your booker to see if you can get your money back or change the date (usually, within 7 days of arrival you can't do that). Or, I can set you up with a room at the best rate I can see on my computer that I can get you.

As far as what room you get: we don't discriminate because you went the cheap route ;) But, if we have to move people around to better rooms to get people in, the 3rd parties will not get the better rooms most of the time, but you will get what you paid for. That said, if you booked that room with 1 King bed because it was the cheapest or all that was left online and you really need a room with 2 Queens, be prepared to sleep all together in that 1 King bed.

Someone said they couldn't see a folio when they booked with Expedia; not unusual at all. those opaque sites charge you one price, and we charge them another, lower rate. We "surpress" the rate so you can't see what we charged Expedia and you won't see the nightly charge on your folio. All you will see is any incidentals you charged, a resort fee, a parking fee, stuff like that. If you spend a night and don't charge anything, you won't have anything on your folio.

Random Example: We charge Orbitz $249/night for a standard room. Orbitz advertises our hotel at $299 for the standard room. WE advertise that same $299 rate on our site. If you book with us, you can deal with us. If you book with Orbitz, if anything goes sideways, you must deal with Orbitz.

 

All that said, I still recommend you book directly with the hotel's website or phone them, or the corporate call center (like the Hilton 800 number) or website (like hilton.com), not a 3rd party site.

Edited September 5, 2015 by slidergirl

[AutumnSky]

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts, opinions, and experiences. I've found them to be very interesting and informative. The consensus seems to be that in most cases it's better to book through the hotel or their parent website rather than a general travel site; but those sites are okay, too, most of the time. As several of you said, one needs to look at prices and other options (I've seen breakfast included on some sites and room only on others) and take it all into consideration. Again, thank you for your comments!

[Luckynana]

I looked at hotels online that were suggested by my roll call for our October 2016 cruise. I was able to see the hotels and their amenities, etc. However, The websites wouldn't let me see availability or pricing since it is 13 months away. After deciding on our chosen hotel, I went onto their website and was able to book our rooms. Since it is a 12 room hotel, I'm a happy camper knowing that we were able to book 2 of those rooms!:D

[AutumnSky]

An update: I decided to book the hotel through its website, even though it was a little bit more expensive than the least expensive booking site--or so I thought. When I started the booking process, the first page showed the breakdown of costs--each night's room cost, then the 10% VAT for the entire stay. The total was exactly what their site had shown. In other words, their price already included the VAT. The booking sites did not include the VAT in their price. So the hotel site price turned out to be lower than any of the booking sites. It was a nice surprise and a wake-up call for me to check for the VAT when comparing prices.

[Viv0828]

On the flip side I booked a small property in Turku, Finland through booking.com. It was not at all as advertised - way smaller room, not in the center of town, no internet, etc. It was not at all as advertised.

 

After we left, I emailed booking.com a detailed explanation of our dissatisfaction and told them I thought the place was worth about half of what we paid. A couple of days later I received an email from booking.com offering to refund half our money. I thought that was very fair. And sure enough, a couple of days later the transaction showed up on our credit card statement.

 

We were very pleased. When we had complained to the hotel they basically told us to pound sand. And no, we couldn't move because there was a conference in town and no rooms available. So I guess sometimes it's better to book direct and sometimes it's better with an agency.

 

PS. That place is no longer listed on the booking.com website. And we had only booked it because of all the good reviews.

Edited September 7, 2015 by Viv0828

[b_cruise]

I've booked all ways many times and have never had any problems. I've used kayak booking.com, agoda, Expedia orbitz lmtclub travel republic, hotel sites, direct via phone... Everytime including in Europe have been great!

 

Search out what is the cheapest but be careful of the decscription of the room ( that tells it) and small print..ie. Expedia charges extra for third person or external bathrooms or descriptions like superior ( sometimes the superior rooms are the lesser ones). Things like that.

 

If u find a room cheaper on a third party site, look at the description then go to the hotel site and compare.

[plane2port]

Before you decide to book directly with the hotel or use a third-party site, you may want to check whether or not you can access the website you are going to use via a cash back portal such as TopCashBack or Ebates.

 

For example, say you wanted to book the Hilton in Rome. Compare the cash back that you would receive going through Hilton.com vs. booking.com. I usually go with whomever has the highest cash back (assuming that room prices are the same on both sites.)

 

Once the cash back on booking.com via TopCashBack was $14 per booking. I booked the Best Western in Athens for $70. With the cash back the effective rate was $56.

[Flatbush Flyer]

Before you decide to book directly with the hotel or use a third-party site, you may want to check whether or not you can access the website you are going to use via a cash back portal such as TopCashBack or Ebates.

 

 

 

For example, say you wanted to book the Hilton in Rome. Compare the cash back that you would receive going through Hilton.com vs. booking.com. I usually go with whomever has the highest cash back (assuming that room prices are the same on both sites.)

 

 

 

Once the cash back on booking.com via TopCashBack was $14 per booking. I booked the Best Western in Athens for $70. With the cash back the effective rate was $56.

 

 

Just remember, however, that most (if not all) hotel chains do not give you loyalty points if you use a third party booking site.

[buggins0402]

Sometimes looking through a hotels website you can take advantage of a promotion not offered on a third party site. Recently booked a 4 nights for 3 on a high end hotel which resulted in significant savings. This average rate per day blew any third party site out of the water. Once you use the third party sites to select a hotel it always pays to do due diligence on the hotel's own website.

 

On the other hand just booked through a forced third party site because it was a flex points credit card booking using points ( card that will get the deep six after this booking). I had all the sites open to compare: the credit card points booking engine, the same booking site for normal purchases ( non points) and the hotel company's website. Let's just say if I could have booked the supposed value of our points on the hotel website, we would have gotten a much better room and a free breakfast compared to the forced booking engine purchase.

Edited September 8, 2015 by buggins0402

[plane2port]

The two previous posters have made excellent points. However, you can still get cash back by using a portal to access the hotel site, if it is a large chain. For example, clicking through to Hilton.com via TopCashBack yields cash back of 4-6 percent. Get cash back and your loyalty points and the other deals they offer too!