Comment by lmm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lmm | Hacker News Reader

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> On another note to travelers: don't book hotels through an OTA (Online Travel Agency like Booking.com, Expedia, TripAdvisor and the like) unless you have to. Nearly every property in America now has a "best price guarantee" that lets you get the best possible price direct from them. And you'll often additionally be eligible to earn status and points on the hotel's own program.

None of that's worth the hassle of booking directly. Go to the hotel site. Skip the intro video. Find the booking button under two levels of menus. Try to figure out what their cancellation terms are... nope, haha, good luck. Enter your name, address (your browser has autofill but if you use it their javascript highlights all the fields as having errors), credit card information and three security questions. Bzzt, your 8-character password didn't have a numeral and a special character, re-enter all your information again. Bzzt, ' is not an allowed password character, re-enter all your information again. There you are, you're booked, now just unsubscribe from their mailing list and delete the 3 spam mails they've already sent you and you're good.

Oh, you booked with the wrong card? No problem, just click the link in your confirmation email, enter all your information and... haha, no, psych, the form just gives you an error page. Find their contact information under three levels of menus, email them, wait a week, and you'll get 2 more spam mails from the mailing list you already unsubscribed from, but no actual reply, nope. Wouldn't want you to miss out on having to make an international call.

Screw that crap. Booking.com all the way.

It's not that hard. And you get the benefit that they actually book the hotel room.

I'm kind of mystified how Booking.com was able to say they booked a room at this hotel, when they apparently never even contacted the hotel to reserve the room. Clearly if they had contacted them, they would have learned that it was turned into a homeless shelter and not available.

> It's not that hard. And you get the benefit that they actually book the hotel room.

Haha no you don't. Hotels "forgetting" bookings that you made directly on their website absolutely happens. I'd be willing to bet that it happens (proportionately) more often than losing a booking that you made via a big aggregator.

> I'm kind of mystified how Booking.com was able to say they booked a room at this hotel, when they apparently never even contacted the hotel to reserve the room. Clearly if they had contacted them, they would have learned that it was turned into a homeless shelter and not available.

They might have had a standing allocation of rooms from the hotel, or they might have contacted the owners and had them straight-up lie about the hotel still operating. Certainly the article is describing a monumental fuck-up; as with any large system failure I suspect multiple things went wrong for this to happen.

> Haha no you don't. Hotels "forgetting" bookings that you made directly on their website absolutely happens.

If this happens at any major brand (Hyatt/Hilton/Marriott/IHG/Choice/etc), you will get sent a check for the expenses you incurred that night if you call the 800 number.

If those hotels are unable to accommodate your reservation for whatever reason, they are supposed to “walk” you to an equivalent hotel at their expense, including travel to and from the other and pay for your stay at the other hotel for 1 night and not charge you at all of course.

Not how it actually works out in my experience. Maybe if I'd been more persistent I'd've got some more money back, but it sounds like the person in the article was also offered more money once they were more persistent, so that doesn't seem like a clear win for direct booking.

The person in the article did not reserve a room at a major chain hotel, so they would not get the benefits of having the hotel brand’s policies enforced.

That is the benefit of reserving Hyatt/Hilton/Marriott/IHG/etc. They have contracts with the hotel owner (franchisee) that will allow them to get their money that they recompense you and heavy penalties to the franchisor for the franchisee not following policy, incentivizing the hotel to not screw the customer in the first place.

Hotel owners change brands all the time too, and the existing hotel brand notifies and migrates reservations to other area hotels when that happens. As opposed to this situation at some random unaffiliated hotel in NYC.

I'm saying that from my own experience of reserving rooms at major chain hotels, they're not so helpful in practice.

> None of that's worth the hassle of booking directly. Go to the hotel site. Skip the intro video. Find the booking button under two levels of menus. Try to figure out what their cancellation terms are... nope, haha, good luck.

Is this sarcasm?

Good luck getting any after purchase support from booking.com. Your hotel is now a homeless shelter -- too bad! How do you think something like booking.com makes their money?

I think their point was that if the hotel website is less convenient than booking.com and doesn't give you any benefit: why do it on principle? Yes, if booking directly would give you better service it makes sense to go through more effort. But if they are both shit, why not do the thing that's easier and has the information up front.

> Is this sarcasm?

Nope, not at all. Simple UI, go to book and the important stuff like when your booking is cancellable until is right there. And if I want to change my payment card, I just push the button and it works.

> Good luck getting any after purchase support from booking.com.

I have, and it was great, FWIW. (Hotel I booked at had stopped doing 24-hour checkin in between when I booked and when I arrived - I was able to message booking.com, no calling and waiting on hold, and they sorted it out despite a language barrier).

This

I don't want to call anyone or use each hotel's site that I have to enter my details into. I'm aware of the risk but prefer efficiency

Post-COVID, hotel booking terms are actually really generous, at least in my experience. Unless/until the status quo returns, I don't see any need for third-party booking.

> Post-COVID, hotel booking terms are actually really generous, at least in my experience.

Maybe, if you can actually find them. Booking.com tells me right there on the booking page when I can cancel for free until, and how much a cancellation will cost after that.

Or get an Amex platinum card and let the concierge deal with it. And get $100-200 in amenities such as resort credits, complimentary breakfast, and late checkin on top of that. And as an added bonus you get to visit some of the nicest airport lounges.

I'm a big fan of the Amex Platinum, but the Concierge won't book a hotel for you.

Amex has 3 separate similar services:

* Concierge, who can get you restaurant reservations and recommendations, event tickets and the like. * Amex Travel, their online travel agency that actually runs on Expedia and shows bookings as Expedia bookings on the hotel's end. * Platinum Travel Service, actual travel agents associated with Amex.

Only the 3rd option, PTS, will actually make a booking on your behalf, but their quality has slipped significantly in recent years.

> And get $100-200 in amenities such as resort credits, complimentary breakfast, and late checkin on top of that.

That sounds like standard FHR perks.

This is exactly backwards in my experience. The OTAs are full of dark patterns and really want you to create an account. I don’t think that I’ve ever had to do so on a hotel website—-name, phone number, credit card, done.

I agree they're full of dark patterns (false "only x rooms left at this price" statements, misleading UI that implies the place you're looking at has just been booked), but frankly that's the lesser of two evils compared to a site that seemingly doesn't want your business. And while they do make you create an account, I entered my information once years ago and can now book a hotel in any town I want to go to, which is something nowhere else can match (if hotel websites reliably supported SSO that would be as good, but we're a long way off that at the moment).

You forgot the inevitable data breach six months down the road, causing your inbox to be haunted with spam forever.

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