Thank you 84fiero. Then by the same token, you will agree that anyone who then tries to suggest that they consistenly get better prices by using third party sites is equally at fault for concluding that based on their personal experience, they can say third party sites get them the best prices.

What it boils down to in my opinion is whether we believe that inserting a third party into a transaction is a good thing or not. While there are some things where it would be pretty difficult to deal directly with a supplier (groceries for example), hotels are not one of those things. This is one example of an actual good aspect to the internet. It has made it easy for an individual to deal directly with a supplier (the hotel) and cut out the middle man.

Initially, the third party sites, did deliver lower prices but that is no longer the case. Nor are they needed to keep hotel prices competitive, the internet on its own can now do that for us. It's easy for us to see if a hotel is charging more than other comparable hotels using the hotels' own websites.