The newest "Travel Detective" book on hotels, confirms what I've always believed: that hotel booking sites, including the big ones like hotels.com, Travelocity and Expedia are pure slime and you are crazy for booking through one.

The common notion that some how they are simply a means for hotels to sell off excess rooms is not true. It may have started out that way, but now the whole system has become a complex web (to use a term) in which the webstes are little more than vile parasites.

In his book he details how they markup up prices 25-50%, pocket sales tax thst they charge and other fees and are general full of bull, making meaninging low price guarentees. Further, often, and perhaps usually, they are more expensive than booking astraight with the hotel. In all the years that I've been checking on hotels, I have found them cheaper on only one occassion for a hotel where I really wanted to stay. The book confirms that they are are frequently not only no bargain but are often more expensive. The only exception are sites like Priceline, but there you have to take what you get and you need a lot of luck.

Before using any of these these websites, you should check out what Greenberg reveals to see what you are really dealing with/

Kind of strong words. I guess if anyone went to Expedia or Travelocity or anyone else and blindly booked without first trying to see what the hotel charged directly, then they deserve to overpay if they do. On the other hand if they happened to hit a lower price than they could get directly after trying with the hotel, then I don't see anything wrong with taking that offer.
Slime???

To each their own and calling someone "crazy" for doing something regardless of the particular circumstances involved speaks volumes.

It is unfortunate when one takes one source of "information" as gospel; even more so when they apparently don't have any first-hand experience of the matter involved and prefer to rely on sensationalist writers. In this case I suspect the poster is the one who got "ripped off" when they bought this book!

Hey, Patrick, maybe he's having a bad decade. Seven (count 'em, 7) spelling errors in one post? I know, I know, it's hard to type well after the second bottle of wine (or is that whine?). IF he were in business, I wonder how much he would mark product up to cover his overhead?

Truth be told, everyone is in business to make money. That includes hotel booking websites. If you find their service fees too high, then look elsewhere.

As a traveller and potential customer to any of these sites it is incumbent on you to do your homework and seek out the best deal if that's what you'll be satisfied with.

If you take the easy route, and book through one of those sites, you are paying for convenience. Just like you would if you used a Travel Agent.

Nothing's for free...if you want a bargain, be prepared to do the research it takes to get one.

I have never found the web sites like Expedia or Hotels.com to be cheaper for me than booking directly. I was disappointed because I wanted the convenience and ease of booking through web sites like Expedia. I have always found that booking through the hotel directly is cheaper. I either e-mail or telephone the hotel. I would like to hear what other people have to say, rather than have Metellus' advice written off as nonsensical.

A fewmonths ago we saved 40 Euros per night on a room at our favorite hotel in Paris by booking through Orbitz.com. That's not bad.

I was thinking I had never booked a hotel on any of those sites, but just remembered that once when we had friends arriving from out of town at the last minute I started calling hotels in the area for that night. Finally I went to a site -- hotels.com -- I think, and found the Hampton Inn for $39.00. I called them direct and they insisted it was a mistake. They couldn't go lower than $79, so we booked it with the site and saved half price.

I'm all for calling the hotels direct. But I'm also even more in favor of saving money and time!

During the lovely hurricanes this last year, hotels.com was a lifesaver when it came to actually locating and securing a room when we evacuated. I was most impressed with them and won't hesitate to use them again, slime or not!

Why are the mass booking sites "slime"? Because they're trying to make money? Of course they're trying to make money - they're businesses - not public services.

And I always start there when looking for a hotel - because they give you a good benchmark of the most you should expect to pay - as well as some good background info on the hotels in one place. then I know which ones I want to look at in more detail - on the other discount sites and the hotel sites and via phone.

I don't really use them because I usually have a pretty good idea of the few hotels I'm interested in and areas. However, I think they can be useful for those not familiar with a city and who don't want to spend a lot of time with guidebooks, etc. At least I find them useful for a lot of listings, information and photos. I also wouldn't use any that require prepayment (which I think Expedia does) unless I really got a good deal. However, I have compared prices on some on Expedia to standard rates and some other places, and have found some lower rates on there, so I don't think the prices are always inflated at all. Even if they are the same rates, they still can perform a service for some people. However, I think everyone should at least try to check a couple places for rates when doing that, unless they are really pressed for time and the rate seems decent to them, and they find it useful to book that way.

I never really thought of the main ones as mainly being there to sell excess rooms at all, just a way of marketing for the hotels and to reach a lot of people. I think that probably is efficient marketing for many hotels.

