Whether traveling for work or leisure, selecting the right hotel is crucial. It will ensure you have a secure place to stay and provide a memorable experience. However, choosing where to stay might be tricky because there are many options, from luxurious suites to deluxe rooms. For this reason, booking a hotel necessitates thought and investigation. This post lists a few tips to follow when making a hotel reservation for your next trip.
Book in advance
Visiting your destination without booking a hotel can be risky because there’s no guarantee that you will get a room on the spot. On the other hand, a reservation guarantees a place to stay, so you don’t have to search for options at the last minute. This will give you peace of mind and reduce the stress associated with travel. Instead of stressing about lodging, you can concentrate on enjoying your trip!
Pick the right location
Find a hotel close to the sights or areas you intend to visit. For instance, stay close to a conference room if you’re traveling for business and close to tourist attractions on holiday. When making a hotel reservation, consider the location’s accessibility, available modes of transportation, and safety.
Set a budget
Setting a budget is critical when booking accommodation. You must find a hotel in your price range that offers the features and services you require. Remember, prices can change depending on the season and facilities offered. Don’t forget to look for early booking discounts, exclusive specials, and package deals. It can result in significant cost savings, ensuring you have money to meet other expenses.
Check the hotel’s amenities and services
Check what services and amenities the hotel offers before signing up. Most hotels have a gym, a swimming pool, fine dining restaurants, concierge services, complimentary breakfast, and housekeeping. Ensure the hotel has the features you require for a comfortable stay. You might need Wi-Fi and internet access on a business trip. While these are now standard facilities in most hotels, ensure the connection is dependable, quick, and affordable.
Choose a suitable room type
Hotels offer various rooms, including standard rooms, luxury suites, and premium deluxe suites. Pick a room style that suits your requirements and tastes. Booking in advance will help you get a room with a view, a balcony, or the desired bed type. Also, consider the maximum number of people a room can accommodate, especially if you’re planning a family trip.
Read the hotel’s reviews
Reviewing customer reviews can help you gauge the quality of the hotel’s services and amenities. You can find these reviews on social media platforms and travel-related websites. Pay special attention to feedback regarding service, cleanliness, and value for money. It will ensure you find the best hotel and have a memorable experience.
Select a reputable brand
Selecting a well-known hotel chain can give you peace of mind and guarantee quality of service. However, independent hotels provide distinctive experiences and individualized treatment unavailable at chain hotels. If confused, always choose a reputable brand, and you will never go wrong.
Sign up for loyalty programs
Consider joining a reward program if you frequently visit the same location or stay at the same hotel chain. These programs provide savings, exclusive deals, and other benefits that can improve your travel experience while helping you save money.
Opt for concierge services
A concierge can help you plan your itinerary, book tours, and recommend nearby eateries and sights. So, to improve your experience, seek out hotels with concierge services, especially if you’re visiting a destination for the first time.
Choose hotels with business facilities
If you’re traveling for business, choose a hotel with facilities like a business center, conference rooms, and printing and copying services. This will ensure your work isn’t held up and you easily complete your assignment.
Read the cancellation policy
Understanding the cancellation policy is crucial when making a hotel reservation. Here’s a list of the various categories of cancellation policies:
Making a hotel reservation can be simple if you consider the location, budget, amenities, reviews, brand, and loyalty programs. A little bit of planning and study will ensure you find the ideal hotel for your upcoming trip and make priceless memories. If you need help with a hotel, seek recommendations from family and friends who have already been to the destination you’re about to visit. They can share their experience with you and provide critical tips to make the most of your holiday.
Choosing a hotel is an important part of planning your vacation. This is because, for many of us, the hotel experience has the potential of making our trip awesome or making it a total flop.
It is a common belief that finding the best hotel booking deals takes a lot of research, patience, and hours on the internet. However, if you know what exactly you are looking for and where to look for it, things do get quite easy.
