Make Sure You Know Everything about the Hotel Room Booking
Nowadays, it seems that long-established travel agencies somewhat stand in the background when it comes to bargaining prices. We can hardly judge if this is indeed the case, but here is a list of a few examples that can help you get good accommodation offers for your vacation.
Comparison portals
Let’s start with the price comparison portals. Hotels.com, Booking.com, Hrs.com, Expedia, Trivago, Hotelscombied.com or Kayak.de save you from searching multiple webpages to compare different price offers. Some portals also offer opportunities for additional savings with voucher promotions and free nights for regular clients.
Blind Booking
Another possibility to save is the so-called blind booking. This headline already reveals what this is about. At first glance, you do not really know in which hotel you will end up, only the number of stars and the district can be determined beforehand. With various exclusion criteria you can relatively well limit proposed offers and sometimes get a room in a 5-star hotel for the price of a 3-star one.
Vouchers
So, what about the application of the coupon or a voucher? Important is to check their individual conditions, they may give some good savings but sometimes discounts can also be quite low especially in high seasons and single night stays.
Click & Mix Booking
Click&Mix means nothing else than booking a flight as well as a hotel in combination. There are several portals that offer this option. The procedure is very simple, enter your flight details first, and search for a hotel. You can opt for, for example, to book a hotel for the first night or just for the last night if you return to the starting point after a round trip. There is a sole pitfall: a hotel must always be in the same place as the airport where you land.
LNF rate
Provided by some hotels Look-No-Further rate is in principle a best price guarantee. The whole thing is actually pretty simple. If you find a better rate, the hotel matches it. The only thing to watch out for: the better rate really has to be for the exact same room and offer.
Save AFTER booking
A completely unknown platform for many is pruvo.net. The principle is completely different to all other ways to save money on hotel bookings. Here, the saving process does not begin during the booking, but only afterwards! The procedure is very simple. You just book your accommodation via any Internet platform of your choice and then send the confirmation via e-mail to Pruvo. The only thing you have to consider: your booking must logically be canceled free of charge. If you have completed the booking process, you do not need to do anything else than to wait. Pruvo monitors the prices of your booked accommodation until the time of your check-in and notifies if the price has changed for the better on any other booking platform. You will receive an email with the new price and where you can book it. After that you just have to cancel the old booking and you’re done.
AAA discount in the US
Some hotel chains and motels in the US offer an AAA discount. As a rule, at check-in, no verification by ID documents or the like is required. The simple presentation of the printed card is enough to get a discount that can mean 10% off the normal room rate.
Private apartment via AirBnB, housetrip etc.
By the way, you do not always have to book hotels. In larger cities, it may be of advantage to book through a portal where private apartments are offered. On the one hand, the price is lower. On the other hand, you’ll get priceless insider tips from the owners, who often live on-site.
The magic word is direct communication
When booking accommodation it can be useful to contact some hotels directly via the mail address which is stated on the respective homepage. The reason is obvious: if accommodation is booked through a booking portal, it must pay a commission for the placement. However, if you book directly at the accommodation, this fee will not apply. So, the hotel can save a bit and pass this savings partly to the end customer. A win-win situation, so to speak. Of course, not everyone does that, but inquiring does not cost anything. Plus, if a guest books via an online booking portal, the booked room category is usually entered at random into the hotel’s internal booking system. However, the booking systems cannot automatically capture the expressed wishes, such as ‘quiet room’ or ‘with bathtub’ which can be entered in the notes.
Catalog bookings or via Internet
For expensive places, it may curiously be quite helpful to do without an online booking and to book completely normal through one of the major international catalog providers. You just have to search a bit and sometimes be a little flexible in the planning as it can be worthwhile.
Subscribe to the travel newsletter
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Cancellable security bookings to find something cheaper
Free of charge cancelation rates have several advantages: first, such tariffs may charge the credit card only at check-in and not immediately at booking. On the other hand, the possibility remains open until the start of the trip to look for better alternatives, be it the price at the location or generally in the choice of accommodation. In this case, look roughly every one to two weeks to see if, for example, the price for the currently reserved hotel has changed positively, or perhaps even a completely different accommodation becomes more attractive.
For good bloggers, hotels can be more cooperative
Those who own a homepage or a blog about the subject of travel have completely new possibilities in terms of accommodation expenses. Technically, this does not mean that you contact a hotel management and tell that you would like to spend the night there and then write an article about it later in your blog. The whole thing can be compared to an application in a company, soberly it is nothing else. This is about a so-called ad which should be somehow connected with research, originality and typing skills, and that in the best case can end up with a positive response from the hotel and an associated free stay. Incidentally, this also works on flights. And NO, not everyone can go now and write ads. You really need a popular blog or a homepage and, of course, you have to write an article afterwards.
Couchsurfing
Speaking of completely free of charge, it works quite well now: the magic word is “couch surfing” and the community behind it is now huge. The principle is quite simple. Anyone who registers on CouchSurfing can provide his or her house or apartment for overnight stay for free. It is almost pure hospitality. Just like AirBnB, this type of overnight stay has the distinct advantage of being able to recommend quite different things than if you stayed in a hotel. Couchsurfing has become a real alternative to hotels.
Early arrival can be an advantage
The fewer the guests that have already moved into their rooms, the greater is the possibility for receptionists to manually swap rooms or upgrade, which might have been automatically allocated to another booking by overbooking one room type.
Grab bargains
Bargain portals are now like drop in the ocean. This is not about the comparison portals; these websites do nothing but post every-day price offers, air fares or promotions from travel providers. In order to get wind of such actions as soon as possible, the registration for a newsletter is no longer sufficient. If at all, it appears once in the evening at home in the inbox. Often, however, it is already too late as the best fares or tariffs are already booked by then. So, what to do to get the information in good time? The solution is Twitter. It’s quite surprising, but if you follow the right pages there, you get quasi-second-hand information and news about the above-mentioned offer. It does not matter if it’s bargains for cruises, flights, accommodation or car rental. It goes without saying you have to follow the right pages, such as Fly4free.
Do not book the cheapest category
The room was a bargain, the price suspiciously low, and now you’ve got the narrowest drip right over the kitchen with rattling exhaust air all day? Put ear plugs in your ear and book not the cheapest room category, but a step better next time. This may cost some $ more, but in combination with a small compliment it is often the key to the very best rooms in the hotel or the house.
Delete cookies
One factor that should not be neglected is the traces you leave on your holiday search and hotel bookings online. The Internet does not forget anything. As a matter of fact, when it comes to looking for offers, you will always end up on the same pages again and again. By setting cookies, the booking page notes an increased interest on your part and likes to adjust the prices. Unfortunately, this is now a common practice. Therefore, cleaning up cookies may be advisable.
Book a new hotel
Sometimes you should try something new. In this case, this could even be of great benefit: newly opened hotels generally offer deals to attract customers and build up a customer base.
We hope that this information will help you find great online booking deals. True to the motto: hotel booking online can often be cheaper than you first might think. If we have forgotten something, or you have ideas that you would like to share, please leave us a short comment.
