HotelChatter || To Book Directly Through The Hotel or Not To Book Directly Through the Hotel?

When it comes to finding the best hotel deals, it's always best to shop around, a mantra that pretty much everyone but our dog knows by now. (Then again he's pretty smart. We bet he would do it for some "human" food.)

Shopping around usually means comparing the rates offered on two or three third-party booking sites next to what the hotel is offering. It may also involve doing some more research on message boards if you are looking at blind bidding sites like Hotwire or Priceline. HotelChatter's Deals Guru Tim Leffel explains all here.

And don't forget about loyalty program rewards points, credit card points, AAA discounts and the like.

But lately, we have been seeing a trend where the hotel is offering either the same or sometimes less rates than the third-party booking sites. And more and more hotels are offering Best Price Guarantees--meaning if you found a better price on another site, the hotel will match that price.

Factor in the specials that hotels make available when you sign up for the newsletters--like Thompson Hotels which never advertise specials or deals on their website but they do in their email newsletters--we have begun to think that often booking directly through the hotel is a good bet. Plus, you won't have to worry about being treated like a second-class citizen because you booked through another site.

However, SmarterTravel is saying the opposite. Based on travel expert Bob Cowan's latest surveys on hotel booking sites, hotel websites provided the lowest price "in only 60% of the inquiries."

So some hotels out there aren't living up to their Best Price Guaranteed policies which is just totally uncool. Cowan does admit that his findings were based on a small, but representative sample and these stats can work for the hotel industry at large.

We wanna know: Have you ever had a hotel not match a lower price found on another site, even though they advertise a "Best Rate Guarantee" type of policy? Similarly, we wanna know if you prefer third-party booking sites to the hotel's own websites and vice versa.

Let us know how you flow in comments below. (Yes, we're poets and we know it.)

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