Booking Hotel direct w/ Discount Site vs Hotel

hotels .com seems to be the cheapest I have found for hotels.

If you book a non-refundable room at $200. Expect the hotel to lock you in at that rate no matter what happens.

Call the hotel and get them to clarify if you need to book with them in order to price match or not.

Thanks. I just checked hotels .com and the price is the same as bookings BUT its says that it's fully refundable and bookings is not, so thats a plus.

I'll check with hotel directly to see if the booking is needed first for the match.

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I'm assuming you mean with just the booking part right? Could I not just call the hotel directly prior to see if they have my booking looks good to go?

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What that poster is saying is:

If something goes wrong with the booking (hotel loses power and you need to move to another property, you get in later than the cutoff time for check-in, you need to check out on Thursday and and not Tuesday) - it's between you and Expedia, not between you and the guy at the front desk. You aren't Hilton's customer - you're Expedia's customer.

This happened to me exactly once (HotWire) and I've booked direct with hotels ever since. You said you don't travel frequently, so not worth getting on a rewards program (it's free, though).

Unless I get an insanely better deal through my Company’s discount site, I always book direct. Easier to modify and cancel. They will always honor a lower rate if they lower the price after I book.

quote:

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What that poster is saying is: If something goes wrong with the booking (hotel loses power and you need to move to another property, you get in later than the cutoff time for check-in, you need to check out on Thursday and and not Tuesday) - it's between you and Expedia, not between you and the guy at the front desk. You aren't Hilton's customer - you're Expedia's customer. This happened to me exactly once (HotWire) and I've booked direct with hotels ever since.

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For most of the same reasons I stopped using third party sites for anything travel related. Part of it is the perks associated with brand royalty when you use them often.

Thanks to all for the info. Good to know all the issues that they will send you to the discount site to deal with. Definitely worth giving them a chance to go direct. With that said...

Called the Hotel to ask about how to approach price matching. At first the reservation girl told me that it would probably best to go thru hotels .com, but she will see if there is anything in the system she can find first. She was able to find a "mobile deal" that she can get me over the phone. Saved me about $6 bucks over the sites discounted price, but then she pitched me saving about $15 bucks on the valet if I tack it on while on the call or call in to do so the day before I check in. So I got what I was looking to do for $21 less, even able to cancel day prior like hotels .com, not like booking .com.

Ohhh and to add the difference between the 2 sites. I left this for today to see if prices would change, and today hotels .com had the same price but had only 7ish left, but bookings didn't have it anymore and were at retail price but they did have the day prior cancellation.

Thanks for the guidance yall.

I always book direct with AAA discount. Gets pretty close to the 3rd party sites and you have so much more flexibility booking direct.