Whether it’s for five star luxury or a cheap place to lay your head, don’t assume all hotels and hostels are the same price. Book it the right way and you can sever your costs by up to 50%, meaning you get the same room, but pay a whole lot less for it.
 Choosing the right method Picking the right hotel BEST BUY: Cut hotel costs Consider a hostel Special tips for UK rooms Cut costs even further Other articles/discuss |
 Just about anything can be a 5 star! |
Which route is right for you depends on when and where you're going:
- Are you looking for a week or two overseas to a traditional holiday destination? Unless you've already booked your flight, don't ignore good old-fashioned package holidays; booked correctly they usually undercut getting flights and hotels separately on the web. Full article: Cheap Package Holidays
- Want flexibility, long-haul, city breaks, top hotels or more diverse locations? Here the web is usually the winner; first book a Cheap Flight, then follow the information below on how to cut hotel costs.
- Going away in the UK? The methods for finding and booking cheap hotels abroad work in the UK too so do read the additional UK hotels tips section, plus you may find the Cheap Train Tickets article, which details fare loopholes, a help as well.
If you know which hotel you want, skip straight to the Cheapest Hotel Prices section. If not, you need to pick a venue, within your budget, that's not a damp squib; and this involves cutting through the vast arrays of disinformation.
Don't trust the star system
The hotel star system is a mess; there's limited standardisation within countries, nevermind worldwide. Stars may be given by Governments, review organisations or even the hotel itself. Package tour operators tend to be overly generous; often a star higher than independent reviews.
Yet they still provide a rough start point. It's important to understand that stars usually indicate the facilities available, not the quality of the hotel, so usually the higher the star the higher the price.
Functional. clean, no frills, with minimum on-site facilities. More facilities. a telephone, private bathroom and TV. More style & comfort. often have pools in hot climates. Upmarket. Nice dining facilities, pool and public spaces. Luxury. Pool, gym, interior designed with large public places. + Prestige. Personal concierge services; high-end luxury. Think plasma TVs in the loo!
There are two quick steps to sourcing mainstream hotels in destinations you're unfamiliar with, though if you're on a tight budget, do consider a hostel:
- First use an online travel broker. Just put your details into a travel broker such as Expedia*, Ebookers* or Travelocity. As these are normally pretty competitive, you've got a decent benchmark price to start; and a hotel that's about right. Plus, as they tend to have special offers on specific hotels you may just get lucky with the cheapest price immediately.
- Check the reviews on Tripadvisor. Tripadvisor* is a worldwide site that lists detailed reviews and customer ratings for hotels, plus it shows pictures taken by past guests, not the hotels' PR teams. As a personal example, last time I went away, I'd sourced a super-luxury hotel suite within the £100/night bracket, seemingly far too cheap for what it was. After nipping to Tripadvisor and reading reviews, the reason became apparent; there were major building works next door. Luckily our trip was mostly over the weekend, when works weren't on, so it was a scorching bargain and proved to be fantastic.
Find secret rooms if you have detective skills
Lastminute.com* sells discounted 'top secret' rooms, where it won't reveal the hotel until you've booked it. Yet it's often possible to cannily work out which hotel you're booking then compare the price.
First try copying and pasting the hotel description into Google and see what comes up; often the same text is used by many hotel booking sites, or just one key phrase. If this doesn't work, sort the list of hotels on lastminute.com into "closest to" order from a given point, and compare this to the distance the secret hotel is away. If the descriptions and distance are similar it's likely you've found the hotel.
Don't automatically assume it's cheapest though, do use the techniques below to check first.
Never assume one price fits all for a hotel room. The following is a speedy route to quickly find the cheapest price for your chosen hotel or B&B. The impact can be huge; prices for the same room, for a fortnight, in a good four star Marbella hotel vary from £1,450 to £2,200.
- Check the hotel's own price. Always check what the hotel itself offers and whether it has any special offers.
- Use a comparison site. There are three useful sites which compare prices on cheap hotel websites. Travelsupermarket* searches the most sites, but its search results can be jumbled and bizarrely you need to know what star rating your specific hotel is before searching for it. Hotelscomparison gives a speedy and effective search but over a more limited range, and Tripadvisor* allows you to do quick comparisons as you're reading reviews.
- Use the cheap hotel websites. If the comparisons aren't producing for you, then go direct to the main cheap hotel finding sites. It's not a big job, and should only take five minutes; Hotels.com*, Laterooms*, Priceline, Hotelpronto*, Octopustravel* and Bedbookers; specialist for Spain Go2Spain* and for short stays, Superbreak*.
