You hear it all the time “Book direct, you’ll get a better deal!” While sometimes that is the case, there are other times when booking through a third party makes more sense. Here is why I sometimes book direct and why sometimes I don’t.
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When Do I Book Direct
There is one thing I always book direct, with no exceptions and that is for flights.
Whenever I hear a crazy flight story where everything has gone wrong it almost always invariably involves a booking through a third party.
Usually the third party does not cause the issue, but it can make it much harder to get a resolution to the problem.
A friend of mine was flying back to Adelaide from Europe. Her international flight landed in Melbourne, but her domestic flight across to Adelaide was cancelled. A simple issue that should be resolved by the airline putting the passenger on the next flight.
My friend had booked through a well-known travel agent, and rather than dealing with the airline directly to get on another flight, she had to go back and forth with the travel agent, which took hours.
Whenever I have had issues, they have always been resolved fairly quickly by dealing with the airline direct. I may not always get the desired result, but at least I can quickly decide without going back and forth.
Some of the other things to look out for when booking flights with third parties are flights that are not actually “connecting” and you need to collect your luggage, maybe go through immigration and customs, and check in again.
This will mean you need more than the usual transit times, and often it will also mean there is no liability if the first flight is late and you miss the second flight since there is no relationship between the airlines involved.
So for flights, I book direct, always.
When I Don’t Book Direct
Well, pretty much everything else is up for consideration. I often take a look at my go-to third-party websites first, simply because they are an easy starting point.
For accommodation that means I start with Booking.com. Now not everyone is on there, so there are still times when I want to stay at a particular property that I will book direct.
I may not be able to find anything suitable on Booking.com in some locations, or I may be leveraging a hotel points program which may also mean I book direct.
For tours and activities, I tend to look at the big names first, such as Viator, Get Your Guide and Klook.
I would almost certainly book through them unless I can get a significantly better deal booking direct or the activity I want to do is only available direct.
For car hire I tend to book through DiscoverCars.com. They are a good site to start the search, and I generally find a deal on there I am happy with.
Reasons Why I Choose a Third Party
But why, when we know all the benefits of booking direct, do I choose to instead go through a third party?
Here are some of my reasons
It’s Not Always Cheaper Booking Direct
The common belief is that it is always cheaper to book direct. Often this is the case, because the supplier does not have to pay the charges to the third party so they can pass on those savings to the customer.
In practice, it doesn’t always work like this. Firstly, many of the supplier agreements with the third parties actually prohibit them from discounting for direct sales.
It’s also possible that the third-party sites will offer their own discounts. For example, on Booking.com they have their “Genius” levels for customers who book regularly.
It’s quite common for me to be offered 10, 15 or even 20% off the price as a Genius Level 3.
Take a look at the below example. I searched for a 1-night stay for two people in a standard room at the TRYP Adelaide hotel on a random day in May next year.
