Sun 26 Nov 2006
ONLINE BOOKING SECRETS
TO SAVE YOU MONEY.
Booking a hotel in Las Vegas is a lot like playing roulette. You really never know what hotel rate you will get from one day to the next. It can even change from one minute to the next. Below are our top 5 booking secrets to get the best rates.
1.) When booking online, always check rates from the hotel information page and the general search main page.
When you do a search from the main page of a website, they figure you will settle for almost any hotel, even though you may be looking for a specific one. When this happens, they try to push hotels that are not selling as well and may even remove the hotel you wanted from their search results. When you do a search from the specific hotel information page, you are telling them that you want the hotel. Doing a hotel specific search will give you the best chance of having it available.
You should still check rates from the main page, since if the hotel you happen to want is the one they are trying to push, you may get a lower rate from a general search. If you already did a search from the hotel-specific page, make sure to close your browser and then clear your browser’s cookies so they can’t trace your actions. Then go back to the website and check rates from their general search page.
2.) Clear your browser’s cookies before checking rates. Visit many other discount sites.
Reservation sites remember your browsing history. If they see you were at site A and know the rate that the site offers hotels, you may just get a $1 discount instead of a much lower discount had they not known where you came from before the search. You can clear your browsing history by erasing all your browser cookies. On the flip side, you can also try visiting a bunch of discount sites first to see if it makes a difference in the rate. In some cases it can drop the price a lot if the booking company knows you came from their biggest competitors.
3.) Check back again later on the same site.
If a website sees you coming back again, they feel you are close to making a sale and will often drop the rates lower than when you first came to see them. You may even get a “come back” pop-up with a discounted rate if you book with them. These can be significant savings. If you see a good rate, close your browser window and come back a few minutes later. In this case, make sure you don’t clear your browser cookies, since that is how they will remember you.
4.) Check rates several different times during the day/night.
If a reservation company is not booking many hotels, they may drop the rates before the company closes in preparation for the next day’s sale. The problem is you don’t really know when the discount will happen. If you check back every few hours, including very late (near midnight), you will be one of the first to grab a bargain rate.
5.) Make use of price guarantees and be sure to look at the entire total with tax and fees.
Many online booking sites, including the hotel websites, offer a guarantee that they have the lowest rates. This can be a very good deal. However, the guarantee rarely includes taxes and fees. You need to look at the final total to see if the “price match” would really save you money. You may see a lower daily rate on another site and get the price guarantee only to find that they have a lot more taxes and fees that make the final total higher.