Hotels Now See Online Travel Sites as Rivals (marketwatch.com)

Major hotel chains are engaging in an online turf war with the very travel sites that have helped drive their businesses. From a report: Marriott, Hilton and InterContinental are using extensive marketing campaigns to claw back business from Expedia, Priceline and other travel-booking sites, which steer customers to hotel properties but also take commissions of up to 30% for each reservation. The chains are starting to treat these sites less as valuable business partners and more as gatekeepers standing between them and their customers. Many large hotel brands are offering lower nightly rates and other perks to loyalty members who book directly through their sites instead of online travel agencies. [...] The new battle is the latest episode in a two-decade "frenemy"-style relationship between online travel agencies and the hotel industry. Sites such as Expedia and Priceline were crucial for hotels during down periods such as after 9/11, but they have gradually eaten into the share of overall bookings ever since. Also read: Why Bargain Travel Sites May No Longer Be Bargains.

Comments

Travel sites are useful

[the_other_one]

I use the travel site to find the best room and rate.
Then I call the hotel directly to book usually at a better rate.

Re:Travel sites are useful

[ccguy]

I've tried that a few times. When it's an independent hotel it often works, but for chains... forget about it. These ones that complain about paying a 30% commission refuse to give you a 10% discount if booking directly.
So well, fuck them.

Re:Travel sites are useful

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I started doing this after I got burned once with a "pay now, and you can't cancel" booking through a middleman like Expedia. I've also found that I usually get a better room (though not always a better rate) when I book direct vs. through a middleman.

Re:Travel sites are useful

[thsths]

That is exactly my experience, too. They are just too greedy - or the contracts with expedia etc are anti-competitive in nature.

Re:Travel sites are useful

[ShanghaiBill]

I use the travel site to find the best room and rate.
Then I call the hotel directly to book usually at a better rate.

I do this with airlines. If I buy direct, it is much easier to deal with any changes in itinerary, add baggage, get customized meals (I am a veggie).

I don't use hotels. Airbnb is usually cheaper, and almost always a more interesting experience.

Re:Travel sites are useful

[Anonymous Coward]

This is objectively stupid. Any competent revenue manager should be telling their desk staff to ask which site the customer found them on and then authorize them to at least match the net rate the property would have received if the customer booked through foo.com. They can't lose, mathematically. If there is resistance to this, it can only be stupidity or motivation other than revenue.

Re:Travel sites are useful

[netsavior]

except you have to realize that the hotel is playing a double-edged game.

They are fighting against the online travel agents AND other hotels.
So it goes like this: They want customers to migrate from travel agents to direct booking. They do NOT want customers to go from Agent booking at Hotel A to Agent booking at Hotel B, so they have this love-hate relationship with agents. If they dared to completely gut the agents, the significant bookings brought by that agent would drop off like a rock.

It isn't as stupid or easy as it seems. To rebate the entire commission to the consumer, unless they had a pretty badass way to get consumers to completely change their habits instantly... would cause the Hoteliers to go out of business, as if you choose to starve agents out, they will simply flip a switch and go to /otherhotel/ for their commission.

Re:Travel sites are useful

[Frederic54]

This.

> Many large hotel brands are offering lower nightly rates and other perks to loyalty members who book directly through their sites instead of online travel agencies

Whenever I find the hotel to book on tripadvisor, I call or go to the hotel website to make my reservation. Also I enrolled (for free) on some loyalty program like IHG and have rebates, free wifi (some hotel charge like 20$/day), complimentary drink at the bar, etc and all this for less than all the hotels.com/trivago/expedia/travelocity/whatever sites I see hundreds of ads on TV but never ever went on one of their site.

Re: Travel sites are useful

[Anonymous Coward]

snake eating its tail?

Re:Travel sites are useful

[Anonymous Coward]

So how do you know you get a better deal directly when you have never been on any of the booking agencies' websites?
How do you even know that the hotel you chose is the best choice for your trip?

Then decide which business you're in!

[H3lldr0p]

If you're going to be selling temporary housing to people, then focus on that business. Make it a great experience. Or a cheap experience if that's the market you decide to be in. Just focus on that and let someone else worry about getting people to you.

Conversely, if you want to be in the business of helping people find temporary housing then focus on doing that. Get out of the housing portion if it's causing you a headache/heartburn because of conflicts with the first part of your business. Get really good at matching people's price point with those willing to house there. Let someone else worry about making the ends meet on the housing side.

TL,DR; Pick a business and get good at only that business.

Re:Then decide which business you're in!

[esonik]

From the businesses point of view it's seldom good to be not in control of the sales side of business.

