Let’s make one thing clear: in this post, I am going to use my experience as a traveller and as a hospitality professional to clarify how you can decide the best way to book a hotel for you.
I won’t talk about how to find the cheapest price, or how to get upgrades, or how to get a room for free.
I am going to explain how some of the key actors in the hospitality industry work, what you should keep in mind, and how to make decisions when you book a hotel.
To make it simple, I will use “hotel” to mean “accommodation” in general: a flat, an Airbnb, a hostel. I’m just more knowledgeable in hotels, so I cannot guarantee that my experience applies also to other types of accommodations.
What is the best way to book a hotel?
The truth is that there is no universal best way to book a hotel. It depends on who you are, on where you’re going, on what you’re looking for, on how much you can spend, on how much time you have, and much more. For example:
The best way depending on who you are: Are you a solo traveller, a couple, a family? Do you have special dietary requirements? Are you a frequent traveller?
The best way depending on where you’re going: Do you speak the local language? Is there a special event going on? Do you know how to pay, what taxes apply?
The best way depending on how much you can spend: Do you have a super tight budget? Are you looking for comfort, for location, for design?
The best way depending on how much time you have: Are you an impulsive booker? Do you monitor websites for days? Do you subscribe to secret deals?
The best way depending on your values: Do you care about sustainable tourism? Do you want to contribute to the local economy? Or do you want to support lots of companies in the hospitality and tourism industry?
Each answer will lead you to a different choice and will guide you to a different means of booking a hotel.
What are the ways of booking a hotel?
In general, there are 2 ways of booking a hotel: directly with the property, or through a third party. Let’s have a look at what this means, and what are the pros and cons.
Booking a hotel directly with the property
This means that you book on the hotel’s official website, or you call them, or you send them an email, and you make your reservation directly with them. The agreement is between the two of you.
PRO: You get to ask all the questions you want, you establish a connection with the property, you provide 100% of the revenue to the property, you deal directly with them for modifications, cancellations, invoices etc.
CON: Depending on how professional the hotel staff is, there could be language complications, or mistakes on the reservation, or weaker guarantees.
Example: We booked directly by email at Hotel Gabriella, in Tapolca (Hungary). How magical is this place? Check out our day in Tapolca here!
Booking a hotel through a third party
This means booking online through an OTA (online travel agency) such as Booking.com or Expedia, or through an airline, or through a traditional travel agency. Search engines as Trivago, TripAdvisor or Google usually redirect to an OTA or to the direct website (and get a commission).
As a guest, you have no way of knowing how many parties there are between you and the property: your travel agent may be booking with their headquarters, who are booking with a wholesaler, who is booking with another wholesaler, who is booking with Expedia, who is booking with the hotel.
Same if you book on an exotic “cheapesthotelever.com”. You just don’t know.
The hotel may be making their rooms available on their own website, on Booking.com and on Expedia: they receive their reservations from these 3 channels, but they do not know exactly who the reservations came from.
Consequently, you are making your reservation with the third party: Booking.com, or with Expedia, or Agoda, or the airline, etc. Not with the property itself.
PRO: You get to browse through hundreds of hotels until you find what you like/what you can afford, you (usually) can rely on a customer service team, you can rely on the strength and reputation of the website/tour operator.
CON: Every modification or cancellation must be handled through the third party, the hotel may cancel the contract with the third party and vice versa, the terms and conditions may not match exactly (e.g. city tax or currency), the third party may book another hotel instead of the one you chose, the rules of the third party and of the hotel may not match or be clear.
Example: During our 2-weeks trip to Japan, we chose the wonderful Hishiya Torazo Ryokan. When we decided to book, their website redirected us to a local travel agency. I think that the staff is busy enough managing this amazing traditional Japanese inn, and decided to outsource the sales and reservations tasks to an agency. They were really nice and helpful!
Other things to keep in mind when booking a hotel are:
Where does the money go?
Another fundamental thing to keep in mind is that your money is powerful, and you decide who should receive it.
If you book directly with the hotel, the property will get 100% of the income. They will pay the staff, the supplies, the web designer, the phone bills. They will go home and feed their families with their salaries.
If you book through a third party, the third party (or parties) will receive part of the income, as a commission. After all, they also have to power huge websites, a customer service team, web designers, revenue managers. The commission is the way the hotel pays for the services that the third party provides: accessing a wider market, reaching guests who speak a different language, receiving reservations during the night.
I’m not saying there is a right or wrong way: I’m saying that you should keep it in mind when making your decision.
Can you trust them?
We all want our travels to be as pleasant and safe as possible. Nobody wants to stay in a dodgy neighbourhood or in a creepy hotel.
Nowadays, the way to determine if you can trust a hotel is based on its online appearance and on its reviews. Some hotels publish pictures of nice rooms instead of old ones, they provide contacts that don’t work, or maybe don’t even exist.
This is true also for travel websites and online travel agencies: they are not all equal. Some websites are potential frauds, or they cheat on their taxes, or they mislead the customers.
You should research carefully before you choose.
How to determine if you can trust a hotel?
Make sure you check their official website, their address (even the Google street view if you can), their reviews on Google Maps and on TripAdvisor. Of course, keep in mind that a bad experience will result in a bad review, and maybe 10 good experiences will result in 2 positive reviews.
If you decide to book directly with the hotel, you will have to deal directly with them on any and all matters.
How to determine if you can trust a travel website or online travel agency?
