BAH every time for me, even if it’s a cheap one night “throwaway” hotel or hire car. Mainly for only paying an initial deposit, but as others have said the call centre staff are excellent & extremely helpful on schedule changes etc. My best result was phoning up to ask what the change fee was for a voluntary date change on the return leg of LHR-JNB-LHR, to be told I would be due a £120 refund if I wanted to proceed! That was credited back very promptly too.