Hotel bookings online.

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Snowy79
Posted
Posted

Having spent the last 3 weeks travelling I've done my fair share of hotel bookings and I've noticed that a lot of the websites have identical rooms at identical prices down to the peso. They also have the same amount of room vacancies. 

I think a few of the major websites are owned by the same companies or are into serious price fixing. The cat was let out of the bag when I phoned about one hotel and when mentioning the website they told me it was actually booked via a so called competitor. 

One hotel I booked even said they only had 2 rooms left. I was in a hurry as my flight was cancelled so booked it. On arrival it was a building site. I phoned to complain but they were adamant I was at the wrong place even though I took a photo of the sign on the building site, spoke to security and confirmed with the trike driver and some of the builders. It took me 1 1/2hrs of calls before they accepted their error. 

One website that promises to find you the best deal ( trevago) from over 100 websites even charged more than the original websites. 

In short if you're searching chances are the first 10 websites may have different names but could be the same company. 

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Jack Peterson
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22 minutes ago, Snowy79 said:

In short if you're searching chances are the first 10 websites may have different names but could be the same company. 

  As is a norm here :huh: 1 out of 10 results is good whatever the price :smile:

 

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BrettGC
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Posted (edited)

I tend to stick with Agoda, AirBnB and in a pinch Booking.com.  Never had any issues with them. I only ever use Booking.com if I can't find somewhere to stay on Agoda.  Those two sites, whilst having a lot of common properties, do actually also have places that aren't listed on both.  I tend to only use AirBnB if I'm going to stay a week or more somewhere.  

I've never had any issues with Agoda at all.  I've even found that they tend to be cheaper than booking direct with the motel in some cases.  Blue Palawan in Puerto Princessa was 800php a night cheaper through Agoda than direct when we wanted to stay an extra couple of nights.  So after inquiring at reception, went to our room and booked it through Agoda, not a problem. 

I shy away from Booking.com mainly due to some venues asking for a security deposit set at about 80%.  They debit this immediately and rather than you just paying the balance on arrival, or in entirety when you book, you have to pay the full amount on check-in and then wait up to 10 days for the refund of your deposit, despite everything being paid for with a credit card.  

AirBnB I love.  Had to cancel a trip to Baguio recently and despite the owner/manager having a "strict" refund policy she refunded the entire week's accommodation cost with only 2 days notice of the cancellation.  I still copped the Airbnb admin fee that was paid upon initial booking but that's to be expected. 

Edited by BrettGC
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Jollygoodfellow
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6 hours ago, Snowy79 said:

In short if you're searching chances are the first 10 websites may have different names but could be the same company. 

Yes right in some ways and also one can be an affiliate white label  and set up a website that uses their booking system which l have done. 

ya.jpg ya 2.jpg

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Snowy79
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6 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

Yes right in some ways and also one can be an affiliate white label  and set up a website that uses their booking system which l have done. 

ya.jpg ya 2.jpg

It looks like Expedia do that with Hotels.com. I've booked a few hotels using hotels.com and when arriving at the hotel they ask me to confirm my Expedia booking. When I inform them I used the hotels.co. app they tell me it's Expedia that's booked it. 

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sonjack2847
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I have found that it is better to try to contact the hotel concerned.I went to Iloilo in July and the booking wanted to charge me an extra fee for a bed for my daughter.My daughter would not sleep in a separate bed in a hotel and when you started booking children under 5 YO were supposedly free.They also wanted me to go to BDO bank and pay or if I used my UK bank card there was a quite hefty charge.I contacted them on FB and paid the money straight into their Metro bank account no problems.The reason I don`t like to go to BDO around here is that you have an hours wait to get served and no seats.

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Dave Hounddriver
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9 hours ago, BrettGC said:

Those two sites, whilst having a lot of common properties, do actually also have places that aren't listed on both. 

I do find that to be changing.

Example:  Search Metro Park Hotel in Mandaue on Agoda.  When I did so it clearly stated that you can book it through Agoda but it is a Booking dot com listing.  It also clearly stated that Agoda's "tax and service charge policy" applied.  Now go to the Internet and find the Hotel.  It will tell you what they charge:  999 a night all in but its first come first served. This may have changed since yesterday when I did my search.

These sites have their usefulness but they have priced themselves out of the "cheap" market and into the "convenience" market.  They know we have become trained to believe we need a reservation and we pay "taxes and service charges" for that privilege.  Not all the time, but often enough that it pays to keep your wits about you.

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not so old china hand
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On 12/01/2017 at 12:44 AM, Dave Hounddriver said:

These sites have their usefulness but they have priced themselves out of the "cheap" market and into the "convenience" market.  They know we have become trained to believe we need a reservation and we pay "taxes and service charges" for that privilege.  Not all the time, but often enough that it pays to keep your wits about you.

IMHO this is like any other purchase on the internet. Sometimes it will get you the lowest price but it always pays to look at alternatives.  Somethimes a hotel's own website will guarentee that  it will give the lowest rate available on the iternet.

I have used Booking dot Com several times to book hotels in the Philippines and paid on arival at the hotel. AFAICT I paid no more than I would have paid had I booked directly. On the other hand I have booked hotels in HK through them and been asked by the hotel for immediate payment through Paypal (which for various reasons I don't use).

At the moment my go-to site for both hotels and flights is Ctrip and I seem to be getting the best rates and fares from them (I have just booked a flight to Hong Kong for example).

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Snowy79
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I've just had it booking a room for my partner. I logged on and it was £18, by the time she'd messed around it had timed out so I refreshed the page and it had jumped to £26. I cleared browser history and cookies and looked again, this time it was £24 on the exact same site.

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Clermont
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7 hours ago, Snowy79 said:

I've just had it booking a room for my partner. I logged on and it was £18, by the time she'd messed around it had timed out so I refreshed the page and it had jumped to £26. I cleared browser history and cookies and looked again, this time it was £24 on the exact same site.

like I've said before, if you have made up your mind to book flights, hotels, ect, do it then, once you reactivate the site, it will be dearer. 

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