There are many websites you can book hotels for your next travel. But which one can save you the most?

It is not easy to answer, as everyone's situation is different. Some people travels a lot on business, while most of the people may travel only once a year for a family vacation. Rich people may only stay in luxury hotels, while most of people are likely to choose mid-range hotels anyway.

In general, you can book on a third party website, which aggregates all the hotels for you. Or you can book directly on a hotel's website.

Back to many years ago, third party websites dominate the market. Often, you will see lower prices on third party websites because hotels want to attract more bookings from them. In recent years, hotel chains tried to pay less commission to the third party. With their own booking websites, they promise the lowest price guarantee, and offer a discount to the loyalty members. As a result, hotel chains are getting more direct bookings.

Before diving further into this topic, we want to remind you that hotels often offer "flash sales". These flash sales last for a few hours to a few days. You may save 30% to 50% if you can catch them. We offer a free hotel price alert service, so you can know such flash sales before anyone else. To know more, you can further read 7 ways to save on hotels for your next vacation.

Now let us look at the third party websites in more details. The official name of these websites is called "online travel agency". The largest two are Booking Holdings and Expedia Group. Booking Holdings owns Booking.com, Priceline.com, Agoda.com, Kayak.com, Cheapflights, Rentalcars.com, Momondo, and OpenTable. Expedia Group owns CarRentals.com, CheapTickets, Expedia.com, Vrbo (formerly known as HomeAway), Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Travelocity, trivago, and Venere.com.

The business model of Expedia is the so called "merchant model". They buy hotel rooms in bulk with lower price and resell. The price difference is their profit. Booking.com runs another business model, called "agency model". They don't buy hotel rooms. Instead, they earn commission on every hotel room sale. Priceline.com is famous for their "Name your own price" model. You can book a hotel room without knowing the hotel name. Simply name your own price, and if your price is accepted, you get the room. The caveat is, these rooms are non-refundable. Similarly, hotwire.com also sells hotel rooms without hotel names. But they give you the price directly, so you don't have to guess what is the acceptable price.

Now you already know a few ways to book a hotel with lower price. But you probably do not like the uncertainty to use Priceline or Hotwire. If you are an employee of a big company, such as government, IBM, check your company if you can use "corporate codes". You can also save if you are an AAA/AARP member. In this way, you can save about 10% on the best available rates.

Want more savings? You can join hotel chain's reward programs, or even third party websites' reward programs. With these programs, you may save up to additional 10%. However, you can only choose one of them. You cannot collect points from both third party website and the hotel.

You may wondering why join third party websites reward program? The answer is simple. It allows you to collect points from all sources, so you can get your rewards faster. In addition, you won't waste on expired points, as it is hard to maintain activity at lease once a year if you join several programs at the same time. Last, if you stick to one brand, you cannot enjoy the low price from other brands.

But if you can stick to one brand, you not only can get reward points, but also a lower price dedicated to loyalty members. Hotel chains introduce these member only price in recent year in order to attract more loyalty members.

At the end, it is all about numbers. Next, we are going to briefly review the rewards program between online travel agencies and hotel chains.

Online Travel Agency Rewards Program

Hotels.com: Collect 10 nights get 1 free. This is the highest rewards from all third party reward programs. But you can only book hotels.

Orbitz.com: Book your hotel on the Orbitz app to instantly earn 5%. 1% on flights and packages. Additional 5% on hotels and flights booking with Orbitz VISA credit card. The Orbitz VISA credit cards also offers 2% back on all other purchases. No annual fee. No foreign transaction fee. So you can get rewards on all your travel expenses. Note that you can also earn points from airlines at the same.

Expedia.com: 2 points per $1 spent on hotels, vacation packages, activities, cars or cruises. 1 point per $5 spent on flights. Earn double points on all bookings made through the Expedia app. Typically you will receive a value of 0.71 cents per point.

Priceline.com: With Priceline VISA card, earn 5X points on eligible priceline.com purchases and 1X on anything else.

Hotel Chain Rewards Program

Marriott International (Marriott, Starwood, Ritz-Carlton, Le Méridien): 10 points per $1 spent, a value of 0.8 cents per point. This is our favourite reward program, as Marriott is the largest hotel chains in the world, so you have a bunch of hotels to select from luxury to mid-range. Also, Marriott has a very high value of their point.

Hilton Worldwide (Conrad, Canopy, Curio, Hilton, DoubleTree, Embassy, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton, Homewood, Home2, Hilton Grand Vacations, Waldorf Astoria, Tru, Tapestry Collection, Motto): 10 points per $1 spent, a value of 0.6 cents per point.

Best Western Hotels: 10 points per $1 spent, a value of 0.7 cents per point.

Hyatt Hotels Corporation: 5 points per $1 spent, a value of 1.7 cents per point.

AccorHotels (Sofitel, Pullman, Novotel, Ibis): 2.5 points per $1 EURO spent, a value of 2 cents per point.

InterContinental Hotels Group (InterContinental, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Regent, Kimpton): 10 points per $1 spent, a value of 0.5 cents per point.

Wyndham Worldwide (Wyndham, Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8, Howard Johnson, Travelodge): 10 points per $1 spent, a value of 1.1 cents per point.

Choice Hotels: 10 points per $1 spent, a value of 0.5 cents per point.

Last, as a reminder, do not forget the flash sales. Join our free hotel price alert service to know the sale before anyone else.