Hotel Rooms at Half Price
Posted June 14, 2008 by:
Comments(0)Booking half price hotel rooms
Here is an easy method for booking a hotel room at the best rate: half price hotels can literally be yours when you choose the best time to book a hotel room. By shopping around online and offline, you can find the hotels that are looking to do a deal on the room rate, and sometimes this means you can book a great hotel room for less than half the regular advertised rate. Read on for your step by step guide to staying at the best hotels at half price. If you are in a rush, get HotelsCombined.com to compare 30+ travel sites at once for you.
1. Orbitz and other price comparison sites – First research hotels on Orbitz (or whatever traditional booking system you prefer: Expedia, Travelocity, or Hotels.com etc. I will use Orbitz as the example for simplicity.
2. Hotwire Secrets – Next, go to Hotwire.com (US only – otherwise go to step 3) to see if there is a nicely priced property in comparison to what you found on Orbitz. Hotwire does not show you the property name, but it does give you the price, the general location, star rating, and amenities. The prices on hotwire are sometimes as much as 40% off the best price you will find elsewhere. Unfortunately, the savings can be close to nothing. Yesterday, I booked a hotel in Denver. The best price on Orbitz was $86. I got it for $57 on Hotwire. That’s a 30% discount. Not bad.
3. Priceline – But don’t stop there. Next, go to Priceline.com and offer a rate about 20% lower than the best price on Hotwire – using the same location and star rating. With Priceline YOU name the price for a given star ratings. You might want to check out bidding support sites for some help in your bidding (I don’t bother). With Priceline, I have found hotels for 60 per cent off the Orbitz price. But don’t go too low, or your bid won’t be accepted and you won’t be able to re-bid the same star rating and location (for a period of time). I found that Priceline is consistently the least expensive option, if your bid is accepted.
4. Bid on a Hotel Room – If your bid is not accepted, you have a couple of options. You can go through this process again for a different location or star rating. Or you can just go back to Hotwire for the purchase.
5. Research Hotwire a bit further to get a clearer picture of which hotel you might get. Go back to Orbitz and enter the search criteria. Click on the “Expand search options” link and check off the amenities listed on the Hotwire property of interest. You should end up with a relatively short list (often only one or two properties) that match. This will give you a decent idea of which property you might get on Hotwire.com. Remember, Hotwire tends to give you mainly major hotel chains like Hilton, Radisson, Holiday Inn and the likes.
6. Unless you find a desirable property at a large discount on Hotwire, you may want to consider booking the tradition route.
7. Check prices on the Hotel Website – But before booking on Orbitz, go to the hotel website for the chain. If you are thinking about booking with Best Western, go to their website and search. If the price is the same (or better), I usually book through the chain website as they typically have better cancellation policies and more generous rewards programs. Be sure to see if a AAA discount applies. Always double check the cancellation policies.
8. Before making your final decision, you may want to check other websites, such as sidestep.com which claims to search over 100 travel sites with one click.
9. Finally, book your room and enjoy your stay!
Get Maximum Value from Your Hotel Stay
Once you have secured your room at the best rate possible, make sure to get the most from the deal by avoiding the hidden costs that suckers pay.
The smartest strategy is to choose the hotel with the best inclusive facilities and avoid paying any addon costs. The sophisticated consumer takes advantage of that, the naïve pay all the fees.
For example, you see an offer for a hotel room for $75 (which costs the hotel $100 to provide). The guy checking in behind you also rents a room, but will rack up $70 in fees from the minibar, the phone, WiFi charges and garage parking (all of which cost the hotel $20 to provide). You, on the other hand, were not tempted by the minibar and used your cellphone for calls and took public transport to the hotel. You also enjoyed all the hotel’s leisure facilities, free toiletries and buffet breakfast as part of your room rate. You checked whether WiFi was free before you made use of it. The other guy subsidized your room while you took full advantage of all the inclusive facilities.
Tips about Hotwire and Priceline
# When using these websites, if you stay in a hotel for several nights, it seems that the rate is determined by the highest rate for the period. So, if you are staying in a hotel Wed – Sun, you might get a better rate by booking Wed – Thurs (weekday pricing) separately from Fri – Sun (Weekend pricing). Using this approach, I saved 45% extra during the weekend. Had I booked Wed – Sun as one booking, I would have paid the higher weekday rate all four nights.
# It appears that the rate that the hotel gets paid by Hotwire is about $10 less than the price you pay (a couple of hotels accidentally printed the rate they received on my check-in documentation). I have used this to my advantage on a couple of occasions. If I want to extend my stay, I sometimes do this with the front desk and they have honored the even lower price ($10 below Hotwire.com). Don’t count on this though.
# Hotwire has a “double the difference” policy. If you find the same hotel on the same date sold elsewhere for less, they will refund double the difference. I only had this happen once and they promptly refunded the money. Be sure to read the terms and conditions for details and restrictions.
Caveats about Hotwire and Priceline
* You need to pay up-front, so if cash flow is an issue, take that into consideration. # A service fee is added, so consider the total cost (you are given these on the final page before confirming your purchase). An accurate comparison can be made between the total cost on these websites with the cost + tax on Orbitz. Unfortunately, you can’t always easily calculate the taxes on Orbitz.
Although the process might sound complicated, it does not take much time. And it can save you a bundle.
Stephen Shapiro
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