You’re likely already familiar with online travel agencies, even if you don’t travel often. These companies — such as Priceline, Expedia and Orbitz — act as intermediaries between you and a travel provider.

Booking your travel through an OTA can be a good idea in some circumstances, but you’ll want to be wary of its pitfalls. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of online travel agencies, so you’ll know what to use to book your next vacation.

Pros of booking through online travel agencies

There are certainly advantages booking through online travel agencies, though you’ll find different experiences whether you’re using public OTAs — such as Kayak — or private ones like those offered by your card issuer, such as the Chase Ultimate Rewards® travel portal.

✅ It may be cheaper

When searching for flights online, you may see different prices for the same routes that vary across websites. Although it may be a result of fare type — for example, some search results may not clarify that a fare is basic economy rather than main cabin or economy — other times, the difference comes down to competition for your business.

Online travel services will often offer slightly lower prices on flights in an effort to entice you as a customer. This is true for both hotels and airlines.

✅ It can earn you more rewards

Have you ever heard of shopping portals? By logging into a shopping portal, you can earn rewards for purchases made with many online merchants. Some hotel chains, such as Hilton, Marriott and IHG, can be accessed through shopping portals while still booking directly on the hotel website. In this way, you can earn rewards with the hotel directly as well as with the shopping portal.

The same isn’t true for shopping portals and most airline sites. However, many public online travel agencies are accessible through shopping portals, which can then earn you rewards for airfare bookings. By opting to book in this way, you’ll be able to earn points or cash-back rewards through the shopping portal that you’d otherwise miss.

Some card issuers will also reward you heavily when using their online travel services. Clear examples of this can be seen with Capital One and Chase. With the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card, for example, you’ll get 10 miles per dollar spent on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® is similar. With this card, you can get 10 Ultimate Rewards® points per dollar spent on hotels and rental cars on the Chase travel portal.

While these numbers are high, it’s important to remember that there are trade-offs when booking through an OTA rather than directly with a hotel or airline. We’ll get into that a little later.