The well-known brands have spent a lot of money to be a well-known brand. In return they expect more customers, especially those who are too lazy to do a proper market research before making a decision (aka "loyal customer").

Travel agencies and booking agents increase market transparency - that's good for the customer, not the businesses. Increased transparency means that customers find the Hotel Noname or recently opened house, or that they can compare all the choices with reasonable effort.

Those aggregators flourish in markets with low transparent, typically markets with so many choices that it's difficult or time-consuming to compare them all, or sometimes even find all available choices.

Having said that, what you suggest is probably what hotels will be left with. It's just that they don't like to hear it.

Good idea to book through hotels if possible

[SuperKendall]

Not mentioned in the summary directly but the corollary to "perks", is that many hotels now will treat you poor poorly if you did not book through the hotel itself - you may not get as nice a room (the people checking you in have lots of flexibility as to location), you may not be as likely to get a request like late checkout, they may be less (or not at all) flexible when changing a booking.

So even though travel aggregators are convenient, it's probably a good idea to just book through the hotel...

Re:Good idea to book through hotels if possible

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

I *always* book directly through the hotel site. I am somewhat particular about where I stay and so I have a short list of places I stay in each place I frequently travel to. I get better treatment and more perks by doing this. It's noticeable. If you need to make any special requests they will be much more likely to accommodate you.

Re:Good idea to book through hotels if possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the tip, Mr. Nassetta. Will do!

Re:Good idea to book through hotels if possible

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean if you pay less for a room booked through some budget agency, you won't get the nicer rooms? How impossibly outrageous!

Re:Good idea to book through hotels if possible

[ShanghaiBill]

many hotels now will treat you poor poorly if you did not book through the hotel itself

That makes sense. If you booked through a 3rd-party site, you likely just picked them because they had the cheapest room, and next time you are likely to shop with the same criteria. They have little incentive to expend time and resources to make your stay nicer.

Re:Good idea to book through hotels if possible

[omnichad]

Which isn't smart. After finding something through a travel site, I'm likely to book directly on my next stay - unless that stay was terrible. Loyalty is still a thing, because price isn't everything and even expensive hotels are sometimes a dump.

Re:Good idea to book through hotels if possible

[omnichad]

Next time, you don't want to take the risk. The first time, you have no idea what hotel is worth staying at because you can't trust price or reviews. What you say is only true if you never travel to the same city twice or don't care about the quality of your actual stay.

Finally

[nwf]

Many of those sites are owned by a single company anyway, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

Every time I've tried to book travel in the past few years, I've found better prices directly on hotel chains' web sites. There was one time when the chains had no rooms, but Expedia did, but at $500/night (vs $125 normal rate.) I passed.

From my experience, the hotel industry got much worse following the rise of these reseller sites. They suck up rooms and hold them, hoping for a better deal. That makes it harder to find rooms, and their policies are always worse. It wasn't long ago that any hotel wouldn't charge you if you canceled the day of your reservation. That's getting harder to find, since these sites lowered expectations.

These sites sure advertise a lot, but a tiny amount of searching will almost always find better rates. I mostly use them to see what hotels are in the area then go directly to the hotel's web site to book. Always cheaper.

They are doing the same thing with rental cars, too. I've always found better rates elsewhere than those sites. Costco, in particular, has better rates for car rentals than just about anyone and if you don't want the car, just don't pick it up. No fees.

The sooner these sites die, the better.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

> the hotel industry got much worse following the rise of these reseller sites.

What else would you expect when Microsoft decided to get into the business? They ruin every business they enter. When I worked for Expedia, all management talked about was ways to screw our vendors. It is typical Indian thinking of getting all you can as fast as you can rather than old-school Western thinking that rising waters raise all ships. I since quit and now work for a company that doesn't hate and rip-off our vendors. Life is much better.

Re:Finally

[ArhcAngel]

These sites sure advertise a lot

There is the key. If an industry advertises A LOT there is a good (99%) chance it is a lucrative endeavor (ripoff). The prime example is auto insurance. Executed efficiently it is a no-brainer money making scheme. I mean how can a business afford THAT much advertising? Advertising is expensive and travel sites buy enormous amounts of ad time.

Re:Finally

[Registered Coward v2]

From my experience, the hotel industry got much worse following the rise of these reseller sites. They suck up rooms and hold them, hoping for a better deal. That makes it harder to find rooms, and their policies are always worse. It wasn't long ago that any hotel wouldn't charge you if you canceled the day of your reservation. That's getting harder to find, since these sites lowered expectations.