Research the reputation of the website and of their customer service team, compare their price and the price on the official website, compare the room description, the currency, the taxes.
If you decide to book on a third-party website, you will have to contact their customer service for any major request, e.g. modification, cancellation, complaint, etc.
Personal stories: good and bad
When a third party took care of us
Once I decided to try a discount proposed by Ryanair, something like “book your accommodation with us and get 10% back as flight credit”. We were going to a very touristy city in high season, so I figured the hotels had enough business and they could share some commissions with third parties. We chose a hotel, confirmed, paid, done.
Approximately 1 month before the trip, we got an email from Expedia (see? Third parties: I book with Ryanair, Ryanair with Expedia, Expedia with the hotel), saying that the hotel had decided to close their contract with Expedia, so my reservation was cancelled. But Expedia made it easy for us: they chose a similar property and needed my approval in order to move my reservation. This other hotel was even closer to the centre and the room was much larger. Expedia solved the problem for us!
When a hotel provides discounts
I’ve never done this personally, but I know people who check the price on other websites, and then call the hotel to request a discount on that price.
Since the hotel is probably paying 15-20% commission to the third party, they may decide to give you a 10% discount if you book directly.
They may also decide that you are a cheap, ungrateful guest who doesn’t deserve their time and efforts, tell you to go ahead and book wherever you saw that price, and then put you in the worst room they have.
When the agency/OTA messed up
Both hotels and online travel agencies are managed by humans, and humans make mistakes.
As a professional at the hotel where I work, I have received so many emails and phone calls about wrong reservations.
Guest call and provide a confirmation number, but it’s not our format. It turns out that the website where they booked actually made the reservation at another hotel. My hotel was fully booked, and someone at the website left the availability open: we did not accept the reservation, so the website had to provide an alternative… but it wasn’t the hotel the guest originally chose.
Guest asks how large is the Executive room that they booked. I reply that they booked an Exclusive room of 50 square meters, which is different from the Executive Suite of 85 square meters. It turns out that a wholesaler, powering a dodgy website, messed up the room names and descriptions, so guests have no idea what they are actually booking.
Guest writes to double-check his reservation, but I don’t find it. I call another hotel in the same city with a very similar name, and they have it. It turns out that the travel agent didn’t notice the different name, and just chose the cheapest rate… But the guest thought he was booking a 5-star hotel, not a 3-star.
When the hotel made a mistake
A guest arrives at check-in at my hotel, but his reservation is made for the same day of the following month. He provides his booking confirmation, and he is right: it turns out that we made the reservation for the wrong month. We fix it in the system, and luckily a clean room is already available for him.
When a third party went bankrupt
Once I had to reason with an elderly couple who booked on a dodgy website that went bankrupt before their trip, and they did not notice.
Months before, they booked a flight+hotel package on a website: somehow, after the bankruptcy, the flight was confirmed, but their 7-day hotel reservation was cancelled (See the third parties? Guest books on website, website books with who-knows-who, somehow it reaches a wholesaler, wholesaler books with my hotel. Website goes bankrupt and cannot guarantee payment to the whole chain of third parties until the wholesaler, so wholesaler cancels all reservations to all hotels).
The dodgy website did not inform their customers about the bankruptcy, or the email went to spam, or who knows.
So what happened? This elderly couple arrived in the middle of the night, just to find that their reservation was cancelled, the customer service number of the website did not work, and the website itself disappeared! There was just an official notice of some lawyers in England who were managing the bankruptcy and the complaints.
Imagine the shock.
Luckily, we still had rooms for the first night, so they were given a room. In the morning, I was sent to talk to them (same language) and explain that they had to make a new hotel reservation directly with us, and pay it to us. Unfortunately, their original reservation was cancelled when the website went bankrupt. We were not paid by the third party, so couldn’t refund them: they had to contact those lawyers and request a refund from the dodgy website.
In the end, they decided to stay at the hotel, so they ended up spending twice as much as they had budgeted for this holiday.
To sum up: How do I choose how to book a hotel?
As you can see, there is no one way for everybody.
But now you know:
– the pros and cons of booking directly,
– the pros and cons of booking through a third party,
– the power that your money has, and
– how to figure out if you can trust the hotel/website you are booking with.
Now, ask yourself these questions:
Can I speak the same language they speak? Am I aware of the correct price of a room on my dates? Does their website look trustworthy? Are they answering my emails, or to the phone? Is this a third-world-country/small town?
If you answer yes, then my advice is to book directly with the property. They will earn 100% of the income (and you can try and leverage this (politely) for a nice room), you will contribute to the local economy, and all interactions with them should go smoothly.
Are there huge cultural differences that a customer service team can help me with? Do I need someone to help me book? Do I have very specific requests that only a powerful website or travel agency can help me guarantee? Is it a hotel chain? Is this third-party website so nice and helpful that I want to contribute to its finances? Is the customer service of the third-party website easily accessible?
If you answer yes, then possibly you are safer booking with a third-party website. They will assist with the language barrier, will ask questions for you, and will protect you in case something goes wrong.
Finally, is the hotel website incomplete or unclear? Is the third-party website confusing? Is there a phone number in my country that I can call? Are there suspicious stories online about this hotel/online travel agency? Is the price on the online travel agency much cheaper than the official hotel website?
If this information does not add up, do not book that hotel, or do not book on that online travel agency. There is a really high chance that some kind of scam is going on.
What do you consider when booking a hotel? Let us know in the comments!