Published: 11 September 2026
Is It Cheaper to Book a Hotel Directly or Through Hotels.com?
Hotel chains frequently claim you’ll get their best price by booking directly, while online travel agents push hard on their own member discounts and special offers. Clearly they can’t all be the cheapest.
So we decided to test it.
We picked 16 hotels in London and priced the cheapest advance-purchase room for two people for exactly the same Saturday night. We compared four prices: the hotel’s public rate, its loyalty-member rate, the public hotels.com price and the hotels.com member price.
The results show there is no universal winner between booking direct or through an Online Travel Agent (OTA), but they did reveal some interesting patterns about where you’re most likely to find the better deal.
Is Booking Directly Cheaper Than Hotels.com?
Cheapest price for one night (including membership rates):
| Hotel | Direct | Hotels.com | Best price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apex, Temple Court Hotel | £226 | £204 | Hotels.com |
| citizenM, Tower of London | £189 | £199 | Direct |
| DoubleTree by Hilton, Angel Kings Cross | £262 | £276 | Direct |
| EasyHotel, Paddington | £140 | £149 | Direct |
| Hampton By Hilton, Old Street | £199 | £209 | Direct |
| Hotel Indigo, Paddington | £278 | £256 | Hotels.com |
| Ibis, Shoreditch | £171 | £190 | Direct |
| Malmaison, Barbican | £244 | £253 | Direct |
| Marrable’s Hotel, Clerkenwell | £234 | £233 | Hotels.com |
| Marriott, Kensington | £311 | £327 | Direct |
| Novotel, Paddington | £209 | £232 | Direct |
| Point A, Liverpool Street | £182 | £180 | Hotels.com |
| Radisson Blu Hotel, South Kensington | £247 | £258 | Direct |
| Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington | £306 | £253 | Hotels.com |
| Thistle Tower Hotel, Tower Bridge | £222 | £220 | Hotels.com |
| Virgin Hotels, Shoreditch | £259 | £231 | Hotels.com |
Prices rounded to the nearest £, pricing taken on 10 September 2026 for 2 people staying the night of 12 December 2026. Prices are for equivalent rooms.
Key Findings:
1) Public Hotel Prices Were Almost Identical for the Big Chains
One of the clearest findings was just how closely public hotel rates matched. At 9 of the 16 hotels, the public price was exactly the same whether we booked directly or through Hotels.com. Interestingly all 9 of these hotels were part of major national and international hotel chains such as Hilton, Marriott and Accor.
Hotels.com was cheaper on five occasions, while booking directly with the hotel itself was cheaper just twice.
This suggests that the big hotel chains strongly control the headline price shown and overall, the biggest differences are not necessarily found in the headline rates. The more interesting comparison begins once membership discounts are applied.
2) Hotel Loyalty Members Can Get Lower Direct Rates
13 out of 16 hotels gave an additional discount for booking directly with them, with the reduction varying from 3% to 23%, depending on the company. Watch out for very high discounts though, at the Marrable’s Hotel in Clerkenwell, the direct price of £234 after a whopping 23% discount was actually a little higher than the hotels.com price with only an 11% discount.
| Hotel programme | Member saving in our test |
|---|---|
| Accor ALL | 10% |
| Hilton Honors | 5% |
| Marriott Bonvoy | 5% |
| IHG One Rewards | 3% |
3) But Hotels.com Was Sometimes Much Cheaper
For the 16 hotels we researched, 7 were actually cheaper on hotels.com – these were on average 7.7% less than the hotel’s own membership rates. The standout here was the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington which was £253 to hotels.com members but actually £306 if booked directly.
Don’t Compare Price Alone
If you book directly with a large hotel chain, or use a corporate travel agent, you can usually take advantage of their loyalty programme which will offer free nights and other status benefits if you collect enough points. Using an online travel agent such as booking.com, Expedia or hotels.com might save you some money but also usually means that your stay will not qualify for points earning.
