Why Bargain Travel Sites May No Longer Be Bargains (backchannel.com)

Aggregators like Expedia have made us lazy -- and we may be missing out on the best deals. From a report on Backchannel: Most of us rely on metasearch engines, like Priceline, Expedia, or Travelocity, which typically use dozens (sometimes as many as 200) of online travel agents, called OTAs, and aggregators to find the best deals. (A metasearch engine and an aggregator are interchangeable terms -- they both scour other sites and compile data under one roof. An OTA is an actual travel agency that actually does the booking and is the lone site responsible for everything you buy through them.) We rely on these sites because we assume they have the secret sauce -- the most powerful search engines, tweaked by superstar programmers armed with the most sophisticated algorithms -- to guide us to the cheapest options. With a single search, you can feel assured that you are paying a rock bottom price. Over time, however, the convention has flipped. As competition among the sites heated up, the hard-to-believe cheap fares required some filtering. A too-good-to-be-true fare ($99 to Europe from California) usually came with a catch (the $400, indirect, ticket home). And as the business models that on which these aggregators rely are getting tighter, the deals are getting worse. How can you be certain you're getting the lowest quote? The short answer is, you can't.

Comments

Lowest price - shittiest room

[bad-badtz-maru]

I can tell you from working in the hotel industry... the lower priced rooms are the worst rooms. Either they're the most worn, something's wrong with the A/C, or they're adjacent to noise sources. A much better recipe for a pleasant hotel stay is to find a hotel in the general price range you're looking for, then go to the hotel site and select a room based on your budget.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[DontBeAMoran]

Stop posting sense.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[peragrin]

Same goes for airfare but use multiple computers. The airlines use cookies and if you visit the same site multiple times they raise the rates on you. So look and then go to a clean computer to book it.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I bought an RV. The hotel industry is just full of scumbags. From hotels that don't give a shit about bedbugs (or just don't put in the money to have their rooms checked on a regular basis, or worse, think they don't exist) to hotels that think because the customer paid less they deserve a shit room, and then hotels that regularly walk customers, and bullshit resort fees to pay for non-optional things that were advertised in the pamphlet (without the resort fees... which are only mentioned on checkout), not even bothering to mention about the lack of cleaning in some places (where you can find 'free' illegal drugs and used needles), the hotel industry stinks to high heaven. Imagine if your car dealer decided you should have the scratched car with broken A/C because you managed to work out a deal where they just break even.

My RV is maintained to my standards, and campgrounds don't bullshit you. Most of them tell you the site number you'll get and give you a map. And if you don't trust it, google earth will help. And, even then, you can find somewhere to sleep free if they screw you.

The last few times I used priceline convinced me to get an RV instead of use hotels. Hoteliers just like you put me in total fucking shit rooms because I managed to haggle a deal on priceline. Enjoy one fewer customer. For life. And I'm not the only one, RVs are selling like hotcakes.

Not that the RV industry is producing quality products either, but at least everyone gets the same shitbox no matter what they pay.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[known_coward_69]

same thing on hotel sites. was in atlantic city last year and all the rooms are divided up between different sections of the hotel and you pay more for oceanview. and that's just a peek at the ocean. once you book they pester you with upgrades for a better view of the ocean

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[bad-badtz-maru]

What I meant to convey, which I did poorly, is that inside of those different room classes (ocean view, parking lot view, etc), the worst rooms are the ones that end up discounted on the travel sites. So you may have ocean view rooms that all go for $200/night and parking lot views that go for $100. The $125 ocean view room on Travago will be the crappiest one inside of its room class.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been my experience, as well. It seems every hotel has an "Orbitz Ghetto" room.

I used these sites (two different ones) twice, and each one was exactly the same result. Horrible.

Nowadays, I use the hotel sites or conference housing sites, and airline direct sites.

I won't gamble, only to find out I've lost the bet when I get there.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[tehcyder]

The flaw in your solution is that you have to drive around in an RV and look like a twat.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

Not entirely true. I once got a $30/night room at an otherwise 5-star hotel which was practically vacant (didn't see anyone other than the person I was with there the whole weekend) because the hotel was undergoing construction, but they didn't pay for the construction crews to be there over the weekend so it was dead silent. By far the cheapest and best hotel stay I've ever had.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are you staying? If you go for the basest, cheapest, bargain hotels...this is what you get. Opt for Hampton, Hilton, Marriott, Westin, and you should be pleasantly impressed. Corporate is very particular of their brand and if it's not up to par, that hotel (which is a franchisee) isn't going to be that brand for much longer.

Your mad that you're trying to game the system and get the lowest price and it's gaming you back.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Applehu Akbar]

Same goes for airfare but use multiple computers. The airlines use cookies and if you visit the same site multiple times they raise the rates on you. So look and then go to a clean computer to book it.

Always have a second browser on your system to make the actual booking.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Applehu Akbar]

This is why I bought an RV. The hotel industry is just full of scumbags ...

All evil comes to the customer who books travel through third-party sites. Protip: there is not really any such thing as an online travel agent.

If your trip is too complicated to book directly through airline and hotel sites, go a real travel agent who has an office in your town.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[TheRaven64]

It often doesn't matter if there are cookies. When you visit a site, often it will place a hold on whatever you're looking for, so that if you choose to buy then it will be able to sell it to you at that price. Airlines will adjust their price based on the popularity of the flights, so if there are a load of holds placed on a particular flight, then it will be very expensive. There used to be a nice attack that would work to get cheap flights, where you'd go to a dozen or so different travel agents' sites and look at the same flight. The price would spike, because of the perceived demand. You then come back a day later and as all of them release their holds the price tanks as the system detects a sudden drop in popularity and projects that a load of existing tickets will be cancelled, so must sell more for the flight to break even.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[TheRaven64]

On the flip side of this is the fact that many hotels don't expect anyone to pay full price. They'll give discounts to events, people in their loyalty program, and so on. They think the sticker price is for suckers and anyone silly enough to turn up and want a room at that price should expect to be fleeced.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[known_coward_69]

when priceline first started i read about the business model and they said it was based on yield management and getting rid of inventory that would have been lost in the end

lately with everything in travel being all about price it seems all these sites do nothing more than allow everyone to price their stuff and get rid of the annoying customers who try to sneak in upgrades or complain about their room

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[known_coward_69]

try doing that when it's full

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[known_coward_69]

15 years ago people would complain about facing the dump or the noisy AC and it was a game of musical rooms moving people around until someone took the room

now they just price those rooms for people who don't care about it and let the rest of us pay a small premium to be locked into a better room

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[dugancent]

I've noticed (at least with United), once you find a flight there is about 15 mins to buy before the price jumps. You have to wait a couple hours for it to go back down.

Personally, I've never had any luck with these margin sites. I usually use Kayak which links directly to the airline.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

The hotel website often offers the same prices as Priceline, Expedia etc, but not always. When you walk into a hotel off the street you are paying "rack rate", which produces the maximum possible profit for the hotel.