I only use them if I know for sure that I will be going somewhere in a week or two at the most. Plans can change so quickly and you can find yourself stuck when you purchase a room through Expedia or the like.

The travel industry has undergone fundamental changes over the past few years. When online booking services first emerged, they were offering a valuable new technology solution that provided hotels with unprecedented access to the market. Consumers were provided with convenience, along with a lot of information and capability that had previously been exclusively in the hands of travel professionals.

The ability for individual consumers to simultaneously compare dozens of properties with live rates, locations on a map and instantaneous booking confirmation has been a huge step forward. Previously, consumers or their travel agents (who also earn commission on bookings) did much of their work over the telephone by contacting individual properties or through toll-free central booking numbers for the chains. Online booking saves a lot of time and it is a substantial money-saver on a cost-per-transaction basis. It also provides uniformity to the booking process and the ability to adjust rates (yields) instantaneously.

Hotels were only too happy to work with the booking services in the early years and they initially provided attractive margins. There were real savings to work with from the standpoint of reservations staffing and commissions. In addition, there is almost no substitute for online when it comes to making certain types of sales and it is particularly well-suited to hotels. During times when the market was soft, having online booking capability was critical to fill rooms -- even if it had to be done at a high premium.

In the meantime, technology marched forward and hotels set up their own web-based booking systems. Commissions to the third party booking services began to fall and the larger chains began to drive consumers to their proprietary sites to cut out the middle men. A number of the chains now guarantee their customers that they will match any lower rate that might be found for their properties online and/or they do not provide points in their loyalty programs for bookings made through third party websites (not just Priceline).

Simply put, third party online booking services had a lot more margin to play with in each transaction a few years ago than they do today. They have faced the same squeeze that has hit all travel agents as the technology for online booking has become reliable, secure and widespread. They've gone from being considered key players and partners to being seen as something closer to parasites -- at least by some.

I don't regard hotel booking sites as slime. On the contrary, they were leaders in a technology revolution that has changed travel for the better. It is also true that, in general, they are not in a position to provide kind of savings that were available when the technology was new. It's just not there anymore. Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, hotels.com and Quikbook are five of a number of reliable online booking services I've used. For "bottom line" people like me, I don't really need to read a book about how they manage their revenue streams and calculate their charges to evaluate whether a given booking makes sense to me. Comparison is easy and while I don't book with them very often, I've never had a problem when I have. They can be invaluable in comparing rates; particularly in European cities where you're dealing with a lot of unaffiliated, independent properties.

The hotel booking agency type sites that I have visited always feature high end properties. Those are the ones which pay the agency commissions. I don't stay in those places. I find much better prices by googling for hotels in a city and scrolling down to page 2 or 3 or lower where the local hotels have found a place for their own site in the highly competitive world of the search engines.

On our trip to Germany, in some cases we got better prices using www.hrs.com than when we contacted the hotel directly. Two hotels wouldn't even match the hrs price, which made no sense to me at all.

>... hotel booking sites, ...are pure slime ...<

Might as well say the same thing about travel agents, auto rental brokers, stock brokers, real-estate agents, retail catalogs, online catalogs, airfare consolidators, search engines, travel guides.... and anyone else who provides a service.

I absolutely, positively disagree with the premise of this post. We have booked all of our travel accomodations for the past four years with a specific on-line service, and NEVER been disappointed in what the site promised and the hotels delivered. And our accomodations run the gamut from two to four star hotels, dependant on the city visited.

I prefer making a reservation directly with the hotel, but I just booked a hotel in Paris via Atel-Hotels.com. I found the website by chance 2 days ago and it had one hotel I'd been interested in that had no website of its own. On Atel they had a weekend rate that was good so I decided to book it. I didn't have to pay in advance, just to leave my credit card details.
I'm a bit worried since I've never done this before, but it seems quite safe - the agency has an address in Paris, a phone and fax numbers that I can contact to make sure everything's OK.

Hotel company sites aren't exactly the same as hotels.com, etc., but Atel is a hotel company (not an agency) and thus I think many of their hotels do not have their own web site (if any) and you have to book through Atel's website if you want to book online. There are other hotel companies like this, such as Libertel French hotels.

Hi Keren
>...the agency has an address in Paris, a phone and fax numbers that I can contact to make sure everything's OK. <

It is always a good idea to contact the hotel to make sure that *they* know you are coming.

You can find your hotel at http://www.voila.fr/PagesJaunes/