Why not use TripAdvisor? Not owned by Priceline or Expedia (yet!), nowhere as manipulative as Priceline, and you can actually compare between Priceline and Expedia offerings on the same page. The reviews are much better, rating system is not complicated/hidden and you can sort of ranking/reviews and much better UI with the new redesign.

Disclosure: Ex-Tripadvisor engineer.

Why? Trip Advisor is actually one of the biggest contributors to scourge the fake reviews! Anyone can't post reviews on Tripadvisor you don't need to be a verified guest.

'“The effects we find in our study are actually not that small. For example, the mean hotel in our sample has thirty negative reviews. We find that a hotel that is located next to an independent hotel owned by a small owner will have six more fake negative Tripadvisor reviews compared to an isolated hotel.”'[1]

Here is PDF link to the report: "Promotional Reviews: An Empirical Investigation of Online Review Manipulation", which is worth a read:

http://www.nber.org/papers/w18340.pdf

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/avaseave/2014/01/27/when-online...

TripAdvisor used to be part of Expedia. They were spun off in 2011.

And, of course, TripAdvisor has their own issues that they don't really care to deal with (fake reviews are a constant problem since they have no way to verify that someone actually stayed there).

I don't actually travel much, and have never used Booking.com. So no dog in this fight. But your question is pretty much my point: if people aren't going to use some other service, it's a lot harder to quantify long-term negative impacts of dark patterns vs the measurable short-term lift.

[Edit] There's only so much conversation to be had around a point like "we don't want to become MySpace." If what they are doing generates more revenue, and if people don't get so annoyed that they'll use another service, and if they avoid lawsuits and regulators...

You'll never hear this pitch in an executive meeting: "I have an idea that will reduce revenue X% with no quantifiable long-term benefits."

I've started to use Google Maps more and more, they give you a good overview of several sites and their prices.

Go direct

Unfortunately directly booking with the hotel has drawbacks as well. 6 months ago I booked The Pullman Hotel in London directly (they had the same pricing as the online agencies).

When I arrived late in the evening my room was not available: the (online, credit card backed) reservation I've made was "lost" and no more rooms available.

There was no way to sort it out easily so I booked another Hotel (higher price, and had no time to do some Tripadvisor/Rating research).

The exactly same thing happened when I booked a hotel in Czech last year via HRS. When I arrived I was told by the hotel guy that there was only 1 room available instead of the booked 2. I tried to sort it out directly with the hotel - no chance after 10 min. of discussions.

I then called the HRS hotline, the service agent put me on hold while he called the hotel. I saw the guy at the reception pick up the phone, a few seconds later he came to me and told me that 2 rooms were available. :/

That said: it seems that the OTAs (HRS, booking, expedia) have enough "arguments" (e.g. threaten with delisting etc) that as a customer you may also have benefits from this kind of oligopoly.

If you booked with booking.com and the reservation was lost your pretty much SOL as well.

Booking actually helps in these situations, a friend of mine works as a customer service agent there and spends a fair share of his time resolving such issues. If I get it right, in such cases Booking should suggest the new property to a guest and reimburse the price from the first hotel.