Direct booking with hotel is MORE expensive?

[stingk]

What?!

Had always been told to book direct and get discounts. Looking to book a room at a pretty large hotel (100+ rooms) and all the quotes I’ve got are more expensive than a third party website?

Hotel A: Booking dot com is £880, direct £1,300
Hotel B: Expedia £1,500, direct £2,000

Yep. Booking.com always cheaper for me than booking directly with the hotel. I think they provide special discounted rates for Booking.com

It just goes to show it pays to shop around..

As a pp said, they give a chunk of rooms to certain organisations at a discounted rate. The advantage to them is that the rooms are paid for regardless of whether or not they are sold so i can see why they do it.

It's just really puzzling that they say it's cheaper to book direct when it's not. In fact, they're liars aren't they? Call them out on it.

I use booking.com as I get good discounts, but I often call the hotel and ask if they’ll price match if I book direct. I’ll then email them a screenshot of the booking.com price and more often than not they say yes. If they don’t exactly match the price they offer an upgrade to a better room or breakfast included so it works out better. I prefer to book direct incase of any issues etc. Always worth a go. If you don’t ask…

That's a great tip, @FanofLeaves I'll try it for booking our easter hols.

I've seen this loads of times. Also packages are sometimes cheaper than booking exactly the same elements separately.

But it doesn't always work that way so need to compare all options to get the best price and/or what suits you best.

For example if we're going somewhere that has a good bus service from the airport to the hotel, I'd rather do that than take the coach transfer that stops at a few other hotels en route.

There is no one rule. I normally book a package for my summer holiday because where I go it is much cheaper than booking separately. Other locations a package is more expensive.

Having once worked for a firm which happened to have a couple of hotels in its portfolio and muggins here had to reconcile their 3rd party booking accounts it turns out that the hotel has to pay commission to the booking companies it is registered with anyway, even if the booking is made direct with the hotel. It is also often at a much higher rate of commission than if the booking was made via a booking company. So it actually costs the hotel more money if you go direct, and they have to claw that back somehow.

@stingk In your examples though, that does seem wildly excessive.

I often find booking.com cheaper than booking direct because I have a genius discount, but I like to book directly as sometimes you get a better room or breakfast thrown in. Therefore if it’s worth it i.e. more than a couple of nights stay, I will email the hotel and see if they can match the rate.
It pays to book cancellable as well if it’s not too much extra and then keep an occasional eye on the room rates in case they go down.

This is why I always shop around because it is so inconsistent. A bit like when you see something on eBay - which many people would assume would be cheaper - but if you search for the item online it is half the price elsewhere.

But useful tip for things like this - I remember saying to my Mum a while back how I didn't understand how high street travel agents were still in business given that people can book online these days. She said to me that her postwoman (she calls herself a postwoman, not a postperson, just to be clear!) would go online and get a range of quotes for her preferred holiday and then go into her local travel agents and say: "Beat that!" I don't know why it never occurred to me, but what a brilliant idea and I think it's the same with booking with hotels - find the lowest price and then ask others - including the hotel - to beat it!

Same with local restaurants (same price as Just Eat) and the beauty salon (30% cheaper via Treatwell). They always ask me to book direct but if it is cheaper online then of course I am going to book the cheaper price unless they match!

They pay the booking company 20-30% in fees so they need to give incentive if they want people to book direct.

I'd just prefer a travel agent to do all the work for me, to be honest. I tell them the dates, the airport, and roughly what I'm looking for & where, and let them have the hassle of it.

Some family members went to France a few years ago, and used a travel agent. Just as well they did, because the hotel they were booked in had to close for emergency repairs the day before they were due to arrive, and the agent sorted it all out, found somewhere else and dealt with the whole thing for them. Nicer hotel too, and the agent swallowed the additional cost. They were brilliant.

Yeah all fair points and make sense. The last time I booked anything with a travel agent it was because I had to book eight flights in a sequence, and I did so in case anything was delayed or cancelled as I knew they would do the rearranging, which would have been a nightmare for me to achieve on the go.

It is inconsistent even between the same hotel and same booking platform over the course of a year. I always double-check. I spoke to a hotel about it once. Complicated explanation but booking.com etc do bulk deals. Sometimes its cheaper to go to booking.com but sometimes its much cheaper to go direct. It varies. We have a specific hotel place we often use and sometimes it is/sometimes it isn't.

How does this work? Surely if you book directly through the hotel it is then nothing to do with booking.com, ie booking.com don’t know you’ve gone ahead and booked elsewhere, so how would they be able to take commission from it?

I try both. I get an extra discount with booking.com. But occasionally going direct is cheaper. Never had the discrepancy you highlight though.

Always check both. Its usually
cheaper on booking, but not always.
I've been known to book it on booking.com literally at hotel reception because they wouldn't match the price on booking, which was significantly cheaper. I had assumed that hotels would prefer direct bookings, but thats probably for the smaller family run ones?

The third party sites do often have discounts which is why people use them. Hotels use them
to move the lower quality rooms on lower demand days that they are having trouble filling.

you are also increasing your risk because if something goes wrong with the reservation, the hotel is not responsible. Your contract is with the third party so instead of resolving the issue at the desk with an actual person, you will need to go to the void of the website

It can be worth the discount, you just need to be aware it’s not an apples to apples purchase.

Yes, we had this when we booked a room with booking.com for a city centre hotel, and as it wasn’t booked via the hotel they didn’t tell us they were almost completely booked out with wedding guests- we couldn’t use the bar or the restaurant, and the music went on until after midnight and then lots of people smoking and screeching in the courtyard below. I did complain and to their credit offered us breakfast in the morning, but said they’d only informed the guests that had booked direct with them that things would be taken over by a wedding party. Obviously if we’d known, we wouldn’t have booked or would have cancelled.

It's in their contract with the booking agencies. They have to pay commission on all bookings, whether via the agent or direct. If a hotel isn't on booking.com or other booking websites, they won't get the publicity advertising they need, won't come up on searches, and they won't get the bookings. So they have to accept those terms. The agent does know about direct bookings because the hotel has to update them on how many rooms are vacant.

The hotels are caught between a rock and a hard place.

What does each include? Because quite often online is a room only rate which leaves you paying additional for breakfast, or dog charges, parking etc while often the direct rate includes all that and is a bit more expensive, but cheaper than the 3rd party site and adding those on.

And 3rd party sites quite often offer it cheaper to you than they're paying the hotel, as an offer or discount, so the 3rd party site is paying part of the price, and hotels are unlikely to match that if it means they'll end up losing more than the commission on the booking would be.

Their aim is to undercut the direct rates because they want the commission from booking through them, and they're in a better position to make a loss now and again giving you a discount than a hotel is, so they offer rates that hotels can't match, take a bit of a hit but then you remember, and you use them again and again.

This.

Or once a few years ago we stayed in a hotel as a family with a pool and I wanted the kids to use this. As we booked with booking.com it was £5 per person and as the kids were young that was £20 as two adults had to pay as well whereas it would have been free if we had booked direct with the hotel. So sometimes breakfast is extra and expensive if you don’t book direct etc.

I once booked a hotel in a city with booking dot com, and when I arrived they had overbooked and had no room for me. They found me a home in a much less nice hotel. I was livid, but it was late and I had no where else to stay . I think this is more likely to happen with a third party sight - actually it also happened once before. So, I no longer use it. I always book direct with the hotel.

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Cancellation periods etc will vary too. It is always worth checking.

An airbnb is almost always cheaper if you can find the owner's own website. But not always.

I always thought it was more expensive direct personally

I often check the price and ring the hotel and ask to match (and I have always found that they do)