The concepts isn't new, consolidators have been around a long time, they were just hard t find and often solid inventory through travel agents; which helped agents get good deals for clients and unloaded excess stock for hotels. The rise of sites, as you point out, made this worse as it became easy to find these deals. Hotels still can sell these rooms as tehy haven't sold them to the site, just made them available at a specific rate and if the room goes away before the site books it then so be it; at least that's how I understand most of the sites work. I generally find better rates on the hotels' site anyway, or on Amex or Costco a you point out.

Re:Finally

[Mandrel]

Comparison sites advertise so heavily because their power to get a good commission and discount from their vendors is in direct proportion to the number of people who can be hypnotized into using them without thinking of trying direct.

So I agree that advertising is most heavily relied on by either companies whose main competitive advantage is mind-share rather than product quality or a unique selling point, and on industries like insurance that sell virtual products with a low marginal cost of production, where market share is pure cream.

Hotel Room Turf War

[lionchild]

For hotels to actually be successful in clawing back the business from travel sites, they're going to have to be willing to take that 30% commission that they were giving the travel sites, and give it to the traveler as a discount.

They're not getting that money anyway, but they can use the 30% discount to lure people back, and when they're used to booking with their favorite chain, they'll be able to reduce that to 20% or 15% and effectively offer their returning travelers more upgrades or amenities.

Re:Hotel Room Turf War

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with that. People are never loyal. You give them a 15% discount and the guy across the street gives them 16% and they go to the guy with the 16% discount every time. Loyalty programs never work because people shop around at every turn. This is why the hotels themselves have been so reluctant to take on the sites until now. Once you start this price war with the sites it escalates to a price war with the other chains and everyone bleeds money. The reason they are doing it now is they built too many hotels in the last 10 years and occupancy rates are now terrible and they are in effect bleeding money and looking for someone to blame other than the CEO who approved to many new hotels.

Re:Hotel Room Turf War

[Registered Coward v2]

For hotels to actually be successful in clawing back the business from travel sites, they're going to have to be willing to take that 30% commission that they were giving the travel sites, and give it to the traveler as a discount.

The are actually yield managing so those sites simply represent additional marginal revenue so giving up 30% isn't so bad to fill a room that might go unsold. If the drop rates across the board tehy'd lose too much money since everyone would get the discount.

Re:Hotel Room Turf War

[LynnwoodRooster]

I stick with IHG and the loyalty program there. It more than pays off for me... Always upgraded, lots of free nights, free amenities, etc. Yes, the room may be more "expensive", but when you add up all the nice things that come with the loyalty program - it's money ahead AND much more convenient. Of course, I travel a LOT (86 nights in hotels so far this year), so I'm most likely not typical. But getting free meals, drinks, water, wifi, upgraded rooms, free laundry, etc. is definitely worth paying a few bucks more per night.

Not to mention the quality of the beds and pillows in IHG-brand hotels is always very high and consistent (not rock slabs in Asia, not stiff log pillows in Europe).

Re:Hotel Room Turf War

[Mandrel]

For hotels to actually be successful in clawing back the business from travel sites, they're going to have to be willing to take that 30% commission that they were giving the travel sites, and give it to the traveler as a discount.

One potential problem with this is that when a sales agent becomes powerful they insist on parity-pricing, meaning that they must always be given the lowest rate available, forcing vendors to cross-subsidise these agents if they wish to offer their own discounts. Amazon is a master at this.

Re:Hotel Room Turf War

[speedplane]

I stick with IHG and the loyalty program there. It more than pays off for me...

I would bet that you are in the minority. The vast majority of people don't travel regularly for business, they have their 1-3 trips a year and stay wherever is cheapest/nicest. I travel regularly for work (~1/month) but pay for travel out of pocket, so I'm always looking for a deal. I don't bother with the loyalty programs.

Re:Hotel Room Turf War

[mjwx]

For hotels to actually be successful in clawing back the business from travel sites, they're going to have to be willing to take that 30% commission that they were giving the travel sites, and give it to the traveler as a discount.

They dont need to give us back the full 30%. Just 15-20% will be enough and many of them do if you call.

The problem is the T&C's for these sites demand that hotels cannot advertise a cheaper price than is listed on their site, This is illegal in Australia, probably most of Europe but it doesn't stop Expedia and Priceline from de-listing hotels that don't play ball.

