Displayed Hotel Prices on Booking Sites

saajan_12

Bungle73 said:

saajan_12 said:

Depends on the site, with many you can toggle between nightly and total price. 

People have different preferences, so someone's going to have to calculate. Personally I'd prefer nightly rates, as I have a rule of thumb of say £x per night in most places, £y per night if its particularly fancy or a popular area, etc. If those get multiplied up by a 5 or 10 or 15 day holiday, then the numbers feel out of context. Also for multi-step itineraries, its easier to see the £ per night in each city so as you tinker with the dates, its still clear how much you're paying per night. 

IF you had a total trip budget you could always divide the accommodation price by the number of nights once, and then compare everying on a given booking site with that.. saves doing the calculation multiple times. 

So why can't you do any of that with a total  price? You're not paying the one night cost (unless you're only staying for one night), so it's totally irrelevant.

Absolutely you can by dividing through. Just like you can with the nightly price and multiplying up when needed. The point is for me, nightly is more frequently used. For others, the total is more used. Someone will need to do the conversion, so a particular site using one way or the other isn't "wrong" or "unhelpful". 

Certainly not irrelevant.. Say I'm looking at a multi-stop trip in 3 cities over 10 days, my budget is roughly £100 per night (£1000 total). First city for 4 nights, price comes out at £450 ie on the high side (450/4 = 112.5 > 100). Second city for 3 nights is £230 ie on the cheap side (230/3 = 77<100. But then if I want to shuffle a night and make the journey a day earlier, it becomes 337.5 for 3 nights in the first city and 307 for 4 nights in the second city. But looking at the totals, which one is cheap, and which isn't.. Much easier if I was just looking at the nightly. 

Bungle73 said:

Hoenir said:

Price per night provides an easy direct basis for comparison.

Surely it's easier with a total price, as that is more accurate?

How? The nightly multiplied by the number of nights is exactly the total price. 

sheramber

Bookings will be for many different number of nights so how many should they show? 

Albermarle

IvanOpinion said:

In some instances the hotel price can vary by day of the week. For example a room may be £250 Fri, Sat, £400 Sun, Mon and £350 Tue, Wed, Thu. In other scenarios a hotel may offer a 'buy 2 nights get 1 free'.
In such instances the total price makes more sense over the per diem.

Personally I prefer to see the total price, although it really isn't overly difficult to do a rough calculation in my head. Some sites do have a switch that allow you to change pricing from daily to total.

I notice that when I book a holiday hotel in Spain for example, for say 5 nights at €1000, when I get the invoice it details the price for each night, which are often different, like you say.

PHK

Exodi said:

Bungle73 said:

saajan_12 said:

Depends on the site, with many you can toggle between nightly and total price. 

People have different preferences, so someone's going to have to calculate. Personally I'd prefer nightly rates, as I have a rule of thumb of say £x per night in most places, £y per night if its particularly fancy or a popular area, etc. If those get multiplied up by a 5 or 10 or 15 day holiday, then the numbers feel out of context. Also for multi-step itineraries, its easier to see the £ per night in each city so as you tinker with the dates, its still clear how much you're paying per night. 

IF you had a total trip budget you could always divide the accommodation price by the number of nights once, and then compare everying on a given booking site with that.. saves doing the calculation multiple times. 

So why can't you do any of that with a total  price? You're not paying the one night cost (unless you're only staying for one night), so it's totally irrelevant.

To complement what saajan_12 says, when I booked my 2 week trip to Japan last year, we were staying in various different cities for various different time periods. I used Google hotels and I found it easier with my budget of ~£80 per night to search for hotels displaying the night rate. Appreciate if you're only staying in one hotel for the whole trip then total price may be more intuitive for you.

Bungle73 said:

Hoenir said:

Price per night provides an easy direct basis for comparison.

Surely it's easier with a total price, as that is more accurate?

Why would it be more accurate?

The problem is that the nightly rate isn't always the same depending on how many nights you book, which nights they are and hotels often use demand pricing. So multiplying the nightly rate doesn't always give the total (sites that do this call the nightly rate an "indicative" price) 

Bungle73

sheramber said:

Bookings will be for many different number of nights so how many should they show? 

What? As many as I've asked for obviously...................................

Bungle73

IvanOpinion said:

In some instances the hotel price can vary by day of the week. For example a room may be £250 Fri, Sat, £400 Sun, Mon and £350 Tue, Wed, Thu. In other scenarios a hotel may offer a 'buy 2 nights get 1 free'.
In such instances the total price makes more sense over the per diem.

Personally I prefer to see the total price, although it really isn't overly difficult to do a rough calculation in my head. Some sites do have a switch that allow you to change pricing from daily to total.

What difference does that make?