Originally Posted by
TMM1982
Hell yes. I just booked Le Blanc Spa Resort Cancun on hotels.com. Expensive property but hotels.com had some sort of secret price which was way way better than what I found on any other portal and significantly better than Le Blanc's own site.
...
In the end, I came out like a damn bandit.
Well played! The resort properties in Turkey that I book through Hotels.com really vary from day to day with respect to the "secret prices" - sometimes the use of a cashback portal or choice of browser also affects the rates offered. I suspect they have some "big data" folks in their Bellevue, WA headquarters running experiments on how to increase marginal revenue, which occasionally yields a huge win for the end-user...
-Most hotels don't recognize hotels.com bookings for any sort of elite benefits the guest may have with the hotel. Even non-elites will receive small benefits like bottled water and basic internet if booked directly through the hotel.
True, but in some parts of the world you might actually be more valued as a guest coming through a large travel agency that an unflagged property wants to build and/or maintain a relationship with than you would be as a walk-up. Any disgruntled guest could theoretically inflict retribution on a property via TripAdvisor, but the consumer may have even greater leverage in a situation where they could also leave a review on the booking agency's website or complain direct to the agency. I suspect that this power dynamic is at least understood by some of the all-inclusives in Turkey.