Flighthacker

Fly into your perfect hotel room. Photo Credit: James Yu

First of all, I’m not a travel agent. In fact, I’m a graphic designer who primarily constructs email and websites with some degree of competency and plans holidays with zest and grand design. However, unlike my travel agent friends, I don’t have access to magnificent tools or connections, so when it comes to finding the right hotel, I use the same resources as everyone else – travel websites.

As a result of the fat-fingered $124 Bali sale last week, I’ve taken it upon myself to find quality accommodation for my five guests. So to save yourself some time on your next trip, here are a few tips from my experiences on how to get a hotel at your destination that will put both your mind and wallet at ease.

1. Consult TripAdvisor.com – Forget the rest – TripAdvisor.com IS the leaderboard to consult on quality hotels worldwide. Not only is it the most comprehensive database of destination and hotel reviews online, but its forums are always jumping to respond to new questions. Generally I’ll take the hotels in the top 25th percentile and make a shortlist, based on my budget and preferred location. TripAdvisor also provides average room prices, based on what they’ve found on partner hotel aggregates, thus streamlining the process of finding that perfect hotel and booking a room.

If you’ve found a hotel that isn’t near the top of the leaderboard, yet has some decent reviews, here’s my rule of thumb – make sure the hotel is in the top 50% (eg. in the top 100 of 200 hotels available) and has received a thumbs up by at least 50% of guests. If still in doubt, put down the extra money and get one of the hotel’s better rooms (if available). Don’t just fall for the cheapest hotel available – you may not remember your stay in a decent hotel, but you certainly won’t forget a dump.

2. Compare your shortlist to what’s available on the hotel booking sites – The prices listed through TripAdvisor’s partners aren’t necessarily the best prices, so it pays to shop around. Hotel booking sites and aggregates generally collect hotel prices from a number of sources and often have independent consumer reviews of their own. More often than not, the prices listed are better than what the hotels can offer through their own websites! Here’s a shortlist of the sites to visit:

• Wego.com – Wego encompasses the most comprehensive search engine of hotels and hotel booking sites, plus their interface is pretty hot, too. That said, you cannot book hotels directly through Wego, it simply directs you to the hotel booking site with the best available price on offer. Wego also provides airfares in a similar fashion. Definitely on the top of a travel-planner’s list.
• HotelsCombined.com – Like Wego, this site allows you to canvas a number of hotel booking sites and choose the most competitive price. HotelsCombined covers a number of hotel sites that Wego doesn’t, so it’s a good idea to try both and compare.
• AsiaRooms.com – AsiaRooms has recently had a major redesign, which on one hand has improved their interface, but on the other, prevented users from filtering out hotels based on the number of guests or rooms you require. For example, I commonly search for triple (three-person) rooms, as they’re far more economical than purchasing two rooms when shopping around for friends and family. Sadly, you can no longer do this, but AsiaRooms assures me that they will restore this feature in the near future. Once you’ve located the hotel of your choice, AsiaRooms provides a secure booking facility and their response times are fairly fast, too.
• Wotif.com – For hotel bookings within the next 3 months, Wotif is the site to visit.  Not only are the prices very competitive, but their booking interface is up there amongst the best. In fact, Wotif has licensed their hotel and flight accommodation system to lastminute.com.au, one of Australia’s more popular travel and leisure sites.

3. What about HotelClub? Expedia? - Often the smaller hotel booking sites are more responsive than international monoliths like HotelClub. My own case study is that I wasted five days attempting to book rooms that did not really exist via HotelClub. Despite their standard “Instant Confirmation” response time being 24 hours, they took about 36 hours to respond to my first hotel booking, then about three days to respond to my second request. Both bookings failed due to the hotels having no available rooms, despite the second hotel being recommended to me personally by HotelClub as an alternative.

Smaller hotel booking sites can also provide much cheaper rates and strangely, rooms that other sites can’t provide. My own happy story is that I discovered EasyClickTravel.com and booked three hotel rooms in Bali for $45 USD per night each, whereas the advertised “Internet Rate” on the hotel’s official site was $60 USD per night. EasyClickTravel confirmed the availability of the rooms within 24 hours, while other hotel booking sites not display available rooms for the hotel at all. Shop around – the differences in price and room availability on different hotel booking sites can be quite amazing.

Finally, do provide your feedback regarding hotel sites – this list is by no means exhaustive and when it comes to booking that perfect room, there are many ways to skin a cat. Happy holidays!

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