i will buy it in Expedia , no Q.

No sympathy here. I try my damdest to find websites of local hotels so I can deal directly with them and cut the middleman. Are they grateful for my efforts? No way. They consistently charge me more than their agents. Maybe they sign contracts that they can’t undercut their channel, who knows? It is absolutely stupid that I can use Priceline and get 50-75% off rack rates, but I can’t just walk into a hotel and ask if they have any rooms left tonight and work out a discount. They always quote the rack rate.

Also, very few travel agencies recieve commissions anymore; the “old school” travel agency survives nowadays by charging fees to their customers, particularly in corporate travel management.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for the profits of hotels.

My significant other once worked for the afore-mentioned Courtyard by Marriott; their standard room rate is @$110/night, much higher on busy weekends. She was told, should she need to make an offer to make a customer happy, that she could sell a room for as little as $15/night (yes, that’s $15) and the hotel would still make an acceptable profit. Not break even, PROFIT.

With margins like these hotels can take their increased fees and stick them up their arses.

Whenever possible I stay in mid-market hotels such as Courtyard by Marriott. No outrageous fees.

It is clear from your post that you need to be updating the various Bill Gates wealth clocks. I believe the calculations only factor in profits from Expedia and the like to the extent they’ve accrued to MicroSoft rather than to Bill Gates personally.

Gary – How do you get the hotel to empty the mini-fridge? They always refuse when I ask.

So why do I get exactly the same deal when I book directly with the hotel? I guess in that case the hotel owner should feel sorry for me? But at least now I know why many “Expedia Special Prices” are more than you would currently pay directly to the airline or Hotel.

What pisses me off about so many “luxury” hotels is that all their money seems to be spent on oh so attentive staff. People, as you know, are any company’s greatest expense. By saving on people they could make the showers work better, or put in a bed that isn’t 20 years old. And if I am staying in a hotel for a week, or weeks at a time, I want it to feel like home. That means no friggin’ maid cleaning up after me every day; my home isn’t a sterile enviroment, and neither should a hotel be. When I want the sheets changed and bed made I’ll leave a note on the door, thank you.

And don’t even get me started that they get away with advertsing. (and earning stars for) things like having a spa pool, which in reality are a handfull of jets in the corner of a cold, tiny, swimming pool hidden in the basement with no natural light what so ever.

Yes Holiday Inn, Hilton and Radisson, I am talking about you.

Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp (formerly USA Networks), which also owns Ticketmaster, Hotwire, Home Shopping Network, Match.com, CitySearch, Hotels.com and Evite, bought out Microsoft’s stake in Expedia 2 years ago. Note: all of thee businesses are exceedingly lucrative online middlemen, not glamorous but marginally profitable content businesses (which they cleverly unloaded on egomaniac Vivendi Universal’s then CEO Messier).

Why is sympathy deserved? Can’t the hotel owner opt not to deal with Expedia in the first place? If so, surely the hotel owner is only doing so out of overall financial gain.