Hotel prices

abracadabra565

I have found a deal on morerooms.com which is a quarter of the price the hotel direct are charging. The hotel has a ‘best price guarantee’ but will not match the price, just offered a slight discount. Should they match the price?

soolin

abracadabra565 said:

I have found a deal on morerooms.com which is a quarter of the price the hotel direct are charging. The hotel has a ‘best price guarantee’ but will not match the price, just offered a slight discount. Should they match the price?

It depends on the small print of the ‘best price guarantee’ that the hotel publish.

bagand96

It depends on the wording of the Best Price Guarantee, and the reason they've given you for not matching that price?

DullGreyGuy

abracadabra565 said:

I have found a deal on morerooms.com which is a quarter of the price the hotel direct are charging. The hotel has a ‘best price guarantee’ but will not match the price, just offered a slight discount. Should they match the price?

You need to ask them why they aren't matching it... dont know "more rooms" but there are some websites that play games a little and so could fall foul of some price matches. If you look at Hilton for example it requires the competing company to offer immediate booking confirmation whereas some of these budget sites dont book you in immediately but hold the funds hoping the room rates drop below what they've sold it to you for and will cancel after a while if prices dont. Similarly some will take your 7 day stay and split it up into multiple bookings whereas Hilton require it to be the same continuous booking. 

TELLIT01

I would be more concerned about how a third party company can provide a hotel room at such heavily discounted prices.

bagand96

TELLIT01 said:

I would be more concerned about how a third party company can provide a hotel room at such heavily discounted prices.

Whilst it's probably rare to make such significant savings it can happen.  I stayed in a big chain US hotel a couple of years back and saved almost 50% from the chain's own website, and other large sites like Booking/Expedia etc.  Was still a fairly large site I booked through but I was a little dubious.  Was issued a "Hotel Voucher" that had the name of some other agent on it - one of the "bed banks".  Don't know for sure but my assumption it was pre-contracted tour operator rooms being resold or something similar.

DullGreyGuy

bagand96 said:

TELLIT01 said:

I would be more concerned about how a third party company can provide a hotel room at such heavily discounted prices.

Whilst it's probably rare to make such significant savings it can happen.  I stayed in a big chain US hotel a couple of years back and saved almost 50% from the chain's own website, and other large sites like Booking/Expedia etc.  Was still a fairly large site I booked through but I was a little dubious.  Was issued a "Hotel Voucher" that had the name of some other agent on it - one of the "bed banks".  Don't know for sure but my assumption it was pre-contracted tour operator rooms being resold or something similar.

Did that hotel have a price guarantee?

Historically it was easy to get big discounts as hotels direct pretty much only sold rack rate flexible bookings etc and so third parties could sell on a no-cancellation, prepaid etc basis and slash a fair amount off. Some hotels still allow agencies to bring them business more cheaply but others are trying to cutout the middleman and get more direct business. 

Even with guarantees it's still not guaranteed, ironically maybe. Was looking at booking with one hotel that has a guarantee but as the hotel is the only thing on the tropical island I was going against my norm and looking at an AI booking. Agencies were coming out much cheaper on an AI basis than the hotel direct was on a Full Board basis but when speaking to them they wouldn't match because they dont sell AI direct. 


Tour operators do bulk book rooms to get their better pricing, they have a variety of ways of disposing of any overbooking when it gets close to the date. These normally won't be price matched as you dont get an instant booking but a hotel voucher with the room booked under the tour operator. 

bagand96

DullGreyGuy said:

bagand96 said:

TELLIT01 said:

I would be more concerned about how a third party company can provide a hotel room at such heavily discounted prices.

Whilst it's probably rare to make such significant savings it can happen.  I stayed in a big chain US hotel a couple of years back and saved almost 50% from the chain's own website, and other large sites like Booking/Expedia etc.  Was still a fairly large site I booked through but I was a little dubious.  Was issued a "Hotel Voucher" that had the name of some other agent on it - one of the "bed banks".  Don't know for sure but my assumption it was pre-contracted tour operator rooms being resold or something similar.

Did that hotel have a price guarantee?

I'm not sure, but I didn't try.  As you point out, a lot of the price guarantees would exclude such bookings by their T&C's.  Many say things such as "immediate confirmation" or "the same room description under the same terms" etc.  Bulk sold rooms via bed banks probably wouldn't qualify as would fall foul of one or more of the conditions.

I believe the major hotel brands have agreements with the major booking portals not to undercut each each other - which renders the price guarantees pointless in many cases.  Sometimes you will get a sweetner for booking direct.  Smaller/independent hotels generally have much more flexibility.