Travel Agents and airlines had the same problem

[ErichTheRed]

I have a feeling that this is just the industry catching up. Airlines used to need the services of travel agents and would pay them a commission to sell tickets. This was because they had no or limited capacity to sell seats directly to the public. Once they got this capability, airlines stopped paying commissions and travel agencies either went out of business or specialized in areas where they could still make money. Hotels are a much higher margin business than airlines, and are much more inclined to increase occupancy at the expense of lower room rates, so it makes sense that they would pay commissions to get someone on the property and spending money. I know when I travel for business I'm much less cost-conscious than I would be if I were a vacationer, so hotels do make a lot of money once travelers are on-site.

I'm in technology and most tech people are all for squeezing every single inefficiency out of every system out there. And it is true that there are a lot of brokers and middlemen out there - ask anyone who just bought a house or car for examples. What I wonder is whether tightening the screws so much that you start to affect employment in significant ways is such a good idea. You can have a 100% efficient process, but if your profit relies on people having a disposable income to buy your products, does it make sense to leave some slack in the system?

Re:Travel Agents and airlines had the same problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Middlemen that add little to no value and do nothing but take a cut are a net drag on the economy; thankfully these tend to go away because of market forces, such as when travel agents stopped getting commissions for selling plane tickets. But sometimes they cling on due to regulations, walled garden environments or having some other sort of leverage.

So the answer to your question is no. Vanishing jobs/revenues due to increased efficiency or automation elsewhere is bad for whoever got the short end of the stick, of course, but it's a net gain for the economy, and in the long run, everybody wins. People tend to focus way too much on employment, but the real driving force behind economies is wealth creation, adding value. The trick is getting those people employed again, now doing something more productive. The real problem is when this can't be done easily, such as when factory workers get laid off because manufacturing is moving to China and their skills are mostly useless in a service economy.

Expedia et al. can add value to certain customers, though. If you're not too worried about price and want to conveniently find and buy an entire trip at once, they're your friend. But if you're like me, not necessarily looking for rock bottom prices, maybe willing to spend a little more for a shorter connection or a nicer location, but absolutely horrified at the prospect of lining the pockets of middlemen, they're just a roadblock.

Re:Travel Agents and airlines had the same problem

[Registered Coward v2]

Middlemen that add little to no value and do nothing but take a cut are a net drag on the economy; thankfully these tend to go away because of market forces, such as when travel agents stopped getting commissions for selling plane tickets.

Middlemen can reduce transaction and search costs, and thus add value. For example, a knowledgeable travel agent can explain the pros and cons of various cruise lines so you can pick one that meets your needs and not have to pour over reviews and take a few to see what you like. They can also bundle products to get you a cheaper total cost than buying each separately; or get bonus and upgrades. Similarly, hiring a general contractor instead of subbing all the work yourself adds costs but saves time and helps ensure quality work if you get a good general contractor. If you know what you want then middlemen are an unnecessary cost; but are not always a net drag.

Re:Travel Agents and airlines had the same problem

[edtice1559]

If the middle man adds value (some do), I don't think that OP applies. Sometimes middle men are high value because they do the things you suggest (aggregate a group of customers and get them a better rate, for example). Many middle-men add no value. The example given was real estate agents who charge 6% to put your house on MLS! Ed

Re:Travel Agents and airlines had the same problem

[Registered Coward v2]

If the middle man adds value (some do), I don't think that OP applies. Sometimes middle men are high value because they do the things you suggest (aggregate a group of customers and get them a better rate, for example). Many middle-men add no value. The example given was real estate agents who charge 6% to put your house on MLS! Ed

I would say realtors destroy value by encouraging selling at the low end of the market. The ads I get from them soliciting listings brag about how fast they sell homes. Simple economics dictates things sell faster the cheaper they are, and the commision incentivises faster sales. An agent may only get an extra 600 dollars if you get an extra 10000; so getting the several thousand dollar commission quickly is better than a few hundred extra a month or two later. Their goal of getting paid as fast as possible runs counter to the seller's of getting the highest price. Freakenomics had a chapter on that topic.

Re:Travel Agents and airlines had the same problem

[edtice1559]

Yes I remember that chapter quite well. Thanks for reminding me.

Travelers want to buy a trip.

[netsavior]

The real disconnect is that Travelers want to buy a trip(airfare, car rental, hotel, attraction), Hoteliers want to sell a stay.

Even more importantly, business travelers aren't generally allowed to buy anything other than a Trip, they have to use some Travel Management Company who is essentially an Online Travel Agent but with a shitty interface and a corporate policy enforcement.
American Express is disrupting the Agent/hotel infrastructure right now by allowing hotels to pay a flat annual "commission replacement" instead of a per room night commission, when nights are booked using AMEX's corporate Travel Management Company. This of course locks them in to the agent model further, but makes the pill a bit sweeter. The "book direct" push is a bit wrong-headed as the Airlines have already opened central booking, such that it is a no-brainer for a website to add flights and hotels together, whereas hotels are almost never going to be able to tack on airfare without becoming full service travel agents.
Book direct seems like a no-brainer, until you look at how travel is planned and purchased in the real world.