You can actually get your laptop out and book the room from Priceline in front of the receptionist - hey presto, your room price just halved. I have done this myself several times. And no, this won't be some inferior room, simply one of the rooms from the normal stock.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

Better to look like a twat than bring home bed bugs!

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[ruir]

I would not give a fuck about looking like a twat.
I do care however of the price of driving around, flying to someplace else and renting a room is so much cheaper.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[ruir]

Who said they do not charge more expensive prices for shitty rooms for you to book them?

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

We've never bothered with those sites.

Always searched hotel and airlines sites directly for the better price.

As you suggest, using 3rd party sites is a case of get what you pay for, and for a few bucks more I'd rather deal directly with the airline/hotel. One exception being we sometimes book hotels through Alaska Airlines as this was for a road trip between Alaska and Seattle, it was easier to book several hotels through one interface and pay for them all ahead of time.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[bad-badtz-maru]

I see why you can't believe what you read on the internet, it's because you can't read. I never said to compare rates _at the hotel desk_. You also don't seem to understand that, inside of a single class of room in the hotel's stock, that the rooms vary in quality. If a $600 rack rate room that normally sells for $200 discounted is made available to you for $150, I promise you that when you check in you will get a crappier room than the guy that paid $175 for a room in the same room class.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[bad-badtz-maru]

Absolutely. The "rack rate" on the back of the door, in US hotels, just represents the highest room rate the hotel can ever legally charge. So, of course, the hotel keeps that at an absurdly high price. You should always expect huge discounts off of that, it's not really even usable for any sort of price comparison. The rate might hit that on one or two days a year, such as new years at certain hotels.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[bad-badtz-maru]

There's exceptions, for sure. It's another general rule - in addition to the best rooms in a given room class going to the least-discounted guests, they'll also fill the better rooms first if occupancy permits. The idea, on both counts, is to reduce exposure to refunds or additional discounts. In the $100 room class at "The Love Palace", the $50 guest gets a better room than the $30 guest. However, if occupancy in that room class is only 50%, they'll fill the rooms in order from best to worst.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[NG Resonance]

I've experienced the same on United. Sometimes it doesn't go down for days... if ever.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[mspohr]

I used hoteltonight.com when I was last in San Francisco. Found a cheap room at a good hotel. Went to the front desk and asked them to match the price. They checked and said they couldn't match it so go ahead and book it on hoteltonight. The room was a good room, no problems. The hotel wasn't very full.
I found it odd that they wouldn't match the price since they have to pay a commission to the web site. I've used this tactic at other hotels and they usually try to match the price.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

Your advice to "book on the hotel website" could end up costing Slashdot readers significant amounts of money for no good reason. I don't work for a hotel or an OTA, so my advice is neutral.

Most people in the hotel industry, understandably, hate online travel agencies such as Priceline. Those guys take a lot of your profits. But you can't do without them because they provide you with a high percentage of your bookings. Your hotel occupancy percentage would go way down if you cancelled your contracts with the OTAs.

Many hotels do make a point of selling the rooms on their own websites at the same price as the OTAs, and I think that this is good business sense. Given equal pricing, I will always book through the hotel website. But many other hotels, desperate to fill empty rooms, offer very big discounts to their OTAs in a bid to compete with the other hotels listed at the OTA.

Bottom line - book through the hotel's website when it makes financial sense to do so. But check that price against the online rates. Don't be a sucker.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Mad-Bassist]

Oh yes! My hotel used to price all rooms the same by the number of beds, and the worst rooms (on the wings not facing the river or the few odd rooms that don't have balconies) were saved for last when we had to use them. Now, they are offered at a lower price, and are usually taken by people using third-party billing sites like Expedia who blindly click on the lowest price then become upset when they realize what they got, and we can't change the deal because they didn't pay us in the first place.

The thing about these third-party sites is they generate much less revenue, so it was decided that we wouldn't give daily breakfast discount coupons for our restaurant to those who don't book directly with us. This has caused some problems, but it's also caused some of our guests to become happy regulars that book directly even if we have to match their rates.

There is also the fact that Internet prepaid rooms are extra work to prepare, and since they started allowing same-day bookings, often with "I just made the reservation five minutes ago, isn't it here yet?" it must be said that these services are disliked by us front desk staffers who would prefer people just call or walk in. We can't simply check repeat guests in from history—we (and they) have to enter their personal info from scratch every single time. There is also the chance of making mistakes like charging their personal card the full amount of the room since they were already charged by the third party before coming in, and as the night auditor, it gives me more types of mistakes to be aware of and hunt for.

Needless to say, it wouldn't surprise me if Expedia and Priceline users are unintentionally treated like second-class citizens because of all the extra work they create. I try to treat everyone the same, but I still feel that twinge when someone comes in saying they have a reservation, and I had already checked in the last arrival of the night.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Aighearach]

This is required anyways, because with a sane level of security precautions and blockers you can't order from random sites. Unless you travel a lot, it is quicker to use a "burner" browser without the blockers than it is to dredge through 125 different javascript sites to figure out what is safe to enable. And if you put the extra browsers data in /tmp then it won't even have history. But even without that step, it still won't expose your regular browser data and history (eg, banking)

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Aighearach]

That's not a bug, it is a feature. It helps the idiots to know I'm not interesting enough to be worth pestering.

When I rent a yurt in the State Park, which is just like an RV parking spot but with a canvas house, the GPS takes me from home all the way to the park, including useful lane change warnings, tells me which turns to take inside the park, and guides me right to the correct spot. And if I didn't have that, they gave me a map when I checked in.

And at night, it is way quieter than a hotel room, because it has different people. "Twats."

Most of the "nice" hotels I've stayed in, I'd have had a better night in a barn with the right sleeping bag.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm fine with a bad view and even a noisy room (so long as it isn't noisy on purpose). I'm even fine with an oddly shaped room. I just expect a room with what normal people call "the basics" (clean, comfortable bed, amenities, plumbing and HVAC that work, electrics to code, free of infestations) and buying cheap doesn't get you that in hotels that stick people who buy for a low price in a room so broken it shouldn't be on the market.

I know, you'll tell me it's my fault for taking a room for $42 a night in Washington DC. But I think it's wrong to be renting out rooms with busted plumbing, missing televisions, and bed bug infestations. That's not the only cheap-ass deal I've gotten through such sites that results in rooms that shouldn't be on the market.

Just don't rent those rooms at all. They make the cheap people leave and then you make $0 profit from them instead of $10. And no, I'm not a complainer that tries to get free upgrades, though when you don't even give me towels, I'm going to ask for them. :)

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[sexconker]

Yup. Chrome is my whore browser. I know it'll just work with any random trash site because Chrome is a whore and lets sites do whatever they please, and if a site is tested at all it's tested in Chrome.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

Hoteliers just like you put me in total fucking shit rooms because I managed to haggle a deal on priceline.

Hold on there with the entitlement mentality.

You expect to negotiate a lower price and not get lower quality rooms?