What Are Hotel Loyalty Points Worth?
Hotel points only have value if you’re likely to use them. A regular Hilton, Marriott, IHG or Accor customer may reasonably place significant value on the points and status benefits and will of course want to book direct. However someone who stays with a particular chain once a year may find those points considerably less useful.
This is why the cheapest cash price should not be the only consideration – but equally, you should clearly not pay substantially more just to collect hotel points.
However if you are interested in collecting points, you should consider the likelihood of collecting enough points to make a reward booking. Depending on the chain, the hotel brand and the price paid for a room, you are probably looking at something around 13-20 nights to trigger a free stay.
What Rewards Do Online Travel Agents Offer?
You may not earn any points towards a free stay and be less likely to get a room upgrade, but some of the OTAs have their own reward schemes in place which can be extremely interesting for both frequent and infrequent travellers.
Hotels.com Rewards
Hotels.com Rewards is an excellent proposition. Book 10 nights with hotels.com and then get £100 of Hotels.comCash to spend against future bookings. The only significant stipulation is that the average room price over the 10 nights needs to be at least £100 a night. This is potentially up to 10% return on your spend and for some people this can be pretty lucrative.
You can find our guide to hotels.com Rewards here or visit their website here.
Alternatively, Expedia offers members a 2% rebate on hotel bookings, paid in their OneKey cash. This rate can actually increase to as much as 6% for more regular customers staying in certain properties. OneKey cash can be used in part or in full against hotels, car hire, flights and experiences. Overall this is not as generous as hotels.com but can be useful if you are going to struggle to get to the 10 nights required to trigger the hotels.com £100 rebate.
So, Where Should You Book?
Assuming prices at an Online Travel Agent (OTA) such as hotels.com are similar to booking directly:
| Type of traveller | Starting point |
|---|---|
| Loyal to one hotel chain | Book direct |
| Chasing hotel status | Book direct |
| Regular traveller using many different chains | Hotels.com Rewards |
| Occasional hotel guest | Compare points v Hotels.com Rewards |
| Business traveller needing a VAT invoice | Book direct |
| Business traveller with no need for a VAT invoice | Compare points v Hotels.com Rewards |
| Independent hotel with no useful loyalty programme | Hotels.com Rewards |
⚠️ Business travellers: Obtaining a VAT receipt that is acceptable to your employer for a pre-paid booking made through an online travel agent can be extremely challenging due to the way VAT is charged on these bookings. If this is an issue, we would suggest booking directly with the hotel.
Our Take
Our research shows why you shouldn’t automatically assume that either booking directly or using an online travel agent will produce the cheapest hotel price.
Public prices were remarkably similar: 9 of the 16 hotels we tested had exactly the same headline rate on their own website and Hotels.com. Joining the hotel’s loyalty programme often changed the picture, with 13 of the 16 hotels offering members a further discount.
But booking direct still didn’t always win. At seven of the hotels we researched, the Hotels.com member price was cheaper than booking directly at the hotel’s own loyalty rate – by an average of 7.7%. At the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington, the difference was £53 for just one night.
The lesson is simple: compare the actual prices rather than relying on claims about member rates, loyalty discounts or best-price guarantees.
Price isn’t the only consideration. If you regularly stay with Hilton, Marriott, IHG, Accor or another chain, booking directly can earn hotel points, elite-night credit and status benefits that you would normally sacrifice by using an OTA.
On the other hand, if you spread your stays across many different hotel brands, an OTA reward scheme such as hotels.com Rewards can be more useful than collecting small balances with several hotel programmes.
We wouldn’t pay substantially more purely to collect points or earn a future rebate. A 5% reward isn’t worthwhile if you’re paying 10% more for the room in the first place.
Our approach is therefore to compare the hotel’s member price with the best OTA member price, consider the rewards and benefits available from each, and then book whichever offers the best overall value for that particular stay.
