Originally Posted by wutlol

Yes - my point was more that booking directly through the hotel gives some additional protection in that Hyatt/Marriott/etc. are more likely to want to protect the integrity of the overall chain and therefore consider compensation that an OTA might not.

The only reason I didn’t do a chargeback immediately was that they were actually very Johnny-on-the-spot about approving a refund and the facade of the coming funds let me keep my eye off the ball long enough for the window to close. I recognize I’m at fault, it was just a funny reminder of how little the OTAs value customers or their brand perception.