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I have to say that I am not finding the set that I'm using (not sure if I'm allowed to say the name?) is hardly a bargain! After the 10th star to get a free night, I will NOT be using it again! The Direct hotel site offers a rate of $68.29.night, while this hotel site offers $76. IN addition, ALL of their customer service is Outsourced and only want to talk with you when making a NEW RESERVATION. I originally used them when I was not familiar with a city that I was about to visit (Mex City and San Miguel de Allende). Had I known where to stay, I probably would have made direct reservations with them.
Is there ever an advantage to using these online sites?
Rarely - I've gotten cheaper prices a FEW times with booking.com and I've NEVER had a problem with them. That said, all things being equal, I'd book directly with the hotel site.
Plane tickets? NEVER anybody except the airline site (one exception: On two occasions when we booked flights through Celebrity Cruises. Just couldn't get close to two one way flights booking on our own.)
You can sometimes do well with the airlines' own vacation package programs. When we were toying with the idea of a week in Berlin earlier in the year, the price for flight + well-regarded hotel via Delta Vacations was coming out about $300 cheaper per person than the plane tickets alone would have been from Delta.com. Apparently their vacation package subsidiary has access to the same deep discount bulk/consolidator plane tickets that they also sell to the cruise lines.
You can sometimes do well with the airlines' own vacation package programs. When we were toying with the idea of a week in Berlin earlier in the year, the price for flight + well-regarded hotel via Delta Vacations was coming out about $300 cheaper per person than the plane tickets alone would have been from Delta.com. Apparently their vacation package subsidiary has access to the same deep discount bulk/consolidator plane tickets that they also sell to the cruise lines.
Except for Southwest Vacations. Prices are good, customer service is terrible.
We used Ovago Travel to purchase 2 round trips to Berlin. They purchased the airline tickets from American Airlines who purchased the tickets from their partner airline, British Airways.
British Air cancelled the return flight and said we'd be eligible for a full refund. American said talk to Ovago about the cancellation. Ovago says we have a credit with American Airlines, however we must purchase the ticket by 7/31/20 for travel as long as 12/31/2021.
Many say American Airlines may be in danger of bankruptcy. And the prices to Europe for next year are no where near the prices of our Spring, 2020 trip that was cancelled--3x higher.
We'd have to fly in North America to use our tickets, and there's no where here we want to go on vacation. And then Ovago wants to charge us more service fees for their time and trouble.
We just want our airfare returned.
The morale: Don't buy from mass merchandisers. Buy tickets that are cancellable from the airlines direct.
Depends, sometimes they have seats that aren't available with the airline. I think best practice:
1. Use reservation 3rd party aggregator site
2. Try to match best deal directly with airline/hotel
3. Otherwise book with 3rd party site
Usually you don't get past step 2, but sometimes you do.
It’s been a while since I’ve used an aggregator for airfare. How often are you able to beat direct pricing these days, and what kind of discounts do you see?
I rarely see them beat the airlines these days, but yes I do sometimes come across both lower prices and seats that aren't available booking direct. I've posted some examples in this forum before, it usually doesn't take me long to go online and find one.
One thing with hotel sites is that there are often packages available that are unique to booking.com, agaoda, etc. Like various room options that include/exclude breakfast. Also the issue of payment, many smaller hotels and guest houses don't necessarily accept credit cards online in a many that offers confidence. I feel better using my credit card on a major booking site that reading my credit card out over the phone, sending it in an email, or entering it on a website that looks like it was designed in 2006.
I have to say that I am not finding the set that I'm using (not sure if I'm allowed to say the name?) is hardly a bargain! After the 10th star to get a free night, I will NOT be using it again! The Direct hotel site offers a rate of $68.29.night, while this hotel site offers $76. IN addition, ALL of their customer service is Outsourced and only want to talk with you when making a NEW RESERVATION. I originally used them when I was not familiar with a city that I was about to visit (Mex City and San Miguel de Allende). Had I known where to stay, I probably would have made direct reservations with them.
Is there ever an advantage to using these online sites?
I always book airline travel directly. Often book car rental directly. But for hotels I usually use Orbitz. While you may have cases where the hotel offers a better price direct, it seems most of the time I check it's the opposite. And Orbitz usually has a promo code to make it even less.
Another reason to use the booking portal is the user reviews. I may not fully trust the integrity of the reviews but I don't trust them at all on a hotel's own site where they have full control. Every place will have dissatisfied customers but when I see a recurring theme then I take note. One time I didn't and I put the low rate over a slew of warnings and I got burned.
Another reason is to get a broad range of options. With one search criteria I can get a list of 50 hotels and sort by rating/price/etc. I also like the map view to see where all the hotels are in relation to the area. It would take forever to check around with those hotels individually. Of course, many may use the portals to narrow down to a few then check with those directly.
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