And none of that is even counting the fact that all the big hotel chains still run their businesses on 30 year old platforms with no end in sight.

Booking non-refundable rooms for the guaranteed low price is also primed for an upset from the reselling app standpoint. If you book a $200 dollar non-refundable room... then you can't make it... you can auction it off on Roomer or others... selling it to someone for $150 recovering some of your loss... And undercutting the "lowest rate" promise at the exact same time.

The whole thing is a mess and direct booking won't solve it... and may make it worse.

Re:Travelers want to buy a trip.

[Strider-]

Even more importantly, business travelers aren't generally allowed to buy anything other than a Trip, they have to use some Travel Management Company who is essentially an Online Travel Agent but with a shitty interface and a corporate policy enforcement.

Exactly this. These corporate travel agents are a waste of oxygen, and need to be eliminated. My current employer forces me to use one of these abominations, and each and every trip I book, I always forward along what I would have booked given my own choice. Invariably, what I could have booked myself is cheaper, more flexible, and better meets my own needs.

If you know how to work the system (ITA Matrix, and some of the other search engines) and have a bit of a clue when it comes to location and booking, you can do a lot better than the idiots at travel agencies who have no clue about where you're going, and don't seem to know anything about the airports in between.

Re:Travelers want to buy a trip.

[erice]

The real disconnect is that Travelers want to buy a trip(airfare, car rental, hotel, attraction), Hoteliers want to sell a stay..

Really? I have the opposite experience. Travel sites keep trying to sell me a trip but their bundles are always overpriced, contain the wrong things, or both. I tell them to go away and let me book the pieces individually.

For corporate travel, it isn't really about what I want anyway. I am forced to use the corporate travel agency but it's not my money so I don't care so much. I still end up declining parts of the bundle and buying outside where it allowed and the bundle version is clearly inferior. I will probably book my hotel directly the next time because the perks are somewhat useful and it is easier than justifying another line on the expense report if I were to pay for them directly.

Re:Travelers want to buy a trip.

[burningcpu]

"My current employer forces me to use one of these abominations, and each and every trip I book, I always forward along what I would have booked given my own choice. Invariably, what I could have booked myself is cheaper, more flexible, and better meets my own needs."

Sorry bud but I doubt that's going to get you the reaction you want. For many reasons.

Re:Travelers want to buy a trip.

[edtice1559]

More importantly, I've never talked to a corporate travel agent and told them a cheaper itinerary and had them refuse to book it. If you know what you want it's easy to book through corporate travel.

Re:Travelers want to buy a trip.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have.

My employer requires me to use Enterprise car rental and requires me to buy CDW. I (and others) have complained about this.

My suspicion is that Enterprise kicks back a commission to employers who agree to throw all their business that way. This would amount to a money transfer from my contract to my employer's travel office.

Re:Travelers want to buy a trip.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another example is that federal government employees are required to use the single approved carrier for flying between a given pair of cities. Sometimes another carrier would be cheaper.

Best deals are still through human travel agents

[Anonymous Coward]

The big player like Expedia take a 30% commission but the mom and pop travel agencies which still exist in rather large numbers are happy with 15% and the best deals are through them. Clearly you should still get prices online but then you go to one of the mom and pops and see what they offer. 9 times in 10 it will be a cheaper deal and often significantly cheaper. My last vacation to the DR I booked with a brick and mortar travel agency after first looking online. I saved like $200 total which was like 8% the cost of the trip.

I find value in the aggregators

[riskkeyesq]

We're off for France this week; it was nice to be able to select room choices based on location and amenities rather than visiting 10 separate hotel web sites. Between Booking, TripAdvisor, and Hotels I can find what I want in the minimum amount of time and expended energy. I'd even pay more for that benefit.

Re:I find value in the aggregators

[JonnyCalcutta]

You are ;)

Re:I find value in the aggregators

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. I have been using a concierge travel service from my credit card for years. Yes I'm fully aware that I'll pay more but I can't no longer stay at places where they run a charity fund for wayward ladies of the night. And at least some level of comfort. At this point they know what level of hospitality I expect and guide me accordingly. Since they are a large credit card company, hotels doesn't want to mistreat me in fear of being delisted from the system. Travel tip: small upscale boutique hotels, even if they are owned by a large hotel conglomerate, is almost always the right choice.

