So, you’re looking for a bargain hotel finder? It’s easy enough to find a website that will direct you towards available hotels in most areas of the world, but BEWARE. Are they really the best way to find the right hotel for you? The answer to that question is an ambiguous, “yes and no”.
“Yes”, because online hotel finder websites are the quickest and easiest way to find out what’s available and “no” because it is unlikely that any one website will give you all the answers. These websites exist to make money for their owners by extracting affiliate fees from the hotels they refer you to. Too often these websites will direct you to hotels that are unsuitable, either because they are not very good or because there’s a better one for you nearby that they don’t have have a deal with.
Hotel Finder Tip: Get it right when you book: afterwards is too late.
When it comes to booking a hotel, the three basics you need to get right are:
- good location
- comfort
- the right price
Get just one of these wrong and you’re in trouble – get two or more wrong and your stay will be a disaster. The secret is to use hotel finder websites to provide you with information to enable you to make the best choice when booking your hotel room. Remember that the information they are giving you is earning them money and so take everything they say “with a pinch of salt”.
Using Hotel Finder Websites To Find You The Best Deal:
- Put aside an hour or more to research your hotel. Better to spend time now than find yourself in a terrible hotel room; it’ll be too late then!
- Check out as many different hotel finder sites as you have time to research.
- Google ads are a good way to access hotel finder websites.
- Don’t book anything until you have finished your research.
- Check out review sites, such as TripAdvisor to see what these hotels are really like.
- Compare prices before you book anything.
- Make sure you are comparing like with like. For example, check that you are looking at the same standard of rooms and whether breakfast is included or not.
- Make sure you are not going to hit with extra charges. Some of the larger hotel finder websites show basic room prices and then add on booking fees and local taxes and so on. Avoid these websites like the plague!
- Look for local hotel finder websites and use them. For example, ones ending in .co.uk for Great Britain, .ca for Canada and so on. They will often have better choices and better information than big global comparison websites we will not name (you know who they are!).
- Check the hotel’s own website before you book anything. Even if you can’t speak the language. You will often find better deals to be had booking direct (no nasty affiliate fees to pay) and the information will be better. But always remember: they are trying to sell you on their hotel, so don’t expect any degree of even-handedness whatsoever. I repeat: they are trying to sell you their hotel, so they will not be totally honest about how bad or good they are. At least hotel finder websites don’t care which hotel you book at – but they do want you to book your bargain hotel with them.
Nothing (at least when it comes to booking hotels and accommodation) is worse than booking into somewhere that doesn’t match your expectations. It’s happened to me many times, though more in the past than recently. My mistakes propelled me forward to book the best rooms I could find at the best prices. Now I think I’m getting pretty good at it.
By all means use online bargain hotel finder websites to find the best deals for you – remembering the three areas to concentrate on: location, comfort and price – but make sure you filter the information they give you to your advantage.
