Everyone loves to travel and go on holidays but the increasing cost of flights and accommodation can often turn this love into total hate. The hotels use a complex set of formulas to determine their room prices which are usually tied to supply and demand. Depending on the events happening in that region, the prices have a tendency to go up or down. While one cannot control the prices of hotel rooms, you can use the following 10 tips for finding a cheap hotel accommodation.
Be Mysterious
If you are not too fussy about the hotel then you might consider booking a mystery hotel. There are many sites which offer mystery hotels at a discount of up to 40%. The user will get enough description of the property to have an idea of where he would be staying but the name of the hotel will not be confirmed until the full payment has been made.
Hotel prices usually to change after reservation
Accomodation market is very dynamic and as a result, hotel prices change frequently, even after you already made a reservation. Its better to book a hotel with free cancellation policy and use service like Pruvo (www.pruvo.com), Pruvo takes an exitsting hotel reservation that was made on any website, track its price (after you already booked it) and notify you if it finds a better price for the exact room you booked (up to 38% off the price you booked). Once it find a lower price Pruvo will refer you the site where it was found so you make a new reservation with the lower price. After you reserve the new price, you need to cancel the old and more expansive one. Now you will have just one booking with a lower price. Using Pruvo is super easy and totally free! All you have to do is forward your hotel reservation to save@pruvo.com and it will start tracking it for you. You can read more about Pruvo here click here.
Make a booking in the old-fashioned way
Just call the hotel over the phone and inquire about the rates of the different category of rooms. The property may agree to offer you a lower rate than what you see online as they will not be losing out on the commission that needs to be paid to any booking site. In fact, you may also get free breakfast and/or internet access as part of the stay package.
Do not be ashamed to push for a room
For myriad reasons, people tend to cancel hotel reservations even those which have been paid in full and are fully non-refundable. There are a few sites like Roomer which work as a middle man and try to resell the prepaid rooms at hugely discounted rates. The resold rooms are priced at only 25% of their published rates which gives you enough opportunity to save big if the room is available on your selected date. The site does expect a cut for the sale but the majority goes back to the person who actually made the booking.
Be flexible
If you want to save a lot of money on your hotel accommodation then you should try to be flexible with your travel dates. As a general rules city stays are always cheaper from Friday to Sunday while country and coastal stays are cheaper from Monday to Thursday as the accommodation is plentiful after the weekend visitors leave.
Find a home away from home
Booking a room in a self-serviced apartment that has cooking facilities can actually turn out to be very costly. However, you can use hosting sites like Roomorama to find cheap and homely accommodation across the world.
Book in advance
Hotels do have a tendency to get filled up very quickly. In fact, most of the rooms are booked and paid for in advance (almost 45 days) and are discounted by almost 30%. So if you have your travel plans ready then do book your accommodation much in advance so that you get hotel rooms at cheap rates.
Try to travel in the shoulder season
The shoulder season refers to the period between peak and low season. If the destination is not weather dependant then you can think of traveling during the shoulder season as the hotel rates will be low and crowds will be low.
Stay for a longer period
It really costs a lot of money to change the towels, bed sheets and even restock the minibar! So the hotels prefer that you actually stay for a longer period. You can save a lot of money if you opt to stay for five nights instead of two. Hotels will also give you free nights when you decide to stay for a longer period.
Lock it in
If you see a low refundable rate then it is wide to book it even if there is a chance of not making that journey. Since it is refundable, you can cancel the booking when you drop the travel plans. In this way you will have the security of knowing that you have somewhere to stay in case you decide to go ahead with the trip.
Traveling is not an expensive proposition nowadays as the prices of hotel rooms have come down in the wake of severe competition among the many online hotel booking sites. You just need to choose a hotel as per your budget and needs and leave the rest to sites like Pruvo which works overtime to make the rooms cheaper for you.