When it comes to booking your hotel you are probably facing
the same thing majority of the population is facing. How to find the best hotel
deal?
Breaking down how most families choose their vacation and
make their hotel bookings will show you why it is getting harder to find the
best hotel discount. Most families talk about destination and vacation time
before they even hit the internet. When they do narrow down their time and
location typically the first place someone would go is to google. Typically they type in Hotel
discounts or Hotels at which point they start to go through the google
listings. If you noticed that no matter which way you type in your search it
typically brings back the same results. Expedia, hotels.com, kayak, orbitz and
etc. It is now up to you to go through each site and conduct a search to see
who has the lowest rate. However it seems like most people do not understand
that you need to finish your search until it gets all the way to the end where
it requests your credit card. This is where you will find your final rate
including, taxes, fees, charges and etc.
There are a few simple tricks you could use to find out how
to get the best hotel deal. You could use websites like www.kayak.com which
allows you to search over 30 of the top booking engines and will bring back the
rate for all of them. This will save you a tremendous amount of time versus
going to each website one by one. If you decide to use Kayak just be sure that
you check the prices all the way until you are requested to enter your credit
card info so you can see the final charge. All too often we hear about
travelers thinking they found the lowest hotel rate but when they go to check
out the price increases because all the extra charges.
You can always call the hotel direct and ask them for the
best rate and even request an extra discount if you decide to visit their
hotel. Your success rate is going to very but even if you can get a discount
10% of the time then it is worth the phone call. A lot of hotels have a par
value which mean they will not lower the room any less than their par value.
Sometimes it might even cost you more to go through the hotel versus one of the
OTA’s (online travel agents like expedia).
There are some really good hotel membership clubs that are
on the market but if you read our last article you will know that it is
imperative to join the right travel club as some of them can cost thousands to
join. Typically membership clubs will have the lowest travel rates on the net
including deepest hotel discounts. You can search companies like AAA (average
10-20% discount) AARP (same discounts as AAA but have to be senior citizen) Hotels Etc. (typically offers 20-70% off
public rates on hotels and other entertainment and recreational events).
If you really want to see a true hotel discount then you
should find a private membership club that will give you private rates that are
not available to the general public. You could save the cost of your membership
club with the very use.