How to The Get Best Value on A Hotel Booking

Use our realistic Hotel Booking Guide to get the best value on your next hotel booking.

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Principles

There are a lot of options when booking a hotel. This collection of tips will help you navigate through the clutter to get the best deal.

The proven way means more research. You need to check a few platforms before booking a hotel. Be ready to book on a new platform if a better deal comes your way.

Here are a few steps to follow to get the best deal on a hotel booking.

• Decide on your destination and sights.
• Research if your destination has enough places to stay.
• Start with your preferred platform.
• Check at least one other platform before booking a hotel.
• Learn about key loyalty terms of major platforms.
• Book on the platform with better loyalty incentives if a few platforms offer the same price.

Hotel Aggregators

Whenever you need a place to stay, hotel aggregators should be your starting point. They aim to display the most hotels on one platform.

Hotel aggregators have a few key advantages. These factors set them apart from other options to book lodging.

Pros: Reach

Hotel aggregators have the broadest selection of places to stay. Despite their name, these platforms have hotels, guest houses, and vacation rentals.

No aggregator has all the hotels and vacation rentals in a given city. But some come quite close.

It is still best to first decide on a destination that has a lot of hotels. This is why every Destination Review includes an overview of the nearby places to stay. Sometimes it is best to venture further away from the sights.

Once you find a town with a few hotels, you can narrow down your search. The filters will help you find places within your budget. You can also filter your search by other criteria.

Pros: User Reviews

The reach of hotel aggregators has another advantage. These platforms have user reviews. You can see the score for each hotel.

Keep in mind that each hotel aggregator has a slightly different target audience. You would want to check review scores for a hotel across a few platforms.

Pros: Flexible Terms

You should consider payment and cancelation terms. You might want to favor places to stay that have flexible terms.

It is always better to avoid paying upfront. You will also thank a free cancelation option if you need to change or cancel your trip. This way, you could reduce your monetary risk if a trip falls through.

Pros: Customization

Customization is another advantage of hotel aggregators. You could tailor your search using additional filters.

• You can set a minimum review score or a maximum price per night.
• You can include or exclude certain property types, like hotels, guest houses, or vacation rentals.
• You can filter places to stay based on their amenities, such as breakfast or parking.

Most aggregators give you an option to see results on a map. This filtered map search is quite useful. You can find places to stay that are closest to the sights.

There are also a few disadvantages to using aggregators to get lodging.

Cons: Brand Recognition

Hotel aggregators have vastly different brand recognition and coverage. Both often differ by country.

You could have one platform with lots of places to stay in one country or region. But there could be nearly no hotels on that platform in another.

Some platforms have a wide selection when you book lodging domestically. Others have a lot more places to stay abroad.

Cons: Loyalty

Loyalty programs are an achilles heel of most aggregators. They usually pale in comparison to the hotel loyalty programs.

The perks you get differ by platform. Choose what incentives work best for you.

• Some platforms reward loyalty via an indirect cash back. You will get a discount on future stays.
• Other platforms provide upfront discounts and upgrades.

Most aggregators offer price guarantees. But these claims have limited value. You cannot reduce a price if you found a lower price on another platform thanks to beings it member. Aggregators will not honor their guarantee in this case.

Credit Card Travel Portals

Major credit cards in the United States and abroad come with travel portals. These portals are a perk of the credit card.

They also help win customers from the competing credit cards. The better the portal, the more likely you are to get the credit card.

These travel portals are quite similar to hotels aggregators. Sometimes, the same company powers both a hotel aggregator and a travel portal.

Pros: Cash Back, Points, & Statement Credit

Booking a place to stay through such travel portals could give you a few benefits.

• You could take advantage of the higher cash back rate.
• You could get more points for your purchase. You could then use these points on your future purchases.
• Or you could get a statement credit. In this case, you will pay less for your booking out of pocket.

Exact terms differ by credit card. Take a look at your credit card agreement for details.

Credit cards also often offer deals. You get additional points or cash back when using points with a certain service or a hotel chain.

Not all credit card deals are worth the effort. A statement credit is the no brainer way of reducing the purchase price. But other deals require more research.

Cons: Exclusive Access

There are a few downsides of the credit card travel portals.

