Who doesn’t know how to book a hotel, right? You open a booking website, choose wanted dates, a few more clicks to confirm your booking & voila. Well, we don’t want to overcomplicate your life, but… STOP DOING THIS!
What’s wrong with it? Close to everything: you’re not only missing a bunch of better-room opportunities but also OVERPAYING EVERY TIME you do this. Read along to find out 3 major mistakes you’re making, stop doing them & be sure you’re always getting the lowest hotel rate.
- BOOKING FROM THE FIRST BOOKING WEBSITE
Or having a favorite & always booking hotels on the same one. So, to put it simply: you’re never sure if the price you’re getting is really the best one.
Let’s start our lesson from the dictionary: booking websites often have a Price Match tag on them, making you feel like that’s surely the lowest rate you’ll get. However, that’s not really it. Price Match tag means that they’ll cover the difference if you find a lower price on another website. But you know the drill: you´ll have to deal with a bunch of customer support business and wait for ages before the money reaches your account.
We admit that checking all the major booking websites before making the final confirmation doesn’t sound teasing. However, this is why here we’re relying on technologies: you can find tools that help you out here. And if you’re wondering if the prices really differ that much… We used one of the free tools to show you the difference. Take a look at this saving found by RatePunk:
And now imagine you booked from booking.com for their price and then saw that on Agoda it costs half the price. And you were only one click away from it. Savings of $188. The same dates, the same room… That’s an easy way to ruin your vacation before it even starts.
- RELYING ON REVIEW & STAR RATINGS ENTIRELY
Okay, so this hotel looks nice, but it’s rated 6.5. Surely not stepping my feet anywhere near it. Been there, done that? We get the initial concern, but there’s a bit more behind this.
You have to ALWAYS consider the number of reviews before taking the rating for granted. There’s a difference between a hotel rated a 10 from 2 feedbacks & a hotel with a score of 6.5 but with 7000 reviews, right? In the first case, it could have been the owner’s mom & grandfather who left positive feedback, but the place could be terrible. And with the 2nd one – we’re sure there must be a reason for such a vast amount of people choosing it.
Here’s an obvious example: one of the best-known & popular hotels in Las Vegas, Caesars Palace, has a rating of 7.5, but that’s from more than 6000 reviews:
And another essential aspect to consider is star ratings. 2 stars don’t necessarily mean poor service, just as 4 stars don’t always guarantee an exceptional stay. There are a bunch of conditions that their number depends on:
- Stars can be officially & unofficially classified. That means some hotels may publish their starring on their own opinion.
- Some booking websites also have their own ratings, so make sure to check their policy of determining these before leaning on them.
- The rating also depends on the country. What might be called a 5-star hotel in one country could be a 3-star hotel in another. Some countries, like the United Arab Emirates, use a different scale (the hotels can even have 6 or 7 stars). Australia presented a half-star rating for the hotels that don’t reach the 1-star.
- The magic word: circumstances. Since the hotels are rated by similar criteria, there aren’t many exceptions. For example, a historic hotel in Paris city center might not get the highest rating only because it has restrictions to be renovated. And no one cares that it meets all the other aspects. The same goes with the hotels in Tokyo – even though they offer exceptional amenities, some of them can’t get more than 3 stars because the space is limited.
So the main hotel lesson here is to do some research first.
- NOT CHECKING THE OFFICIAL HOTEL’S WEBSITE
One more step to your to-do list. Sorry, but we promise it’s completely worth it. We rely a lot on OTAs lately because we find everything in one place there. But don’t forget that most hotels have official websites where you can also make reservations. And if we’re being honest, quite often, for a lower rate because you get the price straight from the hotel, with no agencies in between.
Sadly, there’s no super quick way to do the work for you here. The easiest one is to find your wanted hotel using an OTA and then check their website to see the pricing there.
Here’s the price of Canopy By Hilton Paris Trocadero (France) if you booked it on booking.com, compared to the rate for the same days on their official website:
For some, it might seem like only $30, but keeping in mind it only took a few clicks, it should surely sound worth it. Moreover, the price could be even lower if you had points or a particular loyalty program with some hotel chains.
