OTAs can play "member" pricing games too I think so there's even better deals to be had.
So you definitely need to comparison shop, I make my agent take the pricing from all the OTAs and calculate a post-rebate price, then pick the lowest one.
Amex/Chase/Cap1 portals are still not worth it.
Even after the 5-10% cash back on hotels booked on their portal, you are still overpaying by 1-3% of the “book direct with hotel” rate.
Then once you take into account a 2-3% straight cash back card, the credit card travel portals tend to overcharge you by 5-8%. This is after taking into account all the points game nonsense. Do the math yourself.
This hasn't been my experience. I usually search through Booking.com and when I contacted the hotel directly, found that the direct rate is higher than the booking.com rate.
Personally I mostly use Google Flights for flight search (or seats.aero for award travel search) and booking.com for hotel search, and then book directly. I've booked probably 100+ hotels through booking.com and then quit entirely after hitting that long tail bad experience.
[1]: I'm a few years out of date on this and don't know the current legalities, but major OTAs (Booking.com and Expedia, who control probably 80-90% of third party hotel bookings) used to have a "most favored nation" clause that prevented hotels from advertising lower prices through other channels without a previous commercial relationship. Signing up for a loyalty program qualifies, so being logged in for direct hotel bookings can sometimes get you cheaper room rates. (In the US, things like AARP and AAA memberships also work.) I know the EU was pushing back on these clauses but I'm not clear on what the current state of things is.