Hidden Advantage of Direct Booking

[Roger W Moore]

Even if there is no difference in the price to direct booking there is one huge advantage: Expedia oversells rooms. I've had the experience of making a reservation with Expedia and turning up at a small US town in the middle of nowhere with the wife and kids on holiday to find that they overbooked the room. Fortunately, the staff had realized this and booked the only other remaining hotel room in the town so, thanks to their thoughtfulness we were ok, but after that experience, I have only ever used Expedia to find hotels and will never, ever use them again to book a room.

Re:Hidden Advantage of Direct Booking

[berj]

Yup.. I had a similar experience with Expedia. Booked a (very expensive) room at a hotel in the south pacific. The night before our flight I decided to call the hotel to confirm something or other (probably hotel pickup). They said they had no booking for me. Someone at expedia had contacted them about the booking but never actually *made* the booking.

A couple of hours of banging my head against the expedia customer support wall and I had nothing and had to scramble to find a place for my wife and I to stay for a week during a very busy season.

It was not a pleasant experience. I've never used them since (I used to use them alot for booking flights.. this was my first time using them for accommodations). I've also stopped friends and family from using them when they mention it.

A garbage company all around.

Re:Hidden Advantage of Direct Booking

[Jumperalex]

I'm guessing this is exactly what just happened to me 48 hours ago in Prague using Booking.com. I needed to change hotels last minute so I booked the room at like 11am, we showed up around 2pm and were told with a smile, "We didn't have that room so we upgraded you. Here is our card. Call us next time and we'll also give you better rate." Ummm hey all I know is I paid for a Junior Suite and you gave me a Deluxe WOOT! But yeah it could have gone badly especially since we had already checked out of our other room which was going to be at ground zero for a Rammstein concert we didn't know about :)

So I'll be sure to keep this in mind.

Re:Hidden Advantage of Direct Booking

[LunaticTippy]

I remember some annoying "booking dot ____" ad from a while ago. I guess they should update it - "booking dot NOT" "booking dot PSYCH" "booking dot ARGH"

Re:Hidden Advantage of Direct Booking

[Anonymous Coward]

booking dot con

Re:Hidden Advantage of Direct Booking

[mjwx]

Even if there is no difference in the price to direct booking there is one huge advantage: Expedia oversells rooms. I've had the experience of making a reservation with Expedia and turning up at a small US town in the middle of nowhere with the wife and kids on holiday to find that they overbooked the room. Fortunately, the staff had realized this and booked the only other remaining hotel room in the town so, thanks to their thoughtfulness we were ok, but after that experience, I have only ever used Expedia to find hotels and will never, ever use them again to book a room.

Booking direct has other advantages, even if you dont get a discount, you'll be ahead of the Expedia crowd in getting better rooms.

Because hotels have to pay Expedia and Priceline to get bookings, they automatically assign the worst rooms to guests who book via third parties and save the nice rooms for people who book direct.

There are three factors to getting a free or very cheap upgrade.
1) Book direct.
2) Be a repeat customer.
3) Be kind to the staff.

I've received many a room (and car) upgrade just by following these simple steps (which really are common sense) sometimes its just because they remembered me from last time. Room upgrades in the case of overbooking (or wanting to keep a few cheap rooms open for walk-ins and last minute bookings) will first go to preferred customers, then repeat customers and in both cases, will go to the ones that the staff like first. Nothing annoys a hotel receptionist more than a cheap arsehole waving a $20 in front of them thinking it gives them some kind of magic power, especially when a nice customer left a $20 tip not 10 minutes ago.

This really goes double for rental car staff, they get badly abused by so many customers because their vague request wasn't interpreted correctly and their sense of self-entitlement refuses to allow them to admit a mistake.

Re:Hidden Advantage of Direct Booking

[thegarbz]

Having booked with booking.com a few times I don't think I've ever gotten a booking confirmation within 3 hours. Personally I wouldn't use a middle man when you need something last minute. That's not just these middle men that is everything. At work we use a very frigging expensive corporate travel agent who are equally bloody useless at last minute bookings.

Fortunately I never ended up in a booked out hotel so I always got a room, but then I always had grief when the reference number didn't match the booking number and then when claiming my expenses the little warning box comes up: "In 250 words or less justify why you breached policy: Travel Agent Retarded."