This is basic economics. Are there any other fundamental workings of the world that offend you?

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[bad-badtz-maru]

I actually agree with you 100% and that's what separates good hotels from bad ones. The highly-discounted rooms, at a good hotel, are rooms (in the same room class) that may be slightly noisier or may be slightly more worn (rooms near the pool wear much quicker). But every room should be clean and safe, no matter how the room was booked.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[thegarbz]

for a pleasant hotel stay

I don't stay in hotels. I sleep in hotels. I stay in a city. I would much rather pay rock bottom prices for a hotel and spend my money enjoying the place I'm exploring than wasting money on crap like an airconditioning.

If the hotel has a bed it gets a tick. A toilet and shower is also required, but not necessarily in the same room.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[bad-badtz-maru]

I agree that it's definitely necessary to make sure you're getting a competitive price. My suggestion is don't lowball the operator or the joke will be on you. I think it's a somewhat recent change, too, where the hotel industry has tired of being beaten up with another layer of transaction fees and they are now meeting or beating the aggregator.

Smaller operators have been through this for decades, with the franchiser typically taking a huge cut of bookings made through the central reservations system (pre-WWW), as well as forcing the franchisee to buy particular reservations software, pay for "advertising", etc.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[bad-badtz-maru]

OK, so this is a common scenario for a discounted room... the rooms facing the bar are the ones with the highest discount. You're trying to sleep and all you feel is thump-thump-thump from the bar's Ibiza-wannabe sound system.

Re: Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

So sweet that usanians think travel is driving. I suppose you _could_ take your RV to Atitlan from Poughkeepsie.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[nealric]

Yes and no. Often times, the "low price" room from an aggregator is in a higher quality hotel than you would otherwise visit. For example, a $100 room might be the regular rate at a two-star hotel, or the super-bargain mystery rate at a four-star hotel. Even if the four-star hotel sticks me in their worst room, it will probably be a better experience than the best room at the two-star. Whether things are slow or not can also be a big determining factor. If you are traveling off-peak, they won't necessarily be stingy about giving out good rooms. If you are traveling on-peak, the aggregator sites often aren't all that much cheaper anyways.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[PCM2]

We can't simply check repeat guests in from history—we (and they) have to enter their personal info from scratch every single time.

What kind of "personal info" is that? I've never had to do anything but flash an ID and hand over a credit card to cover incidentals, except maybe if I'm traveling overseas and they need passport details.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

>Hold on there with the entitlement mentality.

No thanks. If I paid for something I expect to get it. I *am* entitled by the very fact you took my money. If you don't like that mentality, perhaps selling stuff isn't going to be your gig.

>You expect to negotiate a lower price and not get lower quality rooms?

Absolutely. When you ask for a discount on a house, and the seller accepts, do they get to destroy part of it? No. You get what you are entitled to: That house.

When you negotiate a better price on a car, does the dealer substitute one with a broken windshield? No. You get the car with the VIN you signed up to buy.

When you use a coupon at a restaurant, does the restaurant substitite substandard ingredients and use poor preparation practices for your meal? No. You get the same meal someone paying full price gets.

You agreed upon a good or service and you are entitled to receive it as agreed upon. Priceline and other sites don't advertise you're getting a room lacking basic amenities, such as the functioning Air Conditioner that is advertised as being in all rooms on the Hotel's website (but is broken in your room). Guess what, we call that being a scammer because the customer *is* entitled to receive the service advertised.

>This is basic economics. Are there any other fundamental workings of the world that offend you?

Certainly. For example, people who expect to be trodden on at any opportunity in the false name of basic economics.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[thegarbz]

And for some people (e.g. myself) I have no problem with noise. Actually bars are generally quite good because what typically does come through often resembles either white noise or thumping bass with very repetitive beats which is easier to fall asleep to than someone next door. Worst case is a sports bar during a big football event but that is more than likely to get me to get up and go join in than anything else.

Point is there are some aspects of the super discounted rooms that really appeal to travellers, and we often find ourselves in budget hotels barely better than a hostel and yet have the time of our lives.

Now that's not everyone's cup of tea. There are people who go on holidays for the experience of the relaxation in the hotel. By all means, but that isn't universal.

Hypocritically I'm sending this to you from an executive suite in a Marriott, but business travel is something different. If I'm in a home away from home I except amenities like a gym, laundry service, etc. But on holidays? Give me a bed, by the time I get to it I will be so tired that the holocaust couldn't keep me up.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes all someone needs is a cheap place to rest. I really hate it when all I can find is expensive 'luxury' hotels/motels. That's when I turn to AirBnB or camp grounds. I don't need a TV, pool, coffee machine, rec room, etc... If the A/C is broken I'll open the windows and/or sleep naked. If the heater is broken I'll wear a coat to bed. If the place is swarming with bugs I'll complain to the health inspector. You do have to clean.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[AK Marc]

Almost everyone these days asks for all the standard info, name, address, phone, email, and all that. The hotel premier card links a single 10-16 digit number to your record, so a single swipe and all that info is loaded, sometimes even to your CC# (stored securely, of course),so you don't need to show ID or a credit card, and you are checked in in under 30 seconds. Yeah, the "by the hour" hotels you stay at don't ask for or keep any info, but have you ever checked into a Marriott?

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

I've done a lot of driving across the US over up until about 3 years ago. This was because I was a grad student with a family, so I could have a flexible schedule to get a couple extra days for the drive, and it is cheaper to drive when you have multiple people. We stayed in a lot of random hotels, usually within $10 of the cheapest in whatever town we made it to and felt too tired to continue. This was always under $100, usually under $80 and more often than not down to the $30-50 a night deals. The only problems I've had were a couple places with bedbugs (out of dozens of places we stayed), all of which gave us a refund, and one place with a broken heater which moved us to another room. Some of the places were a bit run down, but I don't care about chipped paint if the bathroom, beds and carpet are clean.

So yeah, while your demands are reasonable, it seems unreasonable to me for someone to have consistent issues finding cheap hotels to meet those deals. The only exception I can think of, is if you're in a very touristy area (e.g. Orlando), and you get the absolute cheapest place without checking reviews. Hence why I said we paid within $10 of the minimum price, but not always the cheapest price in town.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

When you use a coupon at a restaurant, does the restaurant substitite substandard ingredients and use poor preparation practices for your meal? No. You get the same meal someone paying full price gets.

There are a lot of restaurants that will give smaller portion sizes for coupons and special deals.

When you negotiate a better price on a car, does the dealer substitute one with a broken windshield? No. You get the car with the VIN you signed up to buy.

I've negotiated with car dealers where the online price is different than the price on the lot, because the price on the lot includes some extra servicing, cleaning, or warranties. You can cut a better deal by cutting out some of that stuff, and they will use such a price online to get people there. Like anything else important, you read the fine print and can see that change with price.

Absolutely. When you ask for a discount on a house, and the seller accepts, do they get to destroy part of it? No. You get what you are entitled to: That house.

