My dear wise blogging friends, do you have suggestions for me on booking hotels online? We're trying to plan a short mother's day family rendezvous in Pittsburgh and I'm not having much success. As usual, we're doing it all on the cheap. We're planning to visit the amazing-sounding Pittsburgh zoo (we can get in for free with our Cleveland zoo membership card) and we hope to score a cheap hotel room for the night. With free breakfast and indoor pool of course. :)
Specifically . . .
1. What website/s do you use most often for travel planning?
2. Are there particular days of the week to search online for the best deals?
Thanks for your help!
7 comments:
My husband always books our rooms using hotwire.com. It won't tell you the exact hotel you're staying at, but it will give you a star rating and a particular area in town. It gives you the price and you agree. Once you agree, they give you the hotel information - but by then you're locked in. We usually stay in a three star or higher. We pay anywhere from $40 to $60 depending on the area. Every hotel we have stayed in has been very nice with breakfast included. We have had no problems.
I use priceline, but beware of booking hotels downtown in a larger city. They often don't have the nicer amenities of being on the outskirts of town, and you usually end up paying ridiculous parking fees.
kayak.com is one of my newest favorite finds. You can get hotels, cars, flights - and compare results with any of the other travel sites that you choose.
Also they have pulled in reviews from other sites so you can tell what other people thought of the hotel. Love it.
I did book rooms for N-land traveling teams when I worked there and never had a problem using hotwire and naming my price. But they were not usually staying in big cities - I would be more wary of that.
I have uesed Kayak for airline tickets, but I've used hotels.com for rooms. I'm always too wary of locking myself in w/o knowing what hotel I would be in. Also, don't forget to check to see if you would get some kind of employee discount through Matt's work. Good luck & safe travels!
We've used hotwire.com as well and have always gotten good deals. I heard that late at night is the best time to book online. Although, maybe that's just for air fair. I guess I'm not too much help!
I used Priceline when I went to Chicago this past weekend - put in a bid of $50.00 for a 3 1/2 star hotel and was booked at Marriot Suites - very nice place, with taxes came to 64.95 - still very reasonable. Like Hotwire can't pick your hotel, just the area you want to stay. I like Priceline better than Hotwire. Used Hotwire once and they wouldn't let me add an extra night
We've gotten some good deals on priceline before. The main thing to watch for when booking in a city is if parking is included. That can make the low price not as worthwhile.
Sometimes it is good to look at a location a little "out of town" to make sure you are getting a nice place in a safe neighborhood. I always read the reviews (with a grain of salt) b/c that can help you stay away from undesirable places.
Post a Comment