Originally Posted by Zorak

They can be. Once in a while a deal gets posted in the Premium Fares forum where the vacation package can be cheaper than the airfare by itself. Also, although Delta Vacations has the word "Delta" my understanding it is is legally/business-wise unrelated to DL (it's just a branding partnership) and is basically like any other third party agency booking, with all of the hassle that that entails if there are schedule changes, etc. And during COVID the wait times for DV were even worse than DL without the benefit of being able to receive a callback.

The other potential plus is that DV books as a bulk/exception fare, so they earn MQDs based on a percentage of distance similar to partner-marketed flights (although the deep discount economy buckets don't earn very well, so it depends on the trip parameters)

It's not just for hotels, you can do flight + car rental without the hotel, which is what I've been doing the last year or so in order to spend down a voucher that I ended up with after I booked a Delta Vacation during the 2cpm promo pre-COVID, for an international trip in May 2020 that obv ended up not happening. There were cases where this was marginally better than doing a separate flight + rental.

The other downside is that for many hotel chains, 3rd party bookings don't count for elite status, if that is a consideration.