And yet house negotiating often involves figuring out if the original owner is going to address some issues or leave them as is, or if they will leave some things behind or not. I've seen even moving dates enter in the negotiation once, which affect the price. But there is certainly an expectation that low prices for homes listed on special website deals are going to be things like foreclosures that may be missing things due to lack of maintenance and occupancy. Hell, even developments where all of the homes are near copy pastes of each other will have cheaper prices because they are for crappier lots, which is pretty parallel to how hotels work.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Anonymous Coward]

You use car dealers as an example of getting what you paid for? Have you never bought a used car or known anyone to get a lemon? You can watch their negotiation tactics change when you mention online deal prices or start bringing up things like blue book values. If you fight them hard enough for price, they won't give you any other services to help convince you and can except your interactions with them to be worse off depending on how hard you fought.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Carewolf]

Well, depends. In many hotels I have found the 50% off discounted web-prices matches that of the stock price of the day.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[mdervin2001]

The biggest advantage to booking directly with the hotel/airline is when something goes wrong, there's no passing the buck between companies.

The Hotel/Airline still might tell you to go to hell, but at least you won't have to suffer the humiliation of jumping between companies.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Mad-Bassist]

Address, license plate number, co-guests occasionally, and the rate they had in the past (which doesn't apply to third-parties, but makes it easier to set up our regular guests.) At least their phone number comes through from Expedia, though half the time there is a leading zero or one that has to be edited before our system recognizes it as a phone number. It doesn't sound like much, but it slows things down when people are lined up on a busy night. We normally get that info when they call us to make a reservation so it's ready to go when they check in, and regulars in our local history take almost no time to set up.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[PCM2]

But if I booked my travel with a site like Expedia (as per the topic), you already have all that information. No need to "enter it from scratch." It's always there on the computer when I show up at the front desk. A little hand-waving and they hand me my keys.

Yeah, the "by the hour" hotels you stay at don't ask for or keep any info, but have you ever checked into a Marriott?

I can't count how many hotels I've checked into using aggregate services like the ones described. Never once have I seen the poor, quivering guy at the front desk have to take down my personal details with a quill pen, and I've never had to fill them out either.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[PCM2]

You know ... I suppose one thing from my POV is that I can't remember ever staying at a hotel where I liked the room so much that I consciously booked the same hotel again, next time I was in town. And if I do repeat stays (ugggh, Las Vegas) it's usually because I have to stay at that hotel for reasons of proximity, and being made to stay there doesn't make me feel like their "honored guest" or anything. I guess I've just never bought into that culture of "premium service" at hotels. To me, my room's mostly there to sleep in, watch TV, and hold my travel bag while I'm away.

Re:Lowest price - shittiest room

[Mad-Bassist]

Aye, mine is a 100+ room three-star (enclosed keyed entry to the building but no valet staff beyond one House Person), with a final price around $100-150 per night. We try to get their loyalty, but many people are passing through, often using those third-party services. Lately they seem to be only a few bucks below our normal rates until sales come up and I start seeing -$20 rooms in the "Restaurant Roof Vent View" rooms. :-

The funny thing to me is the formal-ish atmosphere. I have a convenience store background and had to get used to calling people "guests" instead of "customers," but I always treated them as if they were visiting my living room, and passed that along to people I've trained over the years.

I don't know how much loyalty I create, except for the few fellow metalheads that stay every now and then. \m/-_-\m/

Stay loyal to your preferred airline

[captaindomon]

I've found the best overall savings are if you stay loyal to your preferred airline or hotel chain. Get on their rewards card or miles / points system, and book directly through them. You get the best deals, and a lot more support if anything goes wrong with your reservation. Try getting help from an airline or hotel company if you book through a third party...

Re: Stay loyal to your preferred airline

[reanjr]

Quickest way to kill my loyalty is treating loyalty like a currency. I pay you for good service everytime. Not just for the times I present a magic "gimme decent service" card.

Re: Stay loyal to your preferred airline

[jittles]

Quickest way to kill my loyalty is treating loyalty like a currency. I pay you for good service everytime. Not just for the times I present a magic "gimme decent service" card.

I've never had a problem with poor service when I use travel websites but the GP is correct. You generally will get free upgrades, have priority baggage handling for airlines, and other perks that make your service amazing. Not everyone can get their bags first.

Re: Stay loyal to your preferred airline

[ruir]

The best overall savings is finding a way to get corporate rating. When I was an expat, my father had connections in my home country where he would get me a room in a 4 start hotel for half price or less when I was in holidays out of our home town.

Re: Stay loyal to your preferred airline

[thegarbz]

Loyalty IS a currency. You're paying for the same service at the same rate. Loyalty is something extra. You don't get good service with a loyalty card, you get extras.

If you're expecting shit for free then you're being unreasonable. If you're expecting benefits for being a loyal customer, then that's something quite different.

Re:Stay loyal to your preferred airline

[Snocone]

In general you are correct, but if you use a nice OTA they'll eat it. Case in point: Tried to take a Cambodia Air flight + hotel package I'd booked through Expedia, and when the plane broke they ... did not move expeditiously to arrange a replacement. So I took the next flight out on my own dime. Complained about that to the airline they said nope booking V class no refunds no credit doesn't matter the plane never took off. Kinda miffed. Whined to Expedia.co.th and they were like OH WHY YES FULL FLIGHT REFUND AND FIRST NIGHT OF HOTEL TOO!

So yeah, if the OTA likes you, it works. However, note they prefixed that with "We don't want to lose you as a customer, so..." That's most likely the trick here.

Re: Stay loyal to your preferred airline

[mjwx]

Quickest way to kill my loyalty is treating loyalty like a currency. I pay you for good service everytime. Not just for the times I present a magic "gimme decent service" card.

And any loyalty programme worth joining does exactly the opposite to that. The only major loyalty programme I'm a part of is Singapore Airlines Krisflyer programme. Now to get points on Krisflyer, you pretty much have to fly regularly on Singapore Airlines. Especially if you want actual status (that gives you access to lounges on an economy ticket). Singapore Airlines provides good service, even if you're not a Krisflyer member.

The problem that people have is that they like to play the service providers (hotels, airlines, etc..) off against 3rd party providers then expect the royal treatment. Soz, world does not work that way. If your loyalty is being treated like a currency, it is because you've used it like one.

The best part of the GP's comment was not to join a loyalty programme, but to book direct. This may be a little more expensive, but your deal is now directly with the provider. I try to always book direct and 9 times out of 10 it's the same price or cheaper. The problem hotels and airlines have is that they have to pay commission to be listed on Expedia/Priceline and then pay commission when they get booked. Not only this, the terms of service state that they cant offer cheaper prices on their own websites (this is illegal in some countries, so unenforceable in places like Australia, the UK and Europe). This is the reason Southwest does not appear on most 3rd party providers. Often hotels will price match if you call them because then they dont have to pay commission.

