4 ways to travel better

I always look at the guest pics on Trip Advisor. I figure people don’t post hotel pics to Insta unless they love it or hate it. Unless I’m booking a romantic getaway. I don’t need to be wowed by the room, it just needs to do the job.

I’ve never booked a basic economy flight, but I’d be damn pissed if they moved a flight by 3 hours and didn’t offer an opportunity to rebook for free.

I always book direct now with the airline or hotel. I’ve noticed that third party sites can do weird things with your name if it’s hyphenated or has a suffix. I assume it’s because something gets messed up between the booking site and the hotel’s own computer systems.

I always join the loyalty club, I can always unsubscribe from their emails. But, many of the business hotels in the USA give you ‘free’ WiFi for being a member and my profile will autofill for the front desk clerk. I’ll inevitably get the trainee when I’m checking into a hotel and I’m either dog tired or in a hurry. Again, this is mainly for the USA.

...booking hotels and flights directly means you are
only bound by one set of terms and conditions — meaning no additional
fees from a third-party site. And should you need to make changes to
your reservation, you won’t be jockeying for help from a middleman.

To each his own, but for years we've advocated booking directly just so we can deal directly with the hotel or airline in the event something goes wrong. Nothing worse than running into a third party stone wall of indifference.

Same as Dale. I like hotel pics on Trip Advisor.

I've really backed off on Hotels.com and Booking.com. When I've had problems with either a room or reservation, it's been related to one of those two sights. If I'm booking ahead now, I will skip the choice that is through either of those two sites. While I prefer to call hotels on their direct line, I've become convinced by European friends that Trip Advisor is a good last minute booking option.

To each his own, but for years we've advocated booking directly just so we can deal directly with the hotel or airline in the event something goes wrong. Nothing worse than running into a third party stone wall of indifference.

You can still do that, even if you made your reservation through a third-party site. A few years ago, we booked a London hotel through a booking engine (I think Expedia), only to realize seconds after we hit the button that we'd made our (nonrefundable) reservation for the wrong night. We tried contacting the booking site, but to no avail. But then we reached out to the hotel directly, and they were very accommodating: The night we wanted (a Saturday) was a little more expensive than the one we'd booked (a Thursday), and they let us switch our reservation for only the difference in price.