- Not fussy about your room? Save up to 50%. If you're flexible on room type and happy to book blind, comparison site Priceline’s ‘name your price’ function will find a room at a fraction of the normal price. Simply pick an area, for example Barcelona West and choose a star rating. You then enter the price you're willing to pay and it'll search hotels in that area for that price. Your room will be allocated on arrival. The only caveat being, once you enter your details you're committing yourself to a booking if they find one, and payment will automatically be taken from your credit card. It works because hotels are able to offer discounts on unsold rooms and as you can't get a refund they're guaranteed a sale.
- Are you booking a flight as well? Two flightbroker websites Expedia* and Lastminute.com* offer extra discounts if you book the flight and hotel together. It's worth checking if this undercuts separately sourcing the Cheapest Flight and cheapest hotel.
For example, Expedia charged £134 for a flight to Budapest and £230 for three nights in a 5 star hotel (a touch more than the cheap flights sites). However book the two together and there was a massive £96 discount (it isn't always this big), meaning a total of just £268. - Use overseas websites. If you're going to an English speaking country, especially the USA, or are fluent in the language of the country you are travelling to, check Google to see whether that country's cheap hotel sites are cheaper. This often depends on the exchange rate (use the Travel Money Maximiser to translate). If booking, do ensure you've read the Cheapest Way To Spend Overseas article to properly keep it cheap.
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What to check when comparing prices
However you’re booking, there are two key things to check:- Is it a confirmed reservation or reservation request? Many mainstream hotel sites sell you the room there and then; but some sites, such as reserveahotelonline, allow you to book some of their rooms with an 'On Request' button (other sites may not even give this much warning). Be very careful, this means the room is only being requested from the hotel, and the booking is not guaranteed at all.
- Is room tax included? Many countries have a daily tax per room that can be up to £10. Some sites include this, others don’t so ensure you check or it can skew the comparison.
At the budget end of the market, hostels can offer massive savings over hotel prices. Yes, of course some can be grotty, but these days many hostels are clean and friendly, often with free internet access and breakfast. Plus don’t think you’re automatically staying in a dorm bunk; many offer single, twin and double rooms.
The top two resources for booking online are Hostelbookers.com* and Hostelworld*. These allow you to search for availability and give each hostel a percentage rating, based on users’ experiences. Though do bear in mind that, even if it says that a certain hostel is full, it’s often worth emailing the hostel direct, as it might have a spare room that didn’t show up.There are a number of additional tips for booking cheap UK accomodation; though always use the Cheap Hotel Finding websites as well.
- Hostels and halls of residence. Travelstay lists cheap rooms across the UK; including hostels and student halls of residence (outside term time); these can be especially good value for cheap London rooms.
- Travelodge deals. The hotel chain Travelodge offers £19 a night rooms, provided you book more than 3 weeks ahead. The rooms are clean and functional and offer the basics. Occasionally it has short term sales with even cheaper deals; these are included in the free weekly MoneySaving e-mail.
- Frequent travellers slash the cost. If you regularly stay in hotels it's possible you could save by joining a directory club. Here, pay a fixed amount of £30 to £60 annually and you get "free" accommodation from a directory of hotels. The catch is you must have, and pay for, your evening meal and breakfast in the hotel; and these won’t always be too cheap. Some clubs limit you to off-peak stays, but membership often covers the member plus another adult and regular tourers can save using these schemes. Clubs include Travel-offers which covers the
- Hotels at a quarter of the price. Those with Tesco ClubCard vouchers (the rewards vouchers from in-store spending) can use them to get UK hotel rooms at a quarter of the price. This works because the £5 voucher is worth four times face value if redeemed on Tesco Clubcard deals and there are a range of hotels which accept the vouchers. See Maximise Your Loyalty Points for more details on clubcard vouchers.
- Hoxton Hotels for £1. This is a chic hotel in London which occasionally runs £1 room promotions. Rooms sell out incredibly quickly, but, again, are always in the weekly e-mail so you get to know in advance when to go for it.
- Get £100 on top. Website Londontown promises if you book a hotel with it and then find it cheaper elsewhere within 48 hours it’ll give you a refund and £100. Many MoneySavers have successfully used this, by first sourcing hotels cheaper elsewhere then deliberately booking on Londontown to get the price promise (see MoneySavers' stories).
- Stay on someone's couch. The Couchsurfing website allows you to sign up to stay on people’s sofas around the world. It’s a reciprocal deal so be prepared to allow people to stay on your sofa in return.
- Exchange homes. There are a number of home swapping sites like Homebase-hols that allow you to switch your home with someone elsewhere in the world; reports vary from a way to make lifelong friends to holidays from hell.
And just for fun, if you’re feeling really desperate there’s always Sleep in the airport!
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