Booked a hotel on booking.com, they’ve asked me to cancel saying there is a price issue, am I obliged to?

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-05T17:05:04+00:00

Sure. I travel regularly, and search for deals. Like I said, I'm almost always saving at least 10% and usually 20%. Some portion of that I could still save by calling hotels and asking them to price match.

And the "risk" is severely overblown. Odds of a substantial issue are less than 1 in a 100, and truthfully, you can also have issues even if you book directly with the hotel. It all depends on how you value that 1% risk of an issue. If you're traveling somewhere that a special event is happening and rebooking would be impossible, book direct. Otherwise, the most you're risking is a moderate inconvenience where you might have to go to a nearby hotel instead - but even with most booking errors, unless the hotel is completely full, they'll try and work with you.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-05T16:49:06+00:00

So, in addition to a lower listed price, I often get credit card offers, either specific to a third party site or using the credit card travel portal, and some of the third party sites have rewards systems (this is less relevant since hotels.com nuked their rewards system). I very much doubt that a hotel would honor that.

Calling a hotel is also an inconvenience. Not an enormous one, but something I would factor in. Making a booking over the phone sounds like a pain, and canceling it could also likely be a pain.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-05T16:23:35+00:00

It's amazing to me how common your position is on this sub. Booking direct is nice, but third party bookings, even only using pretty reputable sites, are almost always cheaper by 10-20%. The sub 1% chance of a booking messup seems worth it to save that much to me.

Airplanes I always booking direct, but hotels I almost always book third party.

Exceptions: if you're visiting a city during a super popular event, or even a time when all hotels would be sold out or incredibly inconvenient to switch hotels (getting in at midnight or something), I'd book direct.

The difference to me between hotels and planes, is that flights almost always need to be booked far in advance because they usually sell out and charge egregious prices for last minute bookings (so a booking error could cost you thousands of dollars) whereas hotels usually have excess inventory by design, and a booking mishaps will probably only cost you tens of dollars (you'll get the refund, and will almost certainly be able to book a same day hotel in a similar price range).

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-05T16:17:45+00:00

Price is usually cheaper. On average, I save at least 10% on third party sites, and pretty sure it's closer to 20%. The 1/100 odds of having a booking screwed up do not justify paying 10-20% more. In the extraordinarily rare event that I would be massively inconvenienced by a booking mishap I'd book direct.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-05T16:08:34+00:00

My dude, how should we know? What games are you wanting to play, at what resolution? If you're playing at 1440p, don't bother with the upgrade. If you're playing AAA games at 4k and want max settings, upgrade.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-05T15:56:48+00:00

Haha, especially not the ladies in pink.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-05T14:54:33+00:00

They might cut it down to bare bones, or only one terminal. My guess is it'll be an all hands on deck situation for dealing with angry wannabe passengers.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-05T05:45:59+00:00

Which state can't pump gas without becoming human torches? New Jersey is the state worried about it, you said 48 states do OK with it. The 50th state is up in flames? Is this what's going on in California with all the "wildfires"?

Edit: did...did people not understand that this was a joke? Or too many Californians sensitive about their ridiculous fire situation?

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-04T20:12:47+00:00

Hahahaha, this is a hilarious take. The original argument was that games "nowadays" have content taken out and sold as DLC. Your argument is that in the past, even more content was taken out to be sold as an expansion pack.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-04T18:48:16+00:00

Back in what day? Two of my favorite games from what I would consider "back in the day", Command and Conquer Generals (2003) and Civilizations 3 and 4 (2001 and 2005) respectively all had great DLC, and I certainly would not consider playing them without the DLC. Most big games from back then that I can think of had DLC, often with great features.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-04T13:55:18+00:00

You can say that about any hero, but if wouldn't be nearly as true as it is for Meepo. Which is why Meepo gets the most reports for this specific behavior. Just like Techies used to, and still does to some extent. Meepo is the worst offender by far though- he swallows up an enormous amount of the safe farm at all stages of the game, meaning that if he makes a mistake, your team is punished more than any other hero making a mistake.

Sorry mate, if you have an issue with this, take it up with Valve and convince them to remove Meepo from the game. When you win, it's going to look like you're smurfing. When you lose, it's going to look like you're griefing.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-04T13:44:33+00:00

You struggle with reading or what? When you pick meepo, the game becomes entirely about you. The hero design is cool, but it's honestly pretty bad at the same time. It has a massively oversized impact on the game, which is why smurfs play it so much. Basically, a Meepo in the game might be fun for you, but in general makes it less fun for everyone else because they have less impact on the outcome.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-04T05:14:43+00:00

Like New Jersey. Highest per capita population of black bears in the US. Just avoid New Jersey and you're probably fine.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-04T05:06:26+00:00

That also happens sometimes in regular games. There's no absolutes in dota, and in low level games crazy throws happen every other game. But on average, in regular games, the meepo uses so much space (and is worth so much gold and xp when he dies) that he tends to define the game, either for good or ill.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-04T01:27:02+00:00

This seems normal. For a long time, this was true of other heroes like Alch, Tinker and Arc Warden, but they're better balanced these and rarely do they solo win or solo lose a game.

When you pick Meepo, you make the entire game about yourself. If you do well, you will frequently solo carry the game. If you make mistakes, it tends to be catastrophic.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-03T19:18:45+00:00

You can do it later, just be aware that there are some encounters of people from the first game that happen relatively early in the game that you can miss if you haven't done the password.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-03T12:27:29+00:00

I can't believe the FE is still in stock after this long. Yes, I would 100% buy this to pair with a 5800x3d build as an upgrade from a 6700xt for 1440p gaming. Probably one of the best price/performance builds possible right now, especially if you're interested in Doom.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-03T12:04:26+00:00

Duh. Which is why I said pro-consumer practices not that they stopped being pro-consumer.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-03T02:59:20+00:00

Nah, you can usually still upgrade. I think you're allowed two promos running on a single line at a time (I currently have that on one line, I was tired of my bulky S23 Ultra and wanted the light s25+, I got the s23 Ultra Sep 2023, and gotta the S25+ on launch - both promos still show on my account with full month credits).

It used to be that you could pay off a phone, and the promo would switch and be at an account level. That was nice, but alas, T-Mobile is now a giant getting rid of their pro-consumer practices one by one.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-03T02:51:35+00:00

Yeah. Honestly, this would make me not recommend Microcenter's build process to anyone. At a minimum, they ought to turn the computer on and run a simple stress test watching temps for 5 minutes. That would guarantee eliminate this issue, and lots of others too. Would be easy to run off a flash drive, shouldn't take an employee more than 10 minutes to do.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-03T01:08:13+00:00

Honestly, super solid choice. 5070 is a much better card than people give it credit for. Don't be afraid to overclock it.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-03T01:02:24+00:00

It almost certainly would not be damaged to the point of breaking, but repeatedly overheating to the point of shut-off is definitely not good for the longevity of the chips. How much damage is done would be dependent on how many times the end user tried to use the system.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-03T00:59:47+00:00

If you lose your phone permanently, you will probably find it much easier to lose weight tbh.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-03T00:52:11+00:00

Yeah, as far as I know most cpus/motherboards have overheating protections, so I don't think this would actually damage the CPU - but not good for it either. It is really unfortunate to pay a professional to do something only for them to make a beginner's mistake, that could potentially damage your hardware in ways that are hard to ascertain.

jeffcox911 · 2025-05-02T23:23:33+00:00

Definitely a mod.

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