So you use trip.com to book hotels in the US? Were they cheaper than say, expedia?

While I don't know about the US, for Europe and Middle East it is sometimes cheaper to book on ctrip than agoda/booking for the same hotels. Sometimes ctrip is significantly cheaper than trip.com too and vv.

IME, they offer very good rates at specific properties (i.e. those they have negotiated with) in markets that are popular with Chinese tourists (e.g. New York, Las Vegas, London, Paris, Madrid, most places in Asia, etc). I don't usually compare them with other OTAs, but they are often much cheaper than booking through hotel group websites/apps. .

Agree, it very much depends. As is often the case hotel pricing includes a lot of smoke, mirrors and commissions. Whether they are cheaper does depend, they're not always competitive. But sometimes there are some standout deals where trip.com seemingly have a negotiated rate with a brand/property and wipe the floor against the competition. Sometimes the headline price is cheaper, other times you get extras included that you wouldn't get on a similar rate elsewhere.

Interestingly the rates on ctrip and trip can be quite different, so what is being supported by promo pricing on trip is expensive on ctrip, and vice versa.

As always, YMMV.

As other posters have said, it depends on the hotel. Why not use a site like TripAdvisor to compare pricing from various OTAs (trip.com is usually included in the comparison, but ctrip.com isn't).

TMK, TA doesn't include member only discounts in metasearches of OTAs that aren't part of the Priceline/Booking/Expedia ecosystem. I believe Google is a bit more transparent in this respect, but is a waste of time for China hotel searches, of course.

Reminded me of the time when I went to a very Chinese hotel in Cairo. I found it on Ctrip and contacted the boss on WeChat to ask if I can get the room for day use (had a layover from like 7am to 5pm and the normal hotels said I would have to book 2 nights or pay the early check-in/late check-out fees. I ended booking directly with payment being made to their personal Alipay. The staff were shocked to see a "foregeiner", rather than a Chinese guy who they thought they were communicating all along.

This hotel was not available on booking/trip.com etc, only on ctrip and gowhere app.

I don't have statuses with any of the OTAs because I normally book directly with hotels where I do have statuses. But I wonder how significant are those member-only discounts from any of the OTAs? In situations where I do need to book hotel stays via an OTA, I often find a few OTAs (e.g. Agoda) often offer a much greater discount (as much as 15-25%) on their TA links (than if you book direct with the OTA or via a cashback referral site).

It doesn't matter whether you' have accounts with them or not because TA prices (when searching) include those discounts.

I use trivago to see options and pricing. In the last two years, trip.com has been showing up as the cheapest or equal to the cheapest in some less traveled cities. Their app is very easy to use so I have booked on trip.com multiple times for Taiwan and Japan. Hotels in the US require more research, or you can get hit with unexpected parking fees, destination fees, resort fees and the like. Have not personally seen a case where ctrip was cheaper than trip.com outside of China.

I guess I really can't fault them for the parking fees, but their failure to include (compulsory) resort fees in price quotes is extremely obnoxious (i.e. 100-->180 = 80% more than advertised!). I am going to WDW again next week, and I'm planning on chatting with them BEFORE locking anything in.

I wonder if I am better off using Trip.com Airport Transfer from TVS Tangshan Sannühe Airport to the City Center and use the Diamond Free Upgrade to "Middle class car" or take the risk of catching a regular taxi from a relatively small regional Airport at 10:30 p.m. at night. Last flight of the day.

Unlike in Tier 1 cities, if you book the Trip.com Airport Transfer from TVS the Ouyacar driver waits for only one hour if the flight is delayed.

Check didi, if its available there at night by changing position? The only airport out of 60+ of those I have been in China and where Didi was not available was Heihe, Heilongjang, but it handles like 3 flights a day and taxis are available.

YariGuy helped me book a hotel in Japan last week because his rate was about $40 less than my quoted rate. This was due to the fact that many hotels in Japan use the person charge concept and the default is 2 people (I would not have wanted to stay in that room with a second person, no matter how much I liked them). On his version of the Trip app, he was able to select "1 person", but I didn't have this option on mine (neither Trip nor Ctrip). After about 3 days of back and forth emails/chats with customer support, I finally threw in the towel and simply used his reservation. They gave me $40 in Trip Coins for the trouble.

Yeah, this time I will travel to China with an E-Sim ready smartphone, WeChat/Weixin Pay and Alipay fully setup etc. Have not used Didi so far, but I guess (if available) it might also be the best option from the Hotel in Tangshan to the railway station onwards to PKX.

For the Airport pickup in Shanghai Hongqiao at 10 p.m. the day afterwards I have booked the Trip.com Airport Transfer.