You still think that hotel booking is a nightmare? If yes, then here are five strategic tips that will help you get the best hotel bookings.
Go by the best hotel reviews
In this digital world, booking a hotel, like many other things, has become a much-sorted task. There are several hotel booking sites today where you can read customer testimonials and review the hotels that you have narrowed down for your vacation. It is best to choose a hotel that has a high customer review rate. Don’t neglect the bad reviews that the hotels get as these will help you stay clear of fraud cases and terrible hotel experiences.
Don’t go overboard with your budget
It is quite easy to go overboard when you are booking a hotel for your vacation. You are in a happy mood, and in this mood, it is easy to get carried away and splurge extravagantly on hotels. So, the best thing to do is to decide your budget before you start looking for hotels, filter out, and check only the best hotels that fit your budget.
Scan the bed bug registry
Yes, there legitimate is a bed bug registry. This website tells you whether the hotel that you are planning to book has any reports of bed bug situations. Sanitation is a major concern when you are staying in a hotel in a foreign travel destination. By checking the database of this website, you can at least be sure that you don’t have to worry about the bed bugs haunting you while you are sleeping or the sheets not being clean.
Make use of the membership perks
One of the best ways to save up on your hotel bookings is to make use of hotel membership. If you have a membership of a certain international hotel chain or someone in your family has one, now is the best time to know more about them.
Don’t compromise on the desired experience
Sometimes, hotels are the major part of our tour. It is okay if you want to stay in a hotel that resembles a castle when you are in Scotland or Bavaria, or if you want to stay in a beautiful private villa when you are in Hawaii. In such cases, it is your choice whether you would like to save some money and settle for top motels or pay a little extra to get the best experiences in a picturesque villa.
Have you already decided which hotel you want to stay on your next vacation?
Today, booking a hotel for your vacation has become so much easy. With just a few clicks, you can get your choice hotel with the best of views.
This might sound easy, but it can get quite overwhelming. There are so many websites and apps that promise you to give the best hotel deals on bookings that you end up getting confused.
So, how do you go about with this? It is simple. There are few hacks and tricks that you need to master and use while you book your hotels online.
Read further to know about five tips on how to select the best hotels online.
Know what you want
If you aimlessly search for the best hotels for your next vacation, you will end up spending a good hour or two on the internet and still find yourself back to square one. So, the first thing you should do is make a list of things you are looking for in the hotel. This list could include things like whether you would prefer a hotel with a romantic atmosphere or one that has a rustic vibe or whether you want a beach view or a mountain view. Also, make a note of amenities you would want in the package like free breakfast, complimentary activities, and free Wi-Fi. Further, decide on whether you want to stay in one of the top motels of the destination and save or you want to splurge on a luxury hotel.
Double check the hotel’s website
No doubt that the hotel booking websites briefly tell you everything you need to know about the hotel you are planning to book, but it is still advisable to check the official website of the hotel. Double check the website to know about the dcor, facilities, services, and the location.
Open the map
To lure travelers, hotels these days don’t think twice before mentioning things like “close to the metro” or “15 minutes from the Eiffel tower” on their about page. The catch here is that when they say 15 minutes, they need not necessarily mean a 15-minute walk. So, it is best to do your own research and find out how far all the tourist locations are from the hotel.
Read the guest reviews
One of the best ways to know more about the hotel is to read the recent guest reviews online. Make it a point to pay attention to the poor reviews as well because that will give you an idea of what to expect from the hotel.
Call up when in doubt
If you still have questions after going through several websites and the hotel’s website, don’t hesitate to pick up your phone and contact the hotel. Most of the hotel staff are more than willing to tell you about the deals and the services. This might also be a good time to ask for some additional discounts on your bookings.
So, which of these tips have you already tried while booking the best hotel online?
