Hotel Searches and Bookings

I usually start with Booking.com. I like that they have a wide a range of accommodations including apartments. I especially like that you have to have stayed at a place to leave a review. Therefore, their ratings are more reliable than Trip Advisor. I also think Booking.com has all the information I am looking for and it is well organized.

If I find a hotel I like, I check the hotel’s website to see if I can get the same rate or better by booking direct.

I have had good luck with Booking.com over the years, and I have cancelled reservations without issue. (I only make reservations that can be cancelled.)

fred, I usually have a preference for forum recommendations. In fact, I found most of my lodging for my upcoming trip to Iceland, Stockholm and Norway from members here on the forum. And I always try to book direct.

But if there aren't any recs, then I start a search on booking.com and Google. Honestly, I've found some of my best stays on Google. I first go to Google Maps, key in the city/town, and then search for hotels there. But I've found that the list ignores some of the smaller B&Bs, so I actually go into the map, zoom in and start looking for the lodging listings there. You have to really zoom in to find the small places, but many times it's worth it.

That's how I found my charming B&B in Portree on Skye in 2023 for £55/night, and a lovely B&B in Seahouses, in Northumberland in 2024. In fact, now that I think about it, that's how I found my pub stay at the Bulls Head in Castleton in The Peak.

I do use booking.com (especially to find apartments) and will sometimes book there, but usually I prefer to book direct. It's almost always cheaper and sometimes you get extra benefits by booking direct (free breakfast, etc.). Plus I don't like how booking.com sort of tucks away the VAT/lodging fees so you don't often notice them until you see the final bill.

ETA: I do agree with Carroll that it's very easy to cancel the refundable bookings on booking.com.

Things I like:

• Sorting properties in all different ways
• Reviews can be trusted because they are only from guests, there’s no review games like with Airbnb
• Sometimes you can get better prices on booking than going direct because of booking discounts
• It’s nice to have all the reservations in one place

Things I don’t like:

• They’re now playing games with the quoted prices. When you get to the final screen booking a property, the quoted price is a ‘pay now’ price. If you pay later, it’s a couple of percentage points higher. I think this is a recent change, or I hadn’t noticed it before.

I like Booking.com because it is a one stop shop. They have a good variety of listings, from hostels, to small mom and pop hotels, large and chain hotels, private lets, B&Bs, and whole houses. The search functions are great, you can sort by exactly what you want in a place, and the map shows exactly where the property is, not an "area". Booking handles the payment most of the time, unless you pay at the property when you arrive. Reviews are mostly effective, or at least to the extent that everybody's expectations differ, so you still get some crazy outliers and the people that rate everything perfect.

I do have one big complaint though. It used to be that the price you saw was close to the price paid, except for maybe the city tourism fee or a very rare cleaning fee. They switched in the last year to show the price that does not include VAT and possibly other fees. They essentially took what I considered a big plus for their site, and ruined it. Still use them, I have 6 bookings with them for an upcoming trip, but grumble about it every time I look.

Fred, I’ve been using Booking almost exclusively for over ten years for many of the reasons already listed by others. Currently I have 17 reservations with them, and I’m at their top level discounts. Logistically, it’s SO much easier to have all of my reservations in one website location! Two years ago when I was in shock from a family emergency, I can’t tell you how much I appreciated being able to go to just one site to cancel everything in the queue for the rest of the trip.

A few years ago I received an email (supposedly from Booking) that said they needed to update my credit card information for that reservation or it would be cancelled. It was one where I had already paid, so that made it very suspicious. Yes, it was a scam, and I didn’t fall for it. But my risk aversion changed my practice, so now I pay for all of my B&B’s and hotels at the time of reserving. Sometimes it offers a reduction in price because of an early payment. If I switch hotels later, I’ve never had an issue getting a timely refund from Booking. (I do bring proof that I’ve already paid to show at check-in)

But the main reason for using any method is to get great lodging. I’ve had so many wonderful experiences from what I want at that city - whether I’m looking for special, quirky, basic, great hosts, etc. i’m so picky about location since I’m often a solo traveler, and Booking has delivered. I do not read or trust TripAdvisor reviews since anyone can add a review there.

I should add that I do filter when searching for lodging. These are the filters I use: rating of 8+, private bathroom, less than .5 mile, & depending on the size of the city I add “hotel”. Otherwise I also am open to B&B’s. After applying those filters, I go to the map view and hone in on possibilities.