Booking direct already puts you above the tight fisted arseholes who look for the cheapest 3rd party provider. People who book through agents always get the worst rooms, at best they'll be treated the same. However when a hotel is overbooked, the free upgrade always goes to those who booked direct. Being a returning customer also helps, more than a few times I've been given a better room just for having stayed there before. Also, be nice to people. If you're a pain in the arse, that will be listed in a database and vice versa, if you were liked the staff will be willing to do more for you.

Apart from that, its worth signing up to their mailing lists. Hotels and Airlines will email better deals to return customers.

people know how to run a business

[known_coward_69]

try booking a kid friendly cruise a year out during a school break, the prices are sky high because everyone is using big data and whatever to know when and where people are traveling. it's been this way for decades. In the 90's airline tickets to Italy would magically drop by 50% in October.

After priceline came out almost 20 years ago people learned to make money off the cheapskates. They will advertise cheap hotel rooms but those have the worst views of the garbage dump.

my inlaws thought they got a deal on a cruise one time and told me to go to some russian travel agent to book a room and take the kids. turned out it was a school week right before the Easter break

try getting a discount at Disney in July or August

Easy to get a cheap room in Vegas as long as you're there on Wednesday. Actually it's the best day since the place isn't packed full

same with cheap airline tickets and any other vacation. go outside the peak season. my wife and I had a good deal in Negril on our honeymoon cause we went in October. Downside is some things were closed and some tours not running cause of the lack of people

Re:people know how to run a business

[tsqr]

They will advertise cheap hotel rooms but those have the worst views of the garbage dump.

That's a pisser. I'd rather pay a little more and get the best view of the garbage dump.

Re:people know how to run a business

[Anonymous Coward]

"my wife and I had a good deal in Negril on our honeymoon cause we went in October. Downside is some things were closed and some tours not running cause of the lack of people"

Well, yeh. My wife go to Cape Cod in December. No people, cheap rates. We don't care about swimming and don't mind walking on the beach in the winter with the locals. Only takes 30 minutes to get there instead of 2 hours.Which is more sane? Nice warm beach weather, or a quiet vacation. Ocean side water at the cape is too cold to swim in year around anyway.

Re:people know how to run a business

[TheRaven64]

They will advertise cheap hotel rooms but those have the worst views of the garbage dump.

Most of the time, I don't care. Whether I'm on holiday or on business, if I'm spending a lot of time in my hotel room then I'm doing something wrong. Give me a comfortable bed, a clean and quiet room, and I'm happy. One hotel I stayed in gave you a $5 drink token for their bar for every day that you didn't use the housekeeping service: great, because I don't make the room messy enough to want someone to tidy it in a week-long stay and I don't want someone moving things in the room.

Re:people know how to run a business

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a company that does price aggregation similar to the Priceline/Expedia/Travelocity model (those are all owned by the same parent company, btw - they're mostly just different user experiences from the same base data). I feel like there are two major problems with the "deal aggregator" business model.

1) Once your aggregator gets big enough, the businesses listed on your site realize the value in gaming the default/common sort criteria so that they will show up closest to the top wherever possible.

2) There's no way for a user to know the difference between "my business has little traffic to meet our supply for this criteria, so we're discounting our highly rated service to help break even here" versus "my business offers lower prices because our quality is poor" within the aggregator.

From my perspective, the most obvious solution is one that neither the customer or businesses offering services would put up with: ask for more secondary information in the search, and get more secondary information from the business listings. Instead, we usually end up combatting the most flagrant gaming of the system and making small refinements to the searches when we can.

Re:people know how to run a business

[jittles]

They will advertise cheap hotel rooms but those have the worst views of the garbage dump.

Most of the time, I don't care. Whether I'm on holiday or on business, if I'm spending a lot of time in my hotel room then I'm doing something wrong. Give me a comfortable bed, a clean and quiet room, and I'm happy. One hotel I stayed in gave you a $5 drink token for their bar for every day that you didn't use the housekeeping service: great, because I don't make the room messy enough to want someone to tidy it in a week-long stay and I don't want someone moving things in the room.

There are rare cases where an amazing view is nice. For instance, I once had an amazing hotel in Paris with the best view of the Eiffel tower. Did I stay in the hotel to admire this view? No. But when I was tired from a long day and was relaxing before bed, it was nice to sit on the balcony for 30-60 minutes and enjoy the view. I certainly would not go out of my way for this view, but it made the trip extra memorable. For an unusually special occasion, I would be willing to go out of my way to have a nice view.

Open Data

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll filter it, and then search it, myself.

Huh?

[taustin]

When I search at the metasearch travel sites, they show me round trip prices. Do people book flights without looking at the actual price? If it seems high, try searching for two one way trips, and compare. Is that rocket science? Can people actually compare two numbers and determine which one is higher? Or is that too much to ask these days?

Re:Huh?

[Gaxx]

Yes - it does seem to be a rather simple formula....

1. Check price direct from airline/rail company/hotel company
2. Check price on travel meta-search
3. Compare prices
4. Check that there are no significant differences in what you are getting
5. Pick lowest price.

A little more effort than use meta-search of your choice an ask no questions but not massively. And the meta-search does basically what its name suggests - takes a little leg work out of search through multiple sites whist claiming a percentage for doing so. More often then not using one throws me a bit of a saving and sometimes I go direct anyway just so I get to use my favoured brand. It depends on the extent of the saving.

To me it's not too far apart from checking Amazon's price before buying a book or DVD in a store. It gives me a bit of surety that I'm not paying over the odds for something. And If I am then I know I was almost prepared to pay over the odds so I probably _really_ want to buy the thing online :)

Re:Huh?

[TheRaven64]

For international flights, it's often a lot cheaper to book the round trip together because the vast majority of the fare is often the taxes. If you book a round trip flight to the US that includes a Saturday night, then you pay a significantly smaller amount of tax than if you book flights that don't include staying for a Saturday night. This tax was set up to encourage people travelling on business to stay an extra night or two and spend money doing tourist things. If you book individual legs, then you'll often be taxed at the higher rate because they don't know when you're leaving. The US isn't the only country to do this, but it's the one where I've noticed it the most (it's great when you're travelling for work, because it's easy to persuade the bean counters to let you spend a couple of extra days as a tourist when it's cheaper for them to pay for a couple of nights of hotel than an earlier flight).

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds straightforward enough. You should automate those steps. Then you could host a tool online for others to use! You'll probably have some costs, but if enough people use it you can offset that (and probably make more, besides) by including advertising!

Yes, I am fully aware I just described Priceline, Travelocity, et al.

Re:Huh?

[AK Marc]

What "taxes" are charged differently based on your next hop? I've heard of price differences, and in Taiwan, a longer layover gets a kick-back to the airline (and they have free tours and such, paid by local businesses, for those on a layover). But an extra tax for not staying overnight? That sounds like an old wive's tale.

Re:Huh?

[mjwx]

Yes - it does seem to be a rather simple formula....

