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Imagine if you saw an ad for a 235-room hotel that boasted luxury suites, an Olympic-sized pool, a casino, and restaurants that offered fine dining experiences. It might sound pretty good, huh?
If only that hotel in Manchester, England actually existed:
Thanks for the note! Particularly for those areas/hotels that you'd be visiting for the first time, I recommend that folks conduct thorough research before booking anywhere. As a part of my price comparisons, I note only call the hotel/go to the hotel website, but look up the hotel on known, legitimate websites to include hotels.com.
On that note, you're probably less likely to get scammed via an Expedia or similar third party booking site *not that you have exactly high odds of being scammed in either case*
Given the massive amounts of travel bloggers that exist, if Im staying at a nice or high end or special place, chances are a travel blogger has too. So doing a little googling before booking to read reviews has to go a long way to avoiding this situation
So is this why it's a good idea to book directly with the hotel and not through Expedia??
Personally, based on my experiences, i would rather book through the chain's website than through Expedia, a company that doesn't give you much help if you have problems.
Personally, based on my experiences, i would rather book through the chain's website than through Expedia, a company that doesn't give you much help if you have problems.
Independents are a different beast.
It depends. I’ve had stretches of business travel on my own dime where I was using Priceline constantly to get the cheapest rate. If it’s coming out of my pocket as a recurring expense, I’d rather let Priceline pick among 3 or 4 hotels and get the big discount. It’s way cheaper than I could get on a chain web site using corporate discount codes for where I was working.
I’ve also gamed Priceline name your own price a number of times to book an airport hotel for far cheaper than I could get it plugging the lengthy set of discount codes into corporate hotel web portals. It would be nice to get the frequent stayer points but not when I’m saving 50 cents on the dollar.
It depends. I’ve had stretches of business travel on my own dime where I was using Priceline constantly to get the cheapest rate. If it’s coming out of my pocket as a recurring expense, I’d rather let Priceline pick among 3 or 4 hotels and get the big discount. It’s way cheaper than I could get on a chain web site using corporate discount codes for where I was working.
I’ve also gamed Priceline name your own price a number of times to book an airport hotel for far cheaper than I could get it plugging the lengthy set of discount codes into corporate hotel web portals. It would be nice to get the frequent stayer points but not when I’m saving 50 cents on the dollar.
I used Priceline quite a bit from 2001- 2014 back before they stopped offering the "Name Your Own Price" delas. They did offer some good deals at times. However, there were two major issues. First, we booked hotels three times only to find out that the hotel had not received out reservation. While eventually, those were resolved, all three requires a 1-2 hour wait. Second, quite often the hotels, Particularly at the 2* and 3* levels were not in acceptable condition when we arrived.
And of course, you have the issue of the Non-cancelable and non-refundable reservations. Think about how great that would be in 2020 when I canceled over 30 nights of reservations.
When Priceline moved away from NYOP to the EXPRESS RATES, I found that the express rate was less than $5 less than booking through the hotel website using AAA/AARP discounts. It was not worth the effort as my diamond status at Wyndham gets me a good number of discounted rates as it grants me diamond status at Caesars Entertainment properties.
In my old age, I prefer to select the hotels I stay in.
I usually do my own but a couple of years ago I was deceived by cleverly worded advertising. I thought I was renting an apartment but I was actually getting a bedroom in a house with shared facilities.
It was okay - everything promised was there but I hadn't expected to share space with a large dog, babies and young partiers.
It was an adventure but way more camaraderie than I need when I'm traveling.
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