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Comment by girvo | Hacker News Reader

Not only is it often cheaper to book directly through the hotel, they often upgrade you to a nicer suite at least here in Aus whenever I've done that.

My grandfather taught me a decade ago (more even) to use Wotif (now Expedia) and similar to find places, then call directly. For someone who definitely did not grow up with this sort of tech, he was quite excellent at working the boundaries of tech and people to get good results.

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I’ve tried booking through hotels directly and it’s never been cheaper. It is so weird. I usually end up using hotels.com which is just one of many booking services owned by Expedia.

Have to call them -- they often have contracts that mean they can't offer cheaper rates online, but are happy to over the phone. Though it's possibly down to where you're staying I guess, but I've had good luck doing that in Australia, the UK and a couple places around Europe!

And worst-case, they'll match it usually, and I'd rather be booked directly to avoid the crap that the article is discussing

I'm seen this too, and it's bizarre that adding a middleman actually is cheaper.

While I've had that as well, I've also had occasions where the hotel staff replies "oh yeah, to get the cheaper rates you'll have to go through <agent-site-with-lower-list-price>" when calling them, or even trying to extend an existing reservation at the desk.

Norms do seem to vary between regions and countries.

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