1. Check price direct from airline/rail company/hotel company
2. Check price on travel meta-search
3. Compare prices
4. Check that there are no significant differences in what you are getting
5. Pick lowest price.

6. Hotel allocates you the worst rooms.

Basically because you're punishing the hotel by making them pay commission, the hotel is not going to do any favours for you. A lot of hotels will give you the same price if you contact them. In my experience, booking through Expedia/Pricelilne or their myriad of sub brands is rarely cheaper though.

The thing is, it's nothing like buying a DVD from Amazon because that's the same product. You're not buying a product when you book a flight or accommodation, you're buying a service and yes, they will favour some over others. Those who book direct will be favoured over those who have forced the service to pay commission, return customers will be favoured over them.

Services are not usually mass produced, those that are, are usually of the lowest quality. That is why it's nothing like buying a DVD.

There are three simple steps to getting a better service without paying significantly more,
1) Book direct.
2) Be nice to the staff.
3) Be a return customer.

I've gotten more than a few room upgrades just by booking direct and being a repeat customer. A good hotel or airline wont treat you any differently for booking via a 3rd party, but they wont do you any favours either. If you want them to do favours for you, then you need to do right by them as well.

Re:Huh?

[TheRaven64]

Try booking a flight to the US and with and without a Saturday night if you don't believe me. When you get to the price breakdown, the taxes will be a lot higher for one.

Re:Huh?

[AK Marc]

I did. I didn't see the taxes change.

Incognito

[SuperKendall]

The airlines use cookies and if you visit the same site multiple times they raise the rates on you. So look and then go to a clean computer to book it.

Whenever I'm looking for travel I browse first and when I decide I want to buy something, I open a Private Browsing window to search one last time for the item, to make sure they are not charging me more in the main screen... of course IP tracking could get around that but I've not seen evidence that happens yet.

Re:Incognito

[ruir]

Anything against commercial VPNs?

Re:Incognito

[Anonymous Coward]

not worth the price, and many of the tracking tools will work against that anyway.

Re:Incognito

[SuperKendall]

Not at all, they just do not help with the cookies the websites drop (if I moved to a VPN using the same browser it would not help).

It would help if they were basing anything on shared IP's, but I don't think they are doing so because (a) I've not seen that in limited testing I did a while ago, and (b) there are still enough people going through nats and things that are sharing IPs with others that I don't think they would alter price by IP... that will probably change with IPV6 though, then a VPN would be a good solution probably.

Re:Incognito

[Anonymous Coward]

> IP tracking could get around that but I've not seen evidence that happens yet

Are you trolling us?

You really think that travel sales sites are the outlier, and are not using the current generation of supercookie themselves or in their chain?

You do realize that it's the norm among data driven businesses right?! Or are you that naive?

bonus: captcha == mishap

Re:Incognito

[Shirley Marquez]

IP tracking might help them sort out home networks. But entire office facilities are often behind NAT, and so everybody at the company appears to have the same IP address. Punishing employee A on a search for vacation travel because employee B also looked for the same dates wouldn't be very fair or popular.

Re:Incognito

[ebvwfbw]

Could just fire up a TOR session to check. Problem with that is the from IP could be from Europe, Asia, etc.

Cheapest-Fastest Round Trip Connection ...

[BoRegardless]

is still email.

Re:Cheapest-Fastest Round Trip Connection ...

[Chrisq]

is still email.

Great Idea, I'll send an email to Florida for my next vacation

Re:Cheapest-Fastest Round Trip Connection ...

[OzPeter]

is still email.

Great Idea, I'll send an email to Florida for my next vacation

Be careful though, if you send it via AOL your email might not return until the following summer.

Re:Cheapest-Fastest Round Trip Connection ...

[Applehu Akbar]

is still email.

Great Idea, I'll send an email to Florida for my next vacation

T is will reduce, but not eliminate, your chances of getting hit with fake rental car damage fees.

Re:Cheapest-Fastest Round Trip Connection ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, Florida. Dream big!

Re:Cheapest-Fastest Round Trip Connection ...

[Sloppy]

"Crazy way to travel, spreading a man's molecules all over the universe!" - Dr McCoy

Re:Cheapest-Fastest Round Trip Connection ...

[WrongMonkey]

That will save you the suffering of having to physically be in Florida. If you're going to visit a 3rd world country on your vacation, there are others that are cheaper, safer and have better food.

Re:Cheapest-Fastest Round Trip Connection ...

[sysrammer]

Great Idea, I'll send an email to Florida for my next vacation

...and you'll get a reply "Having a great time! Wish I was here!"

Re:Cheapest-Fastest Round Trip Connection ...

[sysrammer]

Wow, Florida. Dream big!

No, dream fast! A lot of it may not be around much longer.

Re:Cheapest-Fastest Round Trip Connection ...

[sysrammer]

"Crazy way to travel, spreading a man's molecules all over the universe!" - Dr McCoy

“I teleported home last night with Ron and Sid and Meg
Ron stole Meggy's heart away and I got Sidney's leg.” - D Adams

Re:Cheapest-Fastest Round Trip Connection ...

[Anonymous Coward]

is still email.

Great Idea, I'll send an email to Florida for my next vacation

I hope your mail doesn't go through a line that uses IP over Avian Carrier. It is cheap, but I hear quality of service completely ruins the experience.

That's terrible

[Chrisq]

They will advertise cheap hotel rooms but those have the worst views of the garbage dump.

Even in a budget room I'd expect a good view of the garbage dump.

Aren't most of the big names the same company?

[CloneRanger]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedia,_Inc.

Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, trivago, Venere.com, Travelocity, Orbitz, and HomeAway. This may explain why the prices are stagnant. Also, when they actually were cheaper it was before the big hotel chains/airlines had a decent web interface that was hooked up the reservation system. Now, its generally cheaper to go direct since there is no middleman.

Re:Aren't most of the big names the same company?

[Frederic54]

I never check those kind of sites now to book an hotel, be it in NYC or elsewhere, I call the hotel to make a reservation, and if I check by after those "bargain travel sites", I realize they are all more expensive than what the hotel is offering!

Re:Aren't most of the big names the same company?

[TheRaven64]

The main use for them is an early filter. They'll give you a rough list of hotels in a particular area, sorted by price or rating. Then you can go and look at the hotels' own web sites.

Re:Aren't most of the big names the same company?

[fred6666]

if true you can usually get some lowest price warranty on the bargain web site

Re:Aren't most of the big names the same company?

[Nidi62]

if true you can usually get some lowest price warranty on the bargain web site

Most of the time for the hotel I'm looking at, the lowest price on the bargain site is the same as the price offered by the hotel chain to their loyalty club members. So there's really no reason to use the bargain sites except, as someone above said, as an initial filter to find one in the area that meets your budget.

Re:Aren't most of the big names the same company?

[fred6666]

Except that it's often easier to book through the bargain web site instead of registering to the loyalty club

Re:Aren't most of the big names the same company?