I use Trivago. I like it.
(8/17 of a haiku)

What many of you tout about Booking is also quite “doable” on Expedia, so I’m missing something, here. The sorts, the filters, the precise location, the options of paying now or paying later, the clearly identified cancellation policy and dates and, as Jean points out, having all the reservations in one place on the smart phone … a great tool to assure that you’ve not goofed up your precise dates by double booking a night in two places or having a one day gap.

When the price quote and charge do not match up, Expedia is good about reversing the overcharge.

Like Mardee, I do consult the forum at times, but I am more comfortable with a profile amassed upon 472 reviews than one or two folks’ individual recommendations. Their idea of a fabulous breakfast might not be mine, or their idea of cleanliness and my wife’s ideas may be different. But a 4.8 TA score based on 472 reviews is - to me - useful confirmation and a 3.8 score tells me to keep searching elsewhere.

The Expedia 9.2 or 8.8 or 7.2 score is something to consider and I would expect the same to be true of Booking. Likewise, restricting the search to 9 and above or 8 and above, price, location, air conditioning, fitness center (for a longer, urban stay), etc.

Perhaps I should go look on-line to see how each of the two behemoths reviews places I have stayed in the last couple of years.

LATE NOTE - Just reviewed BOTH Expedia and Booking.com for the same 3 fairly nice looking hotels in London for next year, as well as 5 hotels where we have stayed in the past year. Overall observations:

1. Booking.com rates both by location and guest rating, while Expedia just shows guest rating.
2. When you ask Booking to sort by guest rating, it really doesn't.
3. Expedia's ratings run higher; generally if you are willing to make a mental adjustment for that, they are not all that different. In other words, places that we have quite liked, e.g., Glen Ellen Inn near Sonoma, CA (10 on Expedia and 9.8 on Booking) and Hotel des Grandes Ecoles in Paris (9.6 on Expedia and 9.0 on Booking; we loved it!) rated highly and Best Western St. Antoine in Lyon was lower (8.2 on Expedia and 7.9 Guest rating on Booking, but with a 9.5 location score.).
4. Expedia prices often look better at first glance, but I have not gone through the exercise of actually making a rez to see whether the promises are fulfilled

Agree with VAP, below, re: booking directly with independent and small hotels.

If there are any more sites comparable to i-escapes.com, I’d love to learn about those. That led us to lovely places in Andalucia (Sevilla, Vejer and Granada, 2005) and Prague (2018, best breakfast anytime, anywhere) and identifies two or three potential spots in London, two in the Peak Dist. and one in Bath that may be useful for next year.

I've used Hotels.com for a really long time without issues. I know they were bought by Expedia few years ago but I still go to Hotels.com as I get special discounts and better deal. Occasionally, I will book directly through the hotel but I find better deals (especially with cancelation option) on Hotels.com . The point system used to be better but now it's basically nothing since they were bought by Expedia.

I usually get recommendations but also look at Google maps for location. I like staying closer to a train/metro station. I read reviews on TripAdvisor and Booking.com. I used to be a heavy contributor at TA. Sometimes I secure a hotel before I even get a flight but I always pay more for the cancellation option but find that's waved when booking that further ahead.

When I went to Morocco last year, one of the Riads I wanted to stay was not showing up on Hotels.com and it was a pain to book direct so I did use Booking.com for that particular reservation.

I use Kayak.com to get a sense of what is available, but never book through them.
I then go to TripAdvisor.com, which I use mostly, but have used Booking.com

I like the map feature that TripAdvisor has, that makes it easy to pick your hotel that is near a great location. I think Booking has a similar feature.

I like to read reviews before I book and have found some great bargains, that had more negative reviews than I liked, but after reading found that the reviews were for an unrenovated hotel when the hotel had been recently renovated. Also, if some reviews were not based on the quality of the hotel or its services.

My attitude is that third-party booking sites do not own rooms, clean floors, or cook breakfast. They simply slide into the middle of a transaction to take a cut of the money, as a middleman tax, while complicating the relationship between myself and the hotel. I won’t use Booking and the like.

I just start on Google Maps because I can find the independents or small chains based entirely on location, and then click over to deal with them directly. I’ll look at TripAdvisor to get a general feel for the customer view of the property.

For me step one is to check the hotel lists in the RS guidebook and other guidebooks (and Forum recommendations) on an area to find good locations. Then step two is to go to regional tourist area websites to see what they have available in the locations I am interested in. Then to Booking.com to look at the RS hotels or the tourist site hotels and other nearby hotels to see the range of what is on offer. In step three I prefer to book directly with the hotel if my itinerary is really firm. If I need to be more flexible I will book through Booking.com and pay the extra for a cancellable reservation. Flexibility comes with a price of course. The easy cancellation is a very attractive feature since I have found that in desirable areas (Ortisei in the Dolomites for an example) sometimes other people's plans change and I have found a much better option that had been unavailable open up again.

