This question about the advantages or disadvantages of booking hotels from online travel agencies, such as OYO, MakeMyTrip, or any prepaid agencies. Should be blindly bid for a room designating the city, or star rating.
Now, to answer the big misconception about all the other online travel agencies that advertise they have the lowest rates. ALL BRANDED HOTEL chains REQUIRE all online travel agencies, such as Hotels.com, Booking.com, OYO, MMT, and the thousands of others to MAINTAIN RATE PARITY, with their hotel's branded web site.
This means, for example, OYO cannot advertise a rate on their web site that is less expensive than what is available on say Best Western's web site. Likewise, Best Western cannot advertise a rate that is less than the OTA. This is what rate parity is. Believe me, both sides of the fence watch this very carefully and will send emails to either the hotel or corporate if there is a discrepancy.
Yes, occasionally it does happen, but it's a glitch when systems don't stay in sync, or it's an OTA where the individual hotel has an "extranet" where they maintain the inventory and rates separately from the hotel's chain. For example, a branded hotel could have an agreement with say "Booking.com" where they will take a commission on every room sold if the hotel will maintain the inventory and rates directly. What can happen is the hotel GM may change rates through their property management system which updates their corporate website, which in turn updates all the OTAs unless the hotel has an extranet. If the GM gets distracted they may not get the extranet updated with the same rates, thus throwing them out of rate parity. Generally, this gets caught quickly, but that is not to say that someone couldn't book a room for less until it does.
Now the advantages and disadvantages.who do you think is going to know more about the hotel you want to book at than the people that actually work there? Or do you think some call center in India or the Philippines, where you can barely understand their English, is going to know more about the hotel?
The same goes if you want a special room, need to be on the ground floor, or away from the elevator or stairs, or are celebrating an anniversary or special event, do you think someone at an online travel agency will help you?
Who do you think is going to help you more if something comes up such as a flight delay, or vehicle breakdown, or family emergency, and you need to cancel or change your dates? The staff at the hotel are going to be more accommodating if you had booked directly with their hotel instead of a travel agency.
So given that all OTA's and branded websites have to maintain the same rates unless you fall for the blind bidding process (horrible mistake), I'd go with the hotel every time. I only use the OTA's if I'm searching for a hotel in a city I'm traveling to, just to find who is closest to where I want to be, and who has the best amenities and price out of the hotels available. THEN, I call and book direct with the hotel once I've decided on which hotel. PLUS the hotel may be more agreeable to negotiating the rate if you book directly since they don't have to pay up to a 25% commission if you booked it online.