I've just been booking directly from hotels I trust because of this. Used to use hotels.com but they've gotten really bad recently. Can costs a bit more from the hotel but most of the time price is on par. End up getting more room upgrades when booking directly anyways - at least with hilton.
Me too -- this is a very important point. Often the hotel's direct rate will be the same as advertised on hotels.com. Of course you lose the ~10% rebate by not getting rewards points, but since the hotel is effectively earning 30% more from you, they're much more likely to give you a complimentary or discounted upgrade.
So if that sort of thing matters to you, I can also strongly suggest booking direct.
(Note: You do generally have to ask, but I've had good experiences. Do it on-site @ checkin, and I basically say the above -- "Hey I booked direct so you earned 30% more from me. Can you offer me an upgrade to an un-used room since I'm here now?")
Agreed. A couple of months ago as an experiment, when I was quoted 100 Euros a night from booking.com for a modest hotel in a small town in Austria that I had stayed at previously for much less. I didn't make the booking through booking.com but walked over to the hotel when I get to town for an the spot booking and got the same room with breakfast included or 75 Euros a night.
My experience directly booking from hotel websites has been really bad. I usually end up using a service like Booking/Priceline/Kayak/Google, just because the UI is nicer than booking directly from hotels, even if it means having to deal with stuff like this.