On my recent Spain trip as well as an upcoming England trip I found some small hotels didn’t have their own website, so using a 3rd party site was the only way to reserve.

Like others I will use one site to make all my reservations. For the past few trips it has been booking.

I use Booking if I use any of the aggregators (almost exclusively for hotels, never flights. Every once in a while for a rental car).

1. Reviews can only be submitted by those who stayed at the property.
2. Ease of information / sorting etc.
3. I have booked enough times with them that I have a small discount available to me.

Fred, I’m trying to remember why I made the switchover from Expedia to Booking because Expedia is what I used when I first was planning trips to Europe. It was probably the price difference at the time.

Whatever works for you, it’s typically beneficial to stick with them for added perks as you build up the number of nights booked.

As I reflect a bit more, this forum led us to a lovely B&B in Chartres that we never would have found otherwise and a nice and well-situated hotel in Paris near the the Luxembourg Garden (mais un peut cher). On that same trip, when we got to CDG and learned BA cancelled our flight, Expedia quickly got us to a perfectly fine hotel at a quite reasonable price quite near Place St. Michel and the RER B for travel from CDG and back the next day.

RS’ Guide led us to a bargain find in Florence (Oltrarno, 2003) and a charming B&B in Orvieto (2015) just steps from the Piazza by the Duomo.

Our self-guided bike tours have put us in about 25 hotels and inns in France, along Germany’s Mosel and in Puglia with only a single bad spot and just a couple of ordinary ones. Most were charming - even elegant.

Bottom line - I’m not sure the big aggregators are that different from one another. I’ll continue to look around local travel websites that look interesting, as well as i-escapes. For England, I suppose that includes the National Trust. For small hotels, I will try to be better about booking directly so they don’t lose out to the mega-corporations.

I’ll be back in a few months with a new post for suggestions in England, once I nail down an itinerary.

My attitude is that third-party booking sites do not own rooms, clean floors, or cook breakfast. They simply slide into the middle of a transaction to take a cut of the money, as a middleman tax, while complicating the relationship between myself and the hotel. I won’t use Booking and the like.

I will disagree a little bit. Without a sight like Booking.com, Expedia or Hotels.com, many places would never see the light of day or turn up in most searches, and sort of laborious to repeatedly search based on a Google maps pin, over and over, when a site already exists that aggregates the results. I have spoken to a number of hosts where Booking.com is their only internet platform, they like that they show up in searches, they can show what they have, and payment via Booking, for them, is seamless and efficient. It saves them managing a website and third party pay platforms that would have to pay otherwise.

These accommodation websites do provide value for the service they provide, otherwise a site like Booking.com would not have millions of properties seeking to use them. People use the term "middleman" as an insult, but they are a critical element in the commerce system. Most businesses you deal with after all are "middlemen", from the local shop down the street, to Amazon.

Once a property gets on one consolidator, they eventually end up on all of them. You can price check them if you want. When my former tour company got listed on Viator, I found it listed on all kinds of consolidators, including Expedia and booking dot com.

Their pros? Saves a lot of labor on their part, especially with reservations coming in written in languages the front desk clerk may not understand. It increases their occupancy. An empty hotel earns nothing, but employees still need to get paid.
Many small properties do not even have a website. With booking, etc. they don't need one.

Our pros - you can earn discounts. Cancellations are usually free and easier. I got stuck with a direct reservation in Iceland made before Covid, and they simply refused a refund. Their offer? 10% off on my next reservation! Plus I would have lost all the money spent on the 3 night reservation because they wanted to go ahead and charge me. We exchanged so many emails as well as phone calls before they finally settled on letting me reserve 3 years later. It was awful. If I had reserved on booking dot com, it would have been done with a click.
All my reservations are in one place. They let me know when my card will be charged. When I had to change my Camino from April to Sept. it was super easy to change all the dates.

@Paul.
I think that the VAT issue must be specifically for the US. or at least non UK?EU.
Here, the prices shown include VAT at the first showing.

I've never used booking.com and not sure I was even aware of it until I discovered this Forum. I use Expedia and Google Maps for my initial search and then compare the price and value of it vs. booking directly. I'd say about half the time I go with Expedia. I've never had an issue with a hotel when booking through a third party and I often do it with rental cars as well. I won't say I'm loyal to Expedia but I stick with it because of the familiarity of the website and app, and not because I've never had an issue. One other bonus is paying in advance in my home currency and not having conversion charges on my credit card.