Re:Hidden Advantage of Direct Booking

[denguydj]

Hotels are the ones that choose to overbook not the site. Most hotels will overbook 10% because those people don't show up. Also they still charge the people that don't show up weather they had room for them or not. Expedia and other sites like it are Pre-Paid most hotels will not refund prepaids because of the rate and the commision paid. They also have contracts with all of the sites that state we will not be lower than the site, hence why you won't always get a better rate calling the hotel. Hotels will generally treat people who pre-pay through third party sites worse than those who do not simply because they already have your money at a lower rate than everyone else who booked through them directly and did not pre-pay. There are many other rules and what not that the hotel will implement based on who owns them if its a franchise or owned by the corp it just all depends. I could go on and on and on but that's the gist. I use to be a front desk manager at a few hotels.

Re:Hidden Advantage of Direct Booking

[Jumperalex]

As it happens i did get the confirmation really quickly. So I felt good about it. Had I know I would have just called the hotel directly or even just walked in the door. But doing it online from the coffee shop was much easier. But yeah, won't be doing that again still.

of course

[Anonymous Coward]

it's the same concept as that startup who wanted to be the go-to app for ride hailing/sharing services. Uber is like: nope, take us off of this

Love the competition

[SPopulisQR]

God, I love competition. And the free exchange of ideas. Yes, we knew that by booking directly it is possible to save five bucks or so, plus getting free wi-fi. Now, time permitting, we can compare AirBNB, with different search engines (such as Expedia, Travelocity etc) and force the competition towards the big chains. You know who the losers are? Timeshare businesses. Most of the times (but not always), especially for non-super-hot days such as New Year, Memorial, Independence day etc, consumers, will be able to get rates lower than timeshares would offer. The middleman, such as Expedia? Most of the times is just as redundant as Taxi service dispatcher, however, we welcome the competition and the services they provide.

lol

[sootman]

Breaking news: suppliers hate middlemen who take a cut.

Film at 11.

IHG Rewards Club login security is crap and they d

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting story, but if InterContinental (IHG) wants to be a major player then they need to step up their website game. Their IHG Rewards Club site uses only a four-digit code. I've tried to tell 'em that's unwise, but nobody seems to be listening.

What can possibly be wrong?

[angel'o'sphere]

I go to the hotels booking site and it tells me: $100 per night
I go to expedia.com and it tells me: $70 per night
I go to booking.com and it tells me: $63 per night

All tell me on the web site: only 3 rooms left, 4 clients are currently looking to book a room.

Then I go to trivago.com and they list me that expedia.com and booking.com actually also had a price for $55 ... on my android device. (Ofc. they list me also other boooking sites that are even cheaper.
And then you remember: "Ah! As a Mac or iPad user, you don't get the cheapest price but get trapped in that 'dynamic pricing' bullshit" (Or however it is called)

So why does the hotel charge on its own web site twice as much as any booking site demands and on top of that pays the booking site 30% fee?

Re:What can possibly be wrong?

[swb]

Maybe the hotel figures if someone is going direct, they're not an aggressive shopper and will be more likely to pay whatever they ask.

If they have to give a discount, best to give the discount to the middle man earning a commission. It's a percentage of the booking anyway, so the less you charge, the less commission you pay.

At that point as well, it's better to let the room at a discount than it is to leave it empty. At least on site there's a chance you will get money out of them in the restaurant or from added services.

Re:What can possibly be wrong?

[Mandrel]

Maybe the hotel figures if someone is going direct, they're not an aggressive shopper and will be more likely to pay whatever they ask.

Yes, that's correct. For the same reason prices are often lower on eBay than on the vendor's webstore. Though it's sometimes the opposite, where the webstore offers a discount similar to the eBay commission.

I'd rather support the travel sites

[NaCh0]

As someone with no hotel brand allegiance, I'd rather earn my points through hotels.com than a single chain. This allows me to get the best location at an amenity tier that fits my trip. Sometimes I want cheap and sometimes I will pamper myself. When locked into a single hotel brand, it makes it harder to fit those needs.

And I usually check the hotel website directly prior to booking to make sure I'm not getting screwed on price. Almost always the price is the same which validates my decision to keep racking up points with hotels.com.

Plus there are stupid aspects to a lot of the hotel chain programs. I was traveling to Las Vegas a lot so I took the MGM "mlife" points card. Your benefits improve as you move up the 5 tiers. (cheaper booking, express checkin lines, etc) As I was approaching Gold (tier 3), they reset all of my accumulated points and tier down to zero. I called up the support number to ask if there was a mistake. They informed me that on your membership anniversary date, they take away all of your levels and rewards. (It's in the fine print) So fuck them. I actually book, eat, gamble more at the Caeasars chain of properties now just because I'm bitter about that. MGM really screwed themselves.