Low-cost extended-stay or apartment hotels are an ideal option if you are short on finances or your housing applications lack some essential criterion. You can get their rooms on rent until you arrange for a permanent accommodation. Apart from affordable rooms on rent, apartment hotels require no credit check, leasing contract, and utility bills. Moreover, you can get access to some useful amenities without exceeding your budget constraints. If you are on a quest for a weekly or apartment hotel that offers inexpensive rental deals, then check out the following options.
You can make bookings for any of these apartment hotels online. Before you make a reservation, ensure that you compare the rooms on rent keeping in mind the price, offered facilities, and consumer reviews.
Finding a decent apartment or house in your budget on occasions can get difficult as property owners have a variety of conditions. Moreover, individuals who have an eviction on their credit are more likely to get their application rejected. If you are struggling with the high property rates and renting standards, then you should give low-cost extended-stay hotels a try.
Popularly known as weekly or apartment hotels, extended-stay hotels are an ideal choice instead of crashing at your family or friend’s place or settling for bad apartment deal. Since weekly hotels are a relatively unconventional option it can be a bit trickier to find good ones. While picking an affordable extended-stay hotel, remember that you should not only take the room’s rent into account but also ensure that the place is comfortable and well-maintained.
Here’s why a low-cost apartment hotel can be a beneficial choice for you.
Cost of an apartment hotel
The rooms for rent in an extended-stay hotel will vary according to its location and the amenities offered. Mostly, low-cost weekly hotels will charge you around $100 to $120 per week. Likewise, if you want services like an internet connection or flexible room service, then the room’s rent will increase accordingly. Apartment hotels will full-fledged services usually charge anywhere between $300 and $450 a week, approximately.
With the hike in online hotel search business, finding and bagging the best hotel deals has become easy and quick. You need to enter the destination at such a hotel search website and you’ll be catered with an extensive list of all the relevant hotel deals available at the location. Following are some of the best hotel search engines:
Trivago
Owned by Expedia, Trivago offers free as well as fee-based versions of hotel searching. Trivago provides an exhaustive list of 1mn hotels and 250 booking sites from around the world. Every hotel registered at Trivago is accompanied with reviews, rating, information, locality, etc. to allow customers to make the best hotel selection possible. Since 2008, the hotel finding service has witnessed double-fold profitability each year. Customers might soon find the convenience of booking Trivago flights via the online portal for hotel search.
Booking.com
The popularity of Booking.com can be sized up with its Alexa ranking of 85 during February 2017. Available in over 40 different languages, the hotel search website provides over 1.2mn hotels and other properties across the planet. The hotel finding service is also available on Android and iOS devices as a dedicated app.
Hotels.com
Formerly known as Hotel Reservations Network, Hotels.com allows travelers to book hotels via telephone in addition to making online reservations. The search engine has an extensive hotel inventory of over 325,000 hotels in more than 19,000 destinations. Hotels.com also provides reservations for condos and other types of commercial lodging. The hotel search engine offers a loyalty program dubbed Hotels.com Rewards. The program allows customers to claim discounts on most hotels available at Hotels.com.
Hotwire
In addition to providing customers the ease of finding and comparing hotel prices, Hotwire lists airline tickets, rental cars, and vacation packages. Found in 2000, the hotel search engine is known for selling unsold travel inventory at heavily discounted prices. Hotwire features an extensive list of hotels across the planet.
LateRooms
Launched in 1999, LateRooms is one of the most popular hotel search engines. LateRooms provides a catalog of over 150,000 hotels across the world. The hotel search engine is available in six different languages, including German and Portuguese. Kicking off as a simple hotel directory service, the hotel finding service moved to online hotel booking in 2002 and since then, it has been providing some of the best online hotel booking deals to its customers.
TripAdvisor
Supporting an advertising business model, TripAdvisor is very popular among travelers for finding hotels at a specific location. In addition to hotels, the service also provides relevant search results about flights and restaurants for a specific destination. Thanks to its user-generated content and interactive travel forms, TripAdvisor is a one-stop shop for all travel needs.