Edit to add: Having just written that it's usually half the time I book through a third party, I just looked at my trip this Fall and all 4 hotels we're staying at have been booked direct.

I think that the VAT issue must be specifically for the US. or at least non UK?EU. Here, the prices shown include VAT at the first showing.

Lin, I'm fairly certain that the UK has a law about that, and you are required to disclose the full price including the VAT. I remember reading that on the forum once from someone. Sadly, the US has no such law.

Edit: And you got me curious, so I delved into it a bit. The law is changing to require a more uniform regulation throughout the 50 states (this is why AirBnb is now cisclosing their full price after fees). However both Airbnb and Booking.com are still not required to comply totally (like the UK is) because there is a loophole in the US law, which involves taxes.

UK businesses are required to state the absolute final price, including VAT, in the initial advertised price.

In the US, however, local sales taxes and lodging taxes fluctuate across the US, which allows businesses to exclude government taxes from the initial search result if they can't be mathematically calculated upfront. So they do not have to list the final price until right before payment. At that point, taxes must be disclosed before any payment details are entered.

So that is how American companies get away with advertising a lower price initially than you will actually pay.

With Hotels.com, I do see the final price including taxes. And if I click on details, it will show what is base night fare vs tax vs extras. Sometimes it will say "$X amount to be paid at the property" but it's there.

I appreciate this conversation. I generally prefer more space than a tiny hotel room so end up on Airbnb regularly. I've used hotels for a night or two when my credit card has a benefit for them, but I wish I understood how to find places with a bit more space through booking.com. When I try to use them, the choices overwhelm me and the site isn't as easy to navigate as Airbnb. I'm starting to plan another trip soon, so I'll give it another try. I'd like to find less expensive options that still give me space and preferably a small refrigerator and maybe microwave since I like to have breakfast in my room and I often have leftovers to warm up for another meal. Plus, I'm feeling more of a need lately to find lower prices on my lodging. Anyway, all that to say I guess I'll have to take a look at booking.com again.

We started using booking in 2022 and have been very fortunate with our accommodations. As others have posted, we like the search options (air con for example) allowing us to constrain the results. I like the map function - I am a GIS person, so maps are great for me and booking provides the exact address, not an area. Also, having the address allows us to "google walk" through unfamiliar areas. Another plus is that only guests that have stayed at the accommodation can post a review. Other benefits include having everything in one place and the ability to alter reservations; we are willing to pay more to make cancellable reservations.

When we started, my husband made all the reservations on his booking account so we do have status which gives us some better deals. However, there are times where if I can book directly with the hotel for the same rate and cancellable, I book directly with the hotel. This fall, we are returning to Paris and staying at the same hotel in Rue Cler. I had a discount code if booked directly with the hotel; however, the price (for a week), was a couple of hundred euros less via booking, which is how we made our reservations. I did check the taxes, etc. which are shown separately but are nonetheless illustrated. Also, I did see where booking pays "the difference" in cases where our booking status gives us a better rate.

We stay at a small bnb in the Italian countryside when visiting the village where my husband's grandmother was born. While we have the owner's WhatsApp number, he has all reservations done via booking. He does not book direct - as else someone stated, it is easier for him to use booking. Same with a small bnb in Amsterdam - again, we have the owners WhatsApp number but you can only reserve via booking.

As someone upthread stated, we do not book flights or rental cars via booking; just accommodations. Although last year, when returning from Italy via New York, we spent 3 nights in NYC to visit our daughter. We used booking to reserve our hotel in NYC and booking included transportation (free private car) from JFK to our hotel in Greenpoint (Brooklyn). We were a little skeptical about the possible success for a free ride and coordinating pick up with all the construction at JFK, but it worked beautifully. I checked credit card charges, etc expecting to see a charge for the car, but it was in fact "free" - or more specifically we could not find a hidden or additional charge for it. While we were in the car I did a quick uber estimate and the trip would have cost around $130 before tip.

For our trip this fall, we have some free transportation included with some of our reservations that we will use. If it is not successful we will just take a cab/uber, which is what we would do anyway.

Comparing a platform extractor with a risk-bearing retailer is a false equivalency that hides a system siphoning money without taking any of the burdens or financial risks of ownership. I believe aggregators are parasitical, and I stand by "middleman tax". I start on Google Maps because I prioritize location and walkability, which allows me to evaluate the actual physical neighborhood transit points, grocery stores, and restaurants, instead of being fed a distorted algorithm based on how much of a cut a platform is getting. At the end of the day no one needs my validation or agreement for their preferred system to work for them.