[headcanon]

I think they have value as a discovery method and aggregator. If you know the hotel you want, yes you're better off going direct, but if you want to browse its nice to have.

First-party websites to book directly + better aggregators/search like ChatGPT are eroding this value pretty rapidly though. If they leaned into comprehensive trip planning they might have a shot of staying relevant.

[jjulius]

>If you know the hotel you want, yes you're better off going direct, but if you want to browse its nice to have.

I see this in a bunch of the responses, that these sites are great for "discovery". I don't have a preference one way or another, but I'm wondering... why not, say, Google Maps? Go to the locale you want, search for hotels, voila. There's your discovery.

[devilbunny]

My wife doesn't do showers. She takes baths.

Booking is the only site I've ever found that allows you to search by "has bathtub". It's not always correct - they might have some rooms with tubs, but not all - but it's a damned sight better than random chance or visiting every single hotel website.

[headcanon]

I honestly just use every tool I can when trip planning: Google, Booking.com, airbnb when applicable, Expedia, Delta trips, even my credit card company has a link.

Similar to the other responder, I think Booking.com had the best dataset for some random features like a hot tub (specifically big hot tub, not bathtub). The problem is that it only searches for hotels with the big hot tub, if you want that actual room you usually need to book direct.

It also yielded some good results for Japanese ryokan (traditional spa hotel), more so than the other search engines. Google is fine as well but tends to lean more towards big hotel chains IME.

Not saying its perfect (nobody does ryokan well at all), and the more familiar I get the more I'll tend to book direct, its just one search tool out of many. If it went away tomorrow I wouldn't miss it terribly.