Like airline fares, hotel rates change as occupancy changes, rising as availability tightens. And as with airlines, there are better days to seek a deal, often Sundays, when leisure travelers check out, and Thursdays, when business travelers leave. Getting the best hotel deal also means you have to do the same thing you do when searching for the cheapest flight: sifting through websites, hotel offers and loyalty programs.
Omitting off-season rates, deal-cutting memberships through AAA or AARP, or historically cheap days to stay at a hotel, such as Christmas Eve, I tested the following booking strategies to find the pros and cons of bargain bookings. Bear in mind that rates listed here may not be available as they shift frequently.
Search competing online travel agencies
Hotels aim to provide the same rates for rooms to all online travel agencies (O.T.A.s). But most budget travel gurus recommend comparing anyway.
“I use Google to start with, then I branch off to Booking.com and look at a mix of user-generated content and non-sponsored reviews to make the best value decision,” said Kyle Valenta, the executive editor of the hotel review site Oyster.com.
It pays to compare. I searched for hotels in Chicago in May and got a rate of $193 at Virgin Hotels Chicago on Agoda, a Singapore-based platform owned by Booking Holdings, versus $289 at its sibling service Booking.com for the same dates.
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If you find a good rate at an O.T.A. and can’t replicate it at the hotel’s own website, call the hotel with your research as many will match it. Hilton’s Price Match Guarantee states that if a traveler finds a cheaper rate than on Hilton’s websites, the company will offer 25 percent below that lower rate.
Booking through an O.T.A. means you will not receive loyalty points for that stay with a hotel’s program. Some O.T.A.s, including Expedia and Hotels.com, have compensated by offering their own loyalty programs with benefits that accrue with bookings.
Pros: Cheap rates may get cheaper if you take your lower rate to the hotel directly.
Cons: Research is time-consuming and O.T.A. bookings forfeit hotel loyalty points.
Make yourself known
If you’re fishing for a deal, you have to get in the water. Joining a hotel’s loyalty program, which is free, often automatically gives you a discount on rates starting around 5 percent, depending on your status, if booked directly with the hotel.
For smaller or independent hotels, sign up for their newsletters, which often contain discount offers. Recently, I received an email from the stylish 40-room Lora hotel, lodged in a former brewery in Stillwater, Minn., offering rooms from $140, including valet parking (normally $30) and a $30 restaurant credit in May.
In your destination research, find out if any new hotels are opening and sign up for email updates (call up a city’s tourism website and search under news). Often these will offer introductory rates. For example, the new Hoxton hotel in Chicago offered $77 rooms on pre-opening bookings; the hotel, which opened in April, now has rooms from about $150 (the company promises similar future bargains on upcoming openings in Los Angeles and London).
Another, more direct, method is to call the hotel and ask for a better rate. That’s not likely to help at a chain hotel with receptionists who aren’t empowered to cut a deal, but several small inns reported that they appreciate working directly with guests to suggest alternate dates, smaller rooms or packages that offer more value.
“Call us directly and we will be happy to give you a free upgrade if it’s available,” said Amanda McSharry, the co-owner of the Sailmaker’s House in Portsmouth, N. H., and Water Street Inn in Kittery, Me. “That doesn’t happen via computers.”
Pros: It’s easy, free and rewarding to join loyalty programs or register for updates.
Cons: None, although you may need a separate e-commerce email to keep your inbox tidy.
Book in advance
Hotels raise their rates as bookings increase over time. That’s why, often, a room searched the week of travel costs more than booking one month in advance.
Many hotels offer discounts on early booking, provided the dates don’t align with a holiday, convention or special event that is likely to fill the hotel. The Brown Hotel in Louisville, Ky., for example, offers between 10 and 15 percent off the best available rates if booked 30 days before a stay.
Often these rates require prepayment and are nonrefundable, which risks the entire amount if you don’t take the trip.
Pros: Hotels reward the best planners with great rates.
Cons: Beware of prepaid and nonrefundable rates, if your plans change.
Be flexible
Hotels looking to sell available rooms at the last minute will put them up for sale on booking apps like HotelTonight and, for same-day reservations, One: Night. HotelTonight will show rates for a given date months in advance, allowing users to track prices. I’ve won and lost this game. I’ve seen rates drift down in Chicago, and booked a good day-of sale. But I’ve also watched inventory disappear in downtown Orlando and, having waited too long, ended up at a chain motel near the airport.
If you enjoy hotel roulette, consider checking into your booking very late. If the room category you reserved is sold out, you might get a free upgrade. In the event the hotel is oversold, management will “walk” you to a nearby hotel, usually comping your night — a common practice, comparable to what airlines do with overbooked flights.
Pros: Hotels and apps reward flexible travelers with better rates.
Cons: You may not know where you’re staying until bedtime.
Roll the dice on a mystery hotel
Some hotel booking apps, including Priceline and Hotwire, offer their cheapest rates on hotels they don’t name. The arrangement allows the hotel to continue to discriminate on price, maintaining higher rates for those seeking the hotel specifically and lower ones for those willing to gamble.
Priceline calls them Express Deals. Users can filter their searches by neighborhood, star-level ratings, which align with hotel amenities, and price. A search in New York City in May found savings from 20 percent on a five-star hotel in Chelsea at $244. Listed at 52 percent off, a 4.5-star hotel in Midtown East ran $243.
Running the same search on Hotwire, I found a five-star hotel in Chelsea for 30 percent off at $199 and a 4.5-star in Midtown East at $301, or 38 percent off.
Bear in mind that with either platform, bookings are not refundable.
Pros: You can choose your neighborhood location.
Cons: You won’t know the hotel until you pay, and bookings are nonrefundable.
Scalp a room
On the app Roomer, travelers can buy someone else’s nonrefundable room. The secondary market for prepaid hotel rooms offers a way for travelers who can’t keep their plans to get some of their money back. Roomer handles the booking transfers and issues confirmations so that buyers booking on the site will find the reservations in their names when they check in.
Perusing the site, I found a stay at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club in Bermuda for June 14 to 17 at $210 a night, which was labeled 59 percent off. On the other hand, not all resales were discounted; an Embassy Suites in Honolulu was going for full price at $564 a night on the site for a three-night stay in May.
Limiting my search to “weekends” or “next month” narrowed results considerably. Roomer’s grab bag of deals seems best suited to those with no set dates or destination.
Pros: It’s possible to score deep discounts.
Cons: Dates are hit or miss, and not every offer is discounted.
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