You can find a list of other companies owned by Booking Holdings here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booking_Holdings

Priceline, Agoda, Rentalcars.com, Kayak, OpenTable, Rocketmiles, FareHarbor, HotelsCombined, Cheapflights, momondo

I’ve used hotels.com and Expedia forever

Each time a hotel has had an issue Expedia and hotels.com has fixed the issue for me by refunding the difference or giving me a credit for another booking

Cancelling through hotels.com has always been easy. Even for bookings that have been non refundable, they can call the hotel and make exceptions.

I would never not use it. Dealing with sites directly is a nightmare.

Since the hotel called her directly to inform her of the pricing error, I don't see that as the booking platform's problem. After all, the hotel is the platform's client. The same thing would have happened if she had booked directly from the hotel.

I always book directly with hotels, airlines, and auto rental agencies. One gains privileges by cutting out the middleman.

For example, one can generally check out early. We had followed a hotel reservation from locals in Nagoya, and found ourselves in a stodgy "classic" hotel. We were able to pivot to possibly the nicest corner suite in the entire city, at a steep last minute discount.

I did get trapped once, not realizing that my Hiroshima hotel became nonrefundable several days before check-in. With a phone call they moved my reservation to a few days later as a courtesy. The web page then let me cancel.

They're terrible, but according to the article the hotel requested the cancellation, and now booking.com has reinstated the booking and apparently paying the difference... seems like they're "the good side" here (or, paying to avoid the bad publicity).

Eugh, I feel dirty defending them.