Cheap Hotels Bag 5*, hostels or unnamed bargains

Never assume hotel or hostel prices are fixed. Book right and massive savings are possible on UK and worldwide rooms.

This step-by-step guide shows you how to save £100s with top hotel comparison sites, mystery mega-bargains, cheap-yet-clean hostels and much more.

Pay less for the same hotel room

Never assume one price fits all for a hotel or room. Just like Beyoncé CDs are sold at different prices in different shops, the same hotel or B&B room is sold by different places at different prices. The impact can be huge. As an example, the same five-star Paris hotel for three nights was on sale between £726 and £2,330 on different sites.

Step 3. Use a cheap hotel comparison site

Three main sites compare prices on different cheap hotel websites:

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Best for ease and speedTrivago

Hotel comparison site Trivago takes just a few seconds to sift through 1,000s of hotels' prices, scraping 150 brokers and hotel chains. It's simple, fun to use and you can drill down your search by star, user rating or hotel facilities.

If you know which hotel you want, just plug the name into the box on the left and it quickly locates the cheapest price for that establishment.

The site displays potential 'savings' in red, although bear in mind discounts are against the most expensive broker's price, which could be abnormally high.

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Broad searchTravelSupermarket

Also with an impressive reach, TravelSupermarket* searches more than 50 hotel brokers and chains.

It also lets you search for specific hotels and read reviews supplied by brokers.

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Limited range, but worth checkingHotels Comparison

To be sure you've got the best deal, it's worth checking Hotels Comparison too. While it's not going to win any design awards, it does the job, searching about 20 brokers and accommodation chains.

If you know where you want to stay, it also lets you search by hotel name. Results can take a while to appear.

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Compare and read reviewsTripAdvisor

If you're using TripAdvisor*, you can also do quick comparisons while viewing hotels. The UK site brings up prices in pounds.

Rather than showing a results page, TripAdvisor results pop up in new windows. It searches far fewer brokers than the others, usually only about five.

Look out for taxes

There's one thing to check when you're searching for a hotel, which can mean some sites unfairly come up cheapest.

Many countries charge a £10-£30 per day room tax. Not all sites include this, so always check.

Some hotel websites hide the true cost of a stay until you enter their card details. In some cases, the first you find out is at the hotel, or on credit card or bank statements. This is because websites sometimes say taxes at the relevant percentage rate for that destination apply, on top of the price displayed.

Even comparison sites often show the price minus taxes, so always click through to check the final price before choosing. See the Revealed: Hidden hotel charges news story.

Also watch for sites which have rooms 'on request'. This only means it's being requested from the hotel, not that there's actually a room available. Be careful not to go for one of these and lose a firm cheap deal elsewhere.

Unnamed hotel mega-bargains

If you want to stay in first-rate hotels but pay a lot less, go for an unnamed hotel at a super-hot discount price. All you do is specify the star level and your particulars to see what comes up.

Hotels do this to get rid of unused rooms without cannibalising their usual customer base, who'd either get annoyed or book the super-cheap deals themselves.

Worldwide secret rooms. Lastminute.com

How to uncover them

There's a SNEAKY way to work out what the hotel really is and whether it's worth it. