The hotel I booked online became a homeless shelter and no one told me
I've completely sworn off third-party booking services. They never know what's going on and when anything goes wrong they just tell you they can't help you. Then the place tells you that <i>they</i> can't help you because you didn't book through them and they just point fingers at each other.<p>Better to book directly from whatever hotel / airline / whatever you want to use. Whatever savings you might get is not worth it and a lot of times hotels appreciate direct bookings and they're cheaper anyway.