How to get cheaper hotel rooms

AmyT111

How to get the best price for your hotel room (and no it’s not by booking online).

Did you know that most online agents (booking.com/laterooms/expedia etc) charge at least 15% (often more) commission to hoteliers on every booking made. You can use this to your advantage.

Simply phone the hotel direct and ask if they can beat the online price. As often as not they’ll be more than happy to. This works best with smaller establishments where the person you’re speaking to actually has the authority to make this kind of decision.

Give it a try; you’ve got nothing to lose!

dzug1

Well yes.

In fact I've several times been told by small hoteliers where I've booked through an agency book direct next time and I'll give you a discount

torbrex

Not exactly new though, people I know have been doing this for years.

Bryando

torbrex wrote: »

Not exactly new though, people I know have been doing this for years.

Well this might just get more people doing it:)

AmyT111

Lets hope more people do! I've had regular guests re-book via agents purely because the agent ploughs so much money in to making sure their adverts appear first. There's no way B&Bs can compete with this.

hcb42

Equally a lot of hotels won't as it breaches their agreement about pricing parity, which is also about integrity.

TenThirteen

100% agree with the first poster as I'm a hotelier myself and the "word" about this is definitely not out there - and it should be!

The likes of LateRooms.com, Booking.com, BookDirectRooms etc. etc. are all commission-based. I wouldn't believe the best price guarantee/lowest rate promises at all. Hotels easily get around this by having a different cancellation/deposit policy so it's not directly comparable.

By all means look on these sites for reviews/photographs but you should really try to find a direct phone number for the hotel you fancy and call them direct and say "I'm looking for a double room for three nights, I see online it's available for £180 per night, could you do it for £150?" The hotel will say yes because after the commission is paid to the online booking agency they will come out with the same £150... and the customer gets the same room for £30 less.

By booking direct you can also ask for anything specific you might need eg a ground floor room or an early check-in. Several of these online booking agencies withhold customer information from hoteliers eg phone number so if you make a special request for a cot or a ground floor room and we can't oblige then we are unable to contact you to let you know.

My property advertises with about 30 (!) online booking sites and without exception you can book the same room for 15% less direct - our terms and conditions prevent us from being able to say this explicitly but it's true.

Only once in seven years as a hotelier I have been called and questioned by one of the main online booking agencies because a room type was advertised £15 per night cheaper on our own website. I simply told the online agency that this double room wasn't available for sale via their website and was £15 per night cheaper because it was smaller than the double room we offered for sale with them - not true at all but the booking agencies don't make personal visits to see the rooms for themselves so have to take your word for it.

Please spread the word to contact the hotel (and B&B's/guest houses/self catering properties etc.) direct when you're ready to book! We get the same income at the end of the day if you book direct or via an agent and you get the same room so you're just saving yourself money (15% is the usual commission) if you go direct to the property. :T

Kaybenson

This is true.

I booked an hotel via booking.com recently.

When i arrived at the place, they ask me which website did i book from.

Giving me some 'body language' to always deal with them directly.

Doc_N

hcb42 wrote: »

Equally a lot of hotels won't as it breaches their agreement about pricing parity, which is also about integrity.

But isn't 'pricing parity' just a euphemism for price fixing?

TenThirteen

Doc_N wrote: »

But isn't 'pricing parity' just a euphemism for price fixing?

The only thing they seem bothered about is that your prices are the same across the different agencies eg a twin room for £65 on Booking.com also needs to be £65 on Expedia etc. That's what they can check and I'm sure do on the screen-scraper sites. But by telephone direct with the hotel it's not as easy to catch a price difference.