[Pascoea]

I realize this is just one anecdote, but I was traveling through Iowa City a couple weeks ago. I found the hotel I wanted, was about $90 all-in on Trivago. I called the hotel directly, they wanted $100 all-in. When I told her it was $10 cheaper online she said something to the effect of "well, that's the online price. If you want it for that price you have to book online". That didn't make any sense to me. Not only is the price $10 cheaper, they have to pay the middleman as well. I didn't want to try an explain that to the 20 year old, booked it online.

Re:Aren't most of the big names the same company?

[green1]

For hotels that has been my experience as well, I've never had a hotel price match the online rate, they'd rather give me a lower price AND pay the commission, than just give me the lower price.

Airlines on the other hand, I've never managed to find a third party price lower than the price straight from the airline, so I've pretty much given up booking airfares through any third party site.

Re:Aren't most of the big names the same company?

[AK Marc]

I've found that the prices are sometimes lower off the airline website, but the main value of off-site searches is to find the cheapest carrier for a route. Then use that info to book directly from the airline site.

Re:Aren't most of the big names the same company?

[green1]

Where I live, it's easy, there are only 2 airlines, check both and you know you have the highest rate that the lack of competition will allow. (in reality they are always dollar for dollar identical on all routes anyway)

Now if you're flying overseas, there's actual competition and it might be worth checking, but domestically, check one of the 2 airlines and you know the price.

Our government keeps blocking any effort by other airlines to enter our market and provide competition.

dubious wrt air travel

[Anonymous Coward]

The airline fare rules are published in a language of their own. They are semi-public, to the booking cartel at least, not proprietary per airline. There is only one company with software capable of searching these fare rules for itineraries: ITA software. An instance of it is available in raw form on https://matrix.itasoftware.com/ or in a dumbed-down form that's in practice more powerful because it's faster due to precalculation and has a fancy GWT UI on https://flights.google.com/. All of the other sites, and the airlines themselves, run separate instances of it.

There's not much room for hidden deals because there is no search engine competition. Airlines can keep their fare rules private, as Southwest used to, and not participate in the open booking system where legs from different airlines can be combined, but "meh," I don't know if this is happening at all anymore except for island-hopper routes, and there doesn't seem to be any structural incentive for it.

The only scam left is booking fake tour packages under tour package fare rules, then breaking them up and selling to individuals. The way packages let you change the name associated with tickets in the bundle allows a bit of scalping, too. I don't think much of this is happening, though. And indeed, TFA's root-caused examples are all hotels. The flight example is an anecdote and was not root-caused.

Re:dubious wrt air travel

[Mike Van Pelt]

I usually check both Expeida type sites, and SouthWest... remembering that for just about any non-Southwest airline, I need to add $25 per checked bag each way to the price. Southwest is usually cheaper even before considering the checked baggage gouge from the other airlines.

Modified by I refuse to fly American Airlines at any price... though they're usually more expensive anyway. (Long story involving AA not getting me to even one connecting flight, either way, not able to find baggage containing my CPAP for three days; refusing to connect me to the baggage desk at the destination airport 60 miles from my parents' house, baggage only found when I managed to get ahold of someone at the *Delta* baggage desk, who walked over the AA baggage claim and pointed out my bags to the AA idiots.)

(Yeah... I always carry on my CPAP since.)

RV asks for tickets

[Anonymous Coward]

law enforcement likes to exempt vehicles from the Over-sized Vehicle problem while a RV smaller than most will be harassed just because it screams Bedroom on road.

Re:RV asks for tickets

[ruir]

I did not follow you....What prevents me from taking a van and sleeping on it?

Re:RV asks for tickets

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing, but I'd recommend sleeping *in* it instead.

Re:RV asks for tickets

[GuB-42]

My parents like to road trip and they use a regular looking cargo van for that very reason.
RVs are harassed much too often.

Re:RV asks for tickets

[Creepy]

Actually, there are laws in several cities and states banning sleeping IN vehicles but ON them may be perfectly legal. Reddit has a sub on van living.

Use them with care

[admin7087]

I still use them, but then I go to the airline pages and check the prices there. Sometimes individual airlines have better options, more often not.

Where I travel (EU), you can sometimes save money or get better times for round-trips by buying two one-way tickets. That used to be nearly impossible, so perhaps something has changed. I avoid "cheap" airlines because at least in Europe they are no longer really that cheap and the lousy service and delays are not worth it.

Re:Use them with care

[jittles]

I avoid "cheap" airlines because at least in Europe they are no longer really that cheap and the lousy service and delays are not worth it.

Same in the US. Once you pay the "Breath O^2" and "Carry on something larger than a gallon ziploc bag" fees you end up paying just about as much as a regular airline for a much poorer experience.

check for snail trails.

[Anonymous Coward]

evaporated egg whites
dry tapioca puddin streaks.
licks, smears, and streeks.

you came for cheaper room rates, not to live for awhile in the room but see events nearby.

someone else needed a cheap stage with room service, and the maids dont always clean up all the mess.

THIS.... I just booked a trip for August...

[gosand]

I just went through booking a flight last week. I used Expedia and Kayak to look around. One of them found a much better deal (called a hacker fare) where you are essentially buying two one-way tickets on different airlines. It was $100 cheaper than anything else, which was $400+. Then I did a search for reviews, and everything said to stay away. The "price guarantee" is true, but if there are schedule changes - and you can be assured there will be - then you have to pay a change fee, or some other types of fees. And what will you do, refuse to pay it?

I ended up going right to the airline I have points with, and found a better deal @ $325 for round trip. And this airline was even listed in the meta-search-engine's results. So I think there are definitely some "preferred results" things going on with these sites. For me, there is no reason to risk the trip by using the meta-search-engines. I like the peace of mind of booking with the airline, and in this case it even saved me some money.

Re:THIS.... I just booked a trip for August...

[Anonymous Coward]

One of them found a much better deal (called a hacker fare) where you are essentially buying two one-way tickets on different airlines.

Ended up doing something similar last year, but booking flights seperately through CheapoAir and WestJet. When one flight changed, we had to [shudder] SPEND THE NIGHT IN TORONTO.

Re:THIS.... I just booked a trip for August...

[AK Marc]

I booked a multi-continent flight. The rules on flights don't allow for a layover over a certain length. But, getting a layover of 16 hours, I saved almost 50%. I bought a round trip from A to B, and a round trip from B to C for almost half the cost of a trip from A to C, and A to C had at least 4 stops and at least 3 plane changes. A to B and B to C had a single stop with a single plane change.

50% the cost, 50% of the time in the air, and a lower total travel time. Always check all the possibilities. Find the flights, pick the flights that suit, then check multiple pricing engines for the best price for them, then re-check from a "clean" computer/browser to verify you aren't being punished for shopping.

It's a science

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the time, the aggregators get you a decent price. I recommend checking two sites, as not every hotel is listed on each network. I usually check one site from the Expedia group (expedia, trivago, orbitz, hotels.com, etc.) and one from the priceline group (kayak, priceline, agoda, booking.com, etc.).