Re:I'd rather support the travel sites

[speedplane]

As someone with no hotel brand allegiance, I'd rather earn my points through hotels.com than a single chain. This allows me to get the best location at an amenity tier that fits my trip. Sometimes I want cheap and sometimes I will pamper myself.

Totally agree. I've received a number of free nights from hotels.com, it's better than most hotel's loyalty programs.

We need more aggregators, NOT OTAs

[hackel]

Online Travel Agencies need to die. These are the traditional companies (like Expedia) that can make bookings directly. Aggregators—sites which simply scrape hotel sites to collect their current rates—are great and we need more of them to continue innovating and delivering new and exciting solutions. These sites will just point you straight to the hotel's own website to book directly (without any kind of commission—no affiliate link or any other such nonsense). They can make their money through advertising like everyone else.

Idiocy

[nospam007]

They seem to think that everybody knows which hotels are located in, let's say Buttfuck, Idaho and know which one is the best, cheapest or with the best location or facilities.
That's not the case.
I use them to _find_ the fuckers in the first place, without those sites, their hotels would be half empty.

One problem for the hotels

[jonwil]

Many of these booking sites (including all the big players) have clauses in the contracts that hotels sign when they list on the site that says they aren't allowed to offer the same thing cheaper anywhere else (including the hotels own site). Some jurisdictions have outlawed such practices but others (including here in Australia) haven't yet done so.

So the Hotels may not be able to offer a better deal if you book with them direct than they offer through the booking site without violating the contract.

Disclaimer: I worked at Hotels.com 2007-12

[gilgongo]

Lots of people here posting knowledgeably, so I thought I'd add my tuppence.

Here's a few reasons why the hotel chains haven't turned their backs on the likes of Booking.com and Hotels.com (an Expedia Inc company roughly four times smaller than Booking.com BTW) and others:

1. Both are localised in 50+ languages and basically cover the whole world. And when I say "localised", I mean not just the UI language, but the hotels they show you, the landmarks they know are important, and a bunch of other stuff about the destination. And they constantly alter this logic depending on the country you are booking in (so Russians booking in London might get different hotels from Spaniards, etc.).

2. They have massive MVT and A/B testing platforms that constantly optimise those sites (something like 40+ tests running at any one time on hotels.com. and more on booking.com, which is designed from the ground up for exactly that).

3. In the case of booking.com, they also have a massive affiliates program (which on its own is bigger than hotels.com's entire business as I recall).

4. Because of their reach, they can monitor and react to global customer lodging fluctuations on an hourly basis, making sure that inventory stays maxed out as much as possible.

5. They operate worldwide call centres in dozens of languages.

6. They take SEO and SEM extremely seriously and invest literally hundreds of millions into it.

7. They have hundreds of staff dedicated to doing one thing: selling hotel rooms and finding better and better ways of doing it.

The hotels trade is a relatively low-margin, high risk business of which sales is only on of many concerns. If anyone thinks the chains have anything like the financial muscle to replicate even half of what the major travel sites do, they don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

ditch the rent-seeking middle men

[robot5x]

two words: blockchain

To the non-chain motels (Private Hotels)

[Neuronwelder]

Try flooding yourselves in the white or yellow pages though Web page redirection. Tout that you are non-chain and lean heavy on personalized service that cannot be gotten by the bigger competition. Use direct phone conversation to prospects. One thing I know for sure; any thing that is "chained" is probably not as good as independent. I don't go to "chained restaurants" - they stink!

Online travel sites ruin the service

[kerubi]

Booking.con allows multiple bookings months ahead for the same time period, with free cancelling of the reservation only 24hours before the reservation. This is against everybody's interests - the travelers can't see the real availability until the last minute, the hotels get lots of cancels and empty rooms, and the booking site loses comission. It's a lose-lose-lose, but still they do it. Only one who can change this policy is the booking sites.

Not just them

[AstroSurf]

> gatekeepers standing between them and their customers.

Yes! Exactly correct! Now if we could just squeeze out TicketBastard too. The 'convenience fees' on my McCartney tickets amounted to more than I spent to see the other 3 Beatles individually at 3 separate shows. That's not 'convenient' at all!

Best Western vs 3rd Party Billing Sites

[Anonymous Coward]

The chain I'm involved with is also battling Expedia and the rest: they're offering smaller incentives to steer people towards booking directly with us. I do it mostly because it makes things simpler: checking in and out with fewer mistakes like our computer systems were designed for. (It's no fun getting a call from someone whose personal card was charged the confidential billing amount instead of a hold to cover incidentals!)