Cheap Hotel Prices Article Discussion

freeganneist

I use Priceline's name your own price facility wherever possible. It's most useful when you're travelling in the US and Canada, but you can still get great bargains in Europe, and in the UK, although there can be poor availability in places outside of London (Bristol's been OK in my experience). I've stayed in 4-5* hotels in Europe for little more than £30 prpn, and usually much less in Canada. The hotels who offer opaque rooms to Priceline tend to be chains like Marriotts, Hyatts, Holiday Inn, but can be smaller and more independent. Often the lower star levels in the US include breakfast (and maybe pools and free internet access), at silly prices like £15 a night.

Priceline Hong Kong and Singapore seem to be separate from the main US (.com) version, and cover Asia as well as Europe and America. Priceline.co.uk is very closely linked to Priceline.com, you just bid in pounds, but quite often their emailed replies mention dollars.

Two websites give you an indication of how to bid effectively, and to see what hotels people are getting for what prices.
www.biddingfortravel.com
www.betterbidding.com

Also, Hotwire offers a less opaque service, like lastminute. You can see the price, the star rating, the facilities and the area of town, but you can't see the hotel name. The betterbidding site above maintains a list matching the descriptions to the name of the hotel that people have actually got.

Having used both hotwire and priceline extensively, saved a lot of money, and quite often been upgraded as well, I'd recommend trying it, but it's best to be an educated bidder and read those websites, and priceline's T&Cs.

Once you get the hang of it it can be addictive.

sbutton

All the hotel finder sites seem to want to know the city you are staying in first rather than the other way round. Is there any web sites where I can get the cheapest hotels, and specify all the requirements that I need.

For instance, I'd like to go away on 31st August for two nights in a nice hotel (4 or 5 stars??) with a pool and leisure facilities. Please show me the cheapest locations around the UK, and I'll choose which one is most suitable.

Suggestions?

moob_2

A big personal thanks goes to budgetflyer.

I used the tips provided in the links in the post and saved a fortune through Priceline. I've post on the relevant forums to thank as well!

budgetflyer

Thanks moob. Its actually Blindman who did the Priceline article.He did all the work and research for our benefit.
Secret to success - copy experts.

blindman

freeganneist wrote: »

I use Priceline's name your own price facility wherever possible. It's most useful when you're travelling in the US and Canada, but you can still get great bargains in Europe, and in the UK, although there can be poor availability in places outside of London (Bristol's been OK in my experience). I've stayed in 4-5* hotels in Europe for little more than £30 prpn, and usually much less in Canada. The hotels who offer opaque rooms to Priceline tend to be chains like Marriotts, Hyatts, Holiday Inn, but can be smaller and more independent. Often the lower star levels in the US include breakfast (and maybe pools and free internet access), at silly prices like £15 a night.

Priceline Hong Kong and Singapore seem to be separate from the main US (.com) version, and cover Asia as well as Europe and America. Priceline.co.uk is very closely linked to Priceline.com, you just bid in pounds, but quite often their emailed replies mention dollars.

Two websites give you an indication of how to bid effectively, and to see what hotels people are getting for what prices.
www.biddingfortravel.com
www.betterbidding.com

Also, Hotwire offers a less opaque service, like lastminute. You can see the price, the star rating, the facilities and the area of town, but you can't see the hotel name. The betterbidding site above maintains a list matching the descriptions to the name of the hotel that people have actually got.

Having used both hotwire and priceline extensively, saved a lot of money, and quite often been upgraded as well, I'd recommend trying it, but it's best to be an educated bidder and read those websites, and priceline's T&Cs.

Once you get the hang of it it can be addictive.

I hope you posted your winning bids on either if not both web sites you mentioned.

moob_2

budgetflyer wrote: »

Thanks moob. Its actually Blindman who did the Priceline article.He did all the work and research for our benefit.
Secret to success - copy experts.

It's OK BF, I've already thanked the man in question on the relevant thread.:beer:

Money_Shaving_Expert

A fantastic site which should have been mentioned that i have used for many years is www.smoothhound.co.uk - its great if you want to find the best deals on the smaller hotels and especially the smaller b&b's and guest houses which many other sites do not list. It also offers all the major chains. I find it extremely quick and easy to use.

The site also says to mention Smooth Hound when booking your stay as it offers additional discounts - it seems to work some of the time but not all - but if you don't ask you definately don't get!!

Another handy thing is that they list the lowest possible price available for that hotel - so if the hotel is asking for a higher figure at the time of your booking you know that you may have a chance of negotiating down to at least the lower figure which probably usually only applies to a quiet period.

Hope this helps as much as Smooth Hound has helped me!

theamazinggem

hello hello.

just a quick couple of things. we've done the hostel thing quite a lot on city breaks in europe, we've stayed here http://www.miss-sophies.com/ in prague (awesome bathroom, tho was a couple of years ago now), here http://meininger-hostels.com/en/metanavigation/home/ in berlin, (huge room, cable tv) and just the other day here http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Oops-Paris-22773 in paris (no tv, location a bit out, but a quieter area, free internet and breakfast, nice new rooms).

they're not hotels. they will have young travellers in, but all these places were perfectly quiet etc when we stayed, and to be honest usually the doubles are on a different floor to the dorms anyway.

DO get review from hostelworld and tripadvisor, tho expect the odd bad one, and go with the majority. also you can see the ages of the reviewers on hostelworld, which tells you alot too.

in August we did the lastminute.com top secret hotels thing, we got this place http://www.hazlittshotel.com/rok_index.html which was lovely, but there was building work and there was scaffolding at the windows. it was fine though, and the room was beautiful.

we did it again for the trip to paris, only on being sent the name of the hotel, we looked it up on tripadvisor we saw it had horrendous reviews from virtually all users. we e-mailed lastminute.com and complained and were given 24 hours to pick another hotel from their website, else lose £20 but get a refund. we looked on the internet and found the hostel above for about half what we were going to pay, and did that instead.

be careful though, some of the top secret hotels are now coming up with "non-refundable" on them, so think a bit harder before booking these, and follow all the tips mentioned about putting the descriptions into google to try and find out what you're getting.

hope this helps folk. happy travelling!

(also i'm going to edinburgh for my birthday in february on the cheap sleeper ticket, so any tips on places to stay there would be great!)

Willspireite

Hi,
Was wondering if anyone has used the priceline site that Martin highlights in the main site ... (about half way down the link page)
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-hotels
I was looking to use it, but seems like you need a USA or Canada address! Anyone know if it's possible to use this site from within the UK?
Cheers!

balsingh

www.priceline.co.uk is the UK version and I have used it when travelling to Paris.