Weather you travel for business or pleasure, having a long trip or short-stay, accommodation is an important factor in your overall comfort and final trip cost. Based on how far your trip is (if you travel by car or taking a flight), accommodation, weather it is with a hotel or apartment/holiday rental, goes beyond 50% of your overall travel costs. Therefore, being able to claim some discounts on your accommodation can impact your travel budget big time.
Plan ahead
First of all, plan ahead – the sooner you make the booking with a hotel, the better. Getting your reservation done ahead will offer you more choices in terms of where to stay and better booking rates.
Compare rates online
It is always a good idea to compare hotel rates online by using a hotel price comparison service like the one offered by ABCtravel.guide. Going directly to a travel agent website or hotel booking page will offer you limited availability and one agent’s price. A hotel will most definitely work with several travel agents and online hotel reservation systems, and the prices may differ from one agent/website to another, based on their ability to negotiate a price with the hotel and reservation fees. Therefore, the same hotel room from the same hotel property may be available for booking at several agencies / booking websites at different prices. Making a quick comparison will show where you can get the lowest price for the same room.
Furthermore, each travel agency/booking website has a limited number of rooms for bookings in their system with each hotel property. This means, that while an agent may show a hotel property with no rooms left, another will still have rooms available for reservation.
Make your reservation online
Another step is to try to make your reservation online. Most hotels have 2 prices – online reservation price and walk in hotel price. The Walk-in price (the one showed at the hotel reception) is often much higher than what you can find online for the exact same rooms. Sometimes even up to 3x higher – so avoiding walk-in prices should be considered a must in any trip planning. Even if it is late minute, you can still book a room online with a hotel starting from that day.
But accommodation is not the only part of the trip that can save you money – flights, dates and destinations can also play a huge role in your overall expenses. A guide on budget travel may be of good reading too.
Following these simple steps can help you and anyone in claiming hotel discounts and minimum rates with each reservation, based on the deals you will find online by comparing rates at various agencies and hotel booking websites.
