Hacker News Reader

Comment by lisper | Hacker News Reader

I mostly agree with this, but with two exceptions. First, I've had surprisingly good experiences with booking.com (no affiliation, just a satisfied user). And second, if you're booking a cruise, it's actually better to book through an agent. The cruise lines all have deals with agencies that forbid the cruise lines from undercutting the agents. If you find the right agent, they will give you kickbacks on their commissions so you actually end up paying less than you would booking direct.

View on HN

Booking.com is great in discovery phase, when you want to find out what's available at certain date at certain location. After that you can book directly if you want, but surprisingly it can be even more expensive that way in some cases. Or terms can be worse, for example for cancelation or whether you have to prepay.

Yes, exactly. The first time I used booking.com it was because I was trying to book a particular hotel in an under-developed country and the hotel's web site wasn't working so I had no other option. I then had to cancel the reservation because covid happened, and I expected to have all kinds of problems, but it all went smoothly. So I started using them more often, tentatively at first, but now with full enthusiasm. I have yet to have a bad experience with them. They seem to be one of the good guys, which is one of the reasons I'm advocating them. We who value having good guys on the internet need to support them when we find them.

Have to agree. Die hard Airbnb user for years, then recently using booking.com more and more as it's clear and obvious what you are paying for (in most instances), and no insane "we're not a hotel, so change the sheets, wash them and put the rubbish out in these specific bins" list of exit rules.

Accidental discovery, but have to say they've helped far more than hindered (especially with last minute bookings in distant lands).

Welcome to Europe, Airbnb is dying since Covid. Booking is the clear winner. The only gripe I have with them ks their usage of dark patterns, not fully kosher

And their insecure platform. You occasionally get completely legit-looking phishing emails from the hotel you wanna stay in, because the hotel‘s account was compromised and attackers now send phishing emails through their side of booking.com.

Booking blames this on the hotels (probably true to some extend), but the problem is quite widespread so that Booking probably bears some responsibility, too.

My one and only experience with booking.com was around 10 years ago. I made a last minute late night booking, only to turn up and be told the room wasn't available. This was followed by a week of wrangling with booking.com to get the refund which was extremely annoying given I was traveling on a shoestring budget at the time. Never again.

Yes, if use booking.com (or any other third party) and there is any problem with the reservation and the hotel doesn't have a room for you, they will point you back to booking.com and say there's nothing they can do (which may be true).

I always book direct with the hotel. Saving $5 on a room is not worth showing up at 11pm to find out they don't have your reservation.

I once used booking.com to book a block of several rooms for a wedding. Paid and confirmed. When we arrived, the hotel had no record of our reservations! The explanation was that their sync with booking.com was prone to failure and hadn't been updating for several weeks and they hadn't noticed. Luckily, they still had enough rooms available for us, but I will never use a 3rd party site again and I will always call ahead to confirm the reservation is still on the books.

Booking.com or frankly any other aggregator are great until the moment you have a problem and need to talk to their customer service. In that moment you realize that Booking.com does nothing that you can't do by yourself with same effort.

Kayak was the absolute worst about this to me. I had purchased premium economy tickets to Japan for several thousand USD from Kayak. Japan closed. The FAA made it clear that refunds were to be awarded. Kayak jerked me around and tried to keep half my money. Eventually I got it back less $400.

100% this

On rare occasions, using a 3rd party site will net you a better deal, but often, it's the exact same price, or a price within just a few dollars.

But if your reservation has a snag of any kind, you're basically fucked. The hotel will tell you to talk to Booking, Booking will tell you to talk to the hotel, if you can even talk to anybody.

I'd rather spent the extra dollars and book directly and just not have that worry.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com