I think it's a relatively efficient way to get a decent price without getting too involved. But the truth is, the whole thing is highly complicated. Feel free to check out flyertalk or such to learn a trick or two.

For one thing, the big hotel chains will usually have slightly better prices for members. Those prices aren't shown by kayak, trivago, and friends. Discounts can be particularly steep during member-only sales.

For another, with some programs (hotels.com Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, IHG Rewards, Hilton Honors, etc.), you can earn bonus points which might be of substantial value. There are things like double point promos, achievment awards, etc. Participating in this stuff can yield award nights, rebates, status perks, etc. Often, multiple promos can be combined (credit card discount with awards program-based bonus points promo etc.)

There's a whole little industry which focuses on travel hacking. Some of the travel hacking sites live off revenues they make out of referral links. Thus, they might have some sort of conflict of interest (maximizing the value they get out of referral marketing as opposed to helping you find the best deal).

Ultimately, though, I started out by stating that the big aggregators give you decent deals. At the very least, they save you a lot of time. Sure, you can figure out how to optimally combine credit card offers plus cashback plus rewards programs, but it's a convoluted process. And the benefits seem to get smaller. It's not quite as bad as air travel where the mileage programs have been devalued over and over again. But it's getting tougher to game the system. Best you can hope for is saving 10-30 per cent or an erroneous hotel rate now and then.

How do you really compare, though?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an honest example:

I have airline frequent flyer reward points, hotel frequent traveler points, and a buy 10, get 1 free discount at a travel aggregator, plus a one credit card with cash back and another with airline 'miles'.

So I start with the aggregator and if I book through them, I get nights toward my buy 10 / 1 free, and pay with my cash back credit card. Or I can book directly with the hotel for traveler points there and points on my credit card, or I can go through the airline for booking air and hotel then get their reward points.

But...

The airline points are not a 1:1 deal, there is some fraction of 'actual cost to points' earned, then there is also some fraction of 'points used to cost offset' when they are used. Plus, I am still paying some taxes and fees.

The credit card is more direct 'cash back' but also has a yearly fee, so the more I put on there, the less proportionally the yearly fee is.

The buy 10/get 1 offer also has some caveats based on the average price of the rooms, etc.

Finally, the direct hotel reward points figure in there somehow too as those are typically not a 1:1 ratio on either accumulating or spending.

I won't even get into trying to compound the discounts and paying one option with a reward card or another with a miles card, etc.

You think taxes are hard, try to make sense of shopping with points, miles, free stays, outright discounts, yearly fees, etc!

Service

[fluffernutter]

We used one of those sites once for a major, top end hotel in Chicago. It came with free valet of our vehicle, so we planned around having a free valet. They refused it to us when we got there. When we figured out what we were doing, we stood in line again and there was another person from three spots back with the same complaint.

Wan the cheapest rate? Book direct

[Anonymous Coward]

I run a small vacation rental management company in Keystone Colorado. http://www.summitcove.com

All of these bigger aggregators take a commission before the actual hotel or vacation rental company sees a dime. The cut they take is anywhere from 15% - 30% depending on how low they can get the hotel or vacation rental company down on the nightly rate. Even places like HomeAway, VRBO, and AirBnB take a cut of the money on the manager side but they also add in a fee to the guest also.

So....how do you avoid all of this? Do your searches on the big websites. Find the hotels or vacation rentals that you are interested in. Then - dig deeper. Do a Google image search and try to find the local hotel or vacation rental management company that actually takes care of that property. Book through that local manager or hotel. This will give you much better confidence that you are not being scammed, and you can be sure you are getting the best price without a markup to a bigger aggregator of rental properties.

Re:lets get trivago guy to weigh in on this

[davester666]

I think we need Captain Obvious to slap him around a bit.

Re:Wan the cheapest rate? Book direct

[green1]

Maybe your company is willing to do that, but I've never found a single hotel willing to discount their price to match the online prices for the same hotel. End result, hotel gives me the lower price, AND they pay the commission to the site I found the lower price through. I offer them the option to save the commission, no hotel has ever taken me up on it.

Travelocity and Expedia are the same thing

[computational super]

Travelocity was acquired by Expedia years ago, so if you're shopping both thinking that you're comparison shopping, you're wasting time. Load them both in separate tabs and compare them side-by-side, you'll see it's the same site with slightly different branding (even the source code for the current Travelocity web site includes comments like "Expedia header here").

They're not a bargin anymore

[rsilvergun]

because they've gotten so huge they're buying up their competitors left and right, and we don't really do much anti-trust enforcement anymore.

Human travel agent still king

[grumpy_old_grandpa]

Kids these days think just because they have access to the data, it makes them domain experts. Access to stock prices - instant stock broker. Access to booking sites - instant travel expert. The truth is, expertise still takes time to build up, and it will be another eon before AI can understand custom needs and wishes, rather than make clumsy Clippy suggestions.

So, find a local, preferably independent, travel agent. Go there in person, sit down for a coffee. Then let a professional sort out all the hurdles of your honeymoon or complicated multi-leg business trip. He or she will find you the best deals, best hotels according to your budget; take care of rescheduled flights; arrange transport from the airport to your hotel; send you a tourist guide book if he's nice.

Prices vary, but commission around 100 - 150 USD for flight and hotel bookings is normal. On a more complex itinerary, that pays for itself with the better flight combinations from different airlines, which you cannot stitch together yourself. The peace of mind is priceless.

Still use a real live travel agent

[Master Moose]

I go to the sites, Search for the best deal I can online - Grab a screenshot, call my travel agent and tell them what expedia is able to do and see if she can better that.

It has the advantage of giving me the best price available plus the assurances of having a professional handle the transactions for me.
 

Aggregators vs. OTAs

[bunyip]

The original article confuses OTAs and Aggregators. Expedia and Travelocity are OTAs and have a login to Sabre and other systems as travel agencies. They can book and service your trip. They also use Sabre and others to do the search against the fares and schedules databases, as well as online connectivity to airlines for availability. Kayak, Skyscanner and others are aggregators.

BTW - I led the algorithm design of Sabre's Linux-based search engine about 15 years ago - Travelocity, Expedia and others drove our requirements.

Alan

Rewards and loyalty programs

[FrankHaynes]

Many have mentioned that these days it is better to book directly through the airline or hotel web site especially if you are a member of their loyalty or rewards programs.

BUT! It seems that just when enough time has passed to allow you to accumulate sufficient points to spend on yourself, they either change or discontinue the program and render your points useless.

Re:a little more and the best view of the damp

[peacefool]

Pfff, what a waste! A better view... You'd better pay premium and live IN the garbage damp!

Repeat

[poofmeisterp]

AltaVista succeeded and is profitable to this day. How is this not going to work??? /sarcasm

service booking

[Anonymous Coward]

Be careful to traveling in city..

Plot Twist

[n329619]

There's nothing wrong with the A/C, nor they're adjacent to noise sources.