• The biggest disadvantage is obvious. You must have a credit card to use the portal. These credit cards often charge annual fees of $50+ a year.
• The filtering options are often less robust than with hotel aggregators.
• Customer support could also be a hit or miss. The travel portals are not the main business for the credit card providers.

These travel portals work similar to hotel aggregators. A a result, the portals often face the same issues with coverage and loyalty rewards.

Hotel Chains

There are times when booking directly with a hotel is the best course of action. Many hotels are part of hotel chains.

These chains have places to stay that appeal to different segments. Some attract younger crowds. Others are more family friendly.

If you found a hotel chain that you like, there are a few benefits to booking directly.

Pros: Status

The biggest advantages of booking a place to stay directly come from the status. If you have an elite status with a certain chain, you will enjoy additional perks. Free room upgrades or late checkout are the common ones.

Work trips are a great opportunity to collect hotel points. More stays mean more points. And more points lead to a better status. Once you achieved the status, you will keep getting some perks even after your status expires.

Pros: Points Transfer

There is another advantage for booking a hotel. Hotels have partnerships with some credit cards. These partnerships take two forms.

• You could get a co-branded credit card. In this case, the purchases you make will give you hotel points.
• You could transfer credit card points to your hotel account. This will also reduce the price you pay or give you a free night.

The latter is a unique advantage of certain hotel chains. You cannot transfer credit card points to hotel aggregators.

There are a few cons of booking with a hotel. Cost, flexibility, and coverage are the main downsides.

Cons: Cost

The first one might surprise you. It is often more expensive to book with a hotel than with an aggregator or a travel portal. It makes little sense. There are no middlemen when you booking with a hotel.

This is true. But aggregators and portals often offer hotels below the direct price to get your booking. As a result, you could often pay less with them than with a hotel.

Cons: Flexibility

Lower flexibility is another key factor. You often have to prepay the whole amount of your reservation. The cancellation policy is often inflexible, too.

You can get free cancelation and pay at the hotel when booking with aggregators. But these terms could cost more when you book with a hotel directly.

Cons: Coverage

The last downside is obvious. You have to choose from the places to stay that belong to a chain. No matter who large the chain is, you will always have less options.

There might not be any places to stay in your destination. They could cost more than boutique options. Or they could have no rooms available.

Good luck trying to find a chain hotel in remote areas, like Alaska. This is the time to look for other options when booking a place to stay.

Travel Bundles

Travel bundles are a final option to explore when searching for places to stay. As their name suggests, they combine different travel categories into a deal.

Instead of paying separately for lodging, airfare, and car rental, you can get them at once. Most common bundles include a transport mode and a place to stay. Less common add-ons are insurance and tours.

Pros: Cost Savings

Cost savings are by far the main advantage of a travel bundle. You could often bundle a hotel an a flight for less than buying them separately.

There is a reason for it. Large travel agencies charter flights to the popular destinations in the summer. They often purchase a lot of seats on regular flights.

The same goes for hotels. The agencies get the rooms cheaper thanks to a volume discount. They then sell these rooms at a lower rate than the hotel.

This is a common practice for beachfront properties and destinations. You could also find it in touristy destinations like Cancun in Mexico or Machu Picchu in Peru.

Cons: Flexibility

The cost savings come at a price. But you might not even notice it if everything goes smoothly. But you will feel the pain if you have to cancel or change your trip.

Travel bundles tend to offer less flexibility around cancellation and payment.

• You usually have to pay the entire amount upfront. You will tie up more of your funds.
• You will often have to pay a penalty to cancel your trip. This is true even if you cancel well in advance.

Travel bundles are still a great way to get a good value on places to stay. You just need to accept a greater risk of losing a part of your payment.

Takeaways: Get Best Value on A Hotel Booking

There are lots of different ways to book a hotel stay. You can choose from hotel aggregators, credit card travel portals, hotel chains, and travel bundles.

It is best to utilize a combination of these options to get the best value on a hotel booking. Learn about the loyalty incentives each platform offer. After that you could book a hotel stay on a platform that gives you the best value.

No matter what platform you choose, check at least one other service. This is the only realistic way to get the best value on a hotel booking.

Frequently Asked Questions

Safe realist travels!