I know people in the hospitality business, and all third party travel websites (and travel agents) are bad for the traveler and hotel, for a few simple reasons.
1) Middlemen always need their cut. In this case, you pay the website, and then the website pays the hotel less.
2) By bypassing the middleman (call the hotel directly, and speak to that specific location's on site employees), you SHOULD be able to get a better deal. Simply compare prices, and if you find it cheaper on a website, ask the hotel to give you 5% off. Any competent manager will do this because it costs much more than 5% to get your reservation from a travel agent. Obviously, they will have to verify that third party price, but in the case of Expedia, they can just search it.
3) Additionally, it's good to book directly with the hotel for the following reasons too (or at least call them directly after booking online to confirm):
-In the fine print of travel websites' T&C, it will say you are guaranteed A room, not THE room you want. This means if only smoking rooms are available, the third party site will still sell it to you as a non smoking room. Also, there are many incompatibilities in the GDS/Central reservation system software, so there is a chance there can be an error in your reservation.
-Third party reservations don't go to the hotel with the guest's contact information. This means if the hotel wants to contact you about some issue, they cannot reach you, and the websites won't give out the guest's information. This was a big problem during Sandy a few months ago.
All in all, third party websites are a relic of the times when hotels did not have the technical expertise to implement internet reservation systems. Nowadays, you can just look up the hotel's reviews on TripAdvisor, call the hotel directly, and make sure you get the room you want by speaking with someone directly at the property, with actual knowledge of the place. The ONLY benefit these third party websites can provide, seems to be with the bundling of hotels/flights/rental cars, but I still wouldn't use them. Going straight to the vendor has been the more pleasant experience for me.
Edit: I should have noted that my knowledge comes from US and British hotels, mostly franchises like IHG/Hilton/Choice/Wyndham.
Full disclosure, I work for an OTA and CRS (central reservation service) specializing in boutique hotels.
1. Often the hotels themselves charge the customer, and pay the OTA commission on a monthly basis.
2. Many contracts between hotels and availability services mandate that the hotel provide the lowest rate to the OTA, and that if they use several that the rates are in parity with each other. If you find a lower rate by going to the hotel directly, there's a chance that they are breaching contract.
3. The OTA can only be as accurate as the hotelier providing it with information. If the customer is not satisfied, we get a partial refund or credits for future bookings. For our more remote hotels, sometimes they have to throw up a satellite transmitter once a week and update the information they are telling the world about themselves. If they are on a good CRS, it will fan-out that information to many online sites.
The OTA I'm at does provide the hotel with the customer's information, and requires that all communications between the hotel and customer are CC'd to them. This is because when the customer calls our customer service with a problem, we want to know what the back-and-forth between them and the hotel was so we can address the issue more objectively.
Third party websites yield value to people who feel like being backed by the OTA's brand to ensure that they receive the experience they paid for. They offer comfort insurance, and will go through the hassle of fixing problems with the hotel for you. For hotels, the agency may also forward their information to google and bid on ad placement. The one I'm at also guarantees certain perks to people who book through us, and offer a membership program for travelers to receive champagne on arrival, breakfast, transportation, etc... It sounds like you've really been burned by the lower end OTA's. Sorry for the blatant spam, but maybe you'd be interested in TabletHotels.com
Thank you for providing the perspective from an OTA's side. I shouldn't have said all OTAs are bad. It seems as though your organization operates quite differently than the bigger OTAs, and from the list of services you provide, I think your market may be quite different than the one I'm referring to (i.e. higher end, less commoditized).
However, for run of the mill franchise hotels, the quality control is already being provided for by franchises (i.e. Marriot, Hilton, Choice, Wyndham, IHG, Accor, etc). In my experience, third party reservations at these places is only a hindrance because the OTAs don't guarantee room types, so people show up expecting a certain type of room, but the OTA takes whatever is available from the hotel, even if it's not what the guest wants, and then the hotel has to deal with the fallout when the guest arrives.
> Simply compare prices, and if you find it cheaper on a website, ask the hotel to give you 5% off.
I did. The staff told me they sold a number of rooms well in advance, and the travel site does the pricing with a guaranteed return to the hotel. To the hotel, it doesn't matter how much they are selling it for, but they can do only what is listed on the site.
Also, many 3 star rated hotels don't have online reservations.
I should have noted that my experience is with Hilton/IHG/other American/British hotels. I don't have much experience with international hotels in other countries though. But I do know that it is not typical for hotels to sell rooms to Expedia/Travelocity/Hotels.com/Orbitz/Priceline. They may have a special arrangement, but I doubt it.
Basically, the hotel manager can decide to make rooms available to those travel agents, and then they are displayed on Expedia's website. If someone buys it via Expedia, then Expedia sends over a reservation to the hotel's Central Reservation System with just the guest's name, and Expedia's card, and the system is instructed to NOT print receipts or room rates for the guest, so that they do not find out what Expedia is paying the hotel.
What you were told may be true, but I bet it was just a desk clerk that didn't know any better.
I usually book hotels between 24 and 12 hours before checkin, usually before leaving the previous hotel. This is because most of my hotel bookings are on motorbike tours and are dependent on weather, roads and whimsy. A single interface is much easier to deal with, and I seldom stay at chain hotels. OTAs have made my style of trip way way easier.
1) Middlemen always need their cut. In this case, you pay the website, and then the website pays the hotel less.
2) By bypassing the middleman (call the hotel directly, and speak to that specific location's on site employees), you SHOULD be able to get a better deal. Simply compare prices, and if you find it cheaper on a website, ask the hotel to give you 5% off. Any competent manager will do this because it costs much more than 5% to get your reservation from a travel agent. Obviously, they will have to verify that third party price, but in the case of Expedia, they can just search it.
3) Additionally, it's good to book directly with the hotel for the following reasons too (or at least call them directly after booking online to confirm):
-In the fine print of travel websites' T&C, it will say you are guaranteed A room, not THE room you want. This means if only smoking rooms are available, the third party site will still sell it to you as a non smoking room. Also, there are many incompatibilities in the GDS/Central reservation system software, so there is a chance there can be an error in your reservation.
-Third party reservations don't go to the hotel with the guest's contact information. This means if the hotel wants to contact you about some issue, they cannot reach you, and the websites won't give out the guest's information. This was a big problem during Sandy a few months ago.
All in all, third party websites are a relic of the times when hotels did not have the technical expertise to implement internet reservation systems. Nowadays, you can just look up the hotel's reviews on TripAdvisor, call the hotel directly, and make sure you get the room you want by speaking with someone directly at the property, with actual knowledge of the place. The ONLY benefit these third party websites can provide, seems to be with the bundling of hotels/flights/rental cars, but I still wouldn't use them. Going straight to the vendor has been the more pleasant experience for me.
Edit: I should have noted that my knowledge comes from US and British hotels, mostly franchises like IHG/Hilton/Choice/Wyndham.