Originally Posted by
travelinmanS
Third party sites are usually cheaper and you usually don't get as good a room or any perks if you don't book direct. Hotels.com is a good way to go if you like 3rd party bookings because their rewards are easy to understand and use.
The incredible passion shown by the OP on this topic begs me to ask what kind of relationship, if any, you have to the online booking/hotel industry?
I have no direct relationship with the online booking/hotel industry whatsoever travelinmanS, except as a consumer. I don't think I would call myself 'passionate' about the topic. I'd say I am interested in the topic as a consumer and with enough of an interest, to have spent some time looking into the topic in some depth.
Actually, I would say that I have an interest in how people accept things as 'the norm' when they have been sold something that often is not in fact true. The basic issue is all about 'memes'. That is as per definition 1 here:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme Although the definition for many people today has morphed into internet based pictures of cats.
https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/what...-internet-meme
If you go backwards instead, then meme is just a newer name for 'urban legends'. Maybe you recognize some on this list:
Full List of Legends - UrbanLegendsOnline.com
Simply put, something that people believe based on it having been repeated enough times to become a common belief. But that belief may or may not be true/factual. The internet of course has simply made it much easier and faster for this to happen and it happens in travel related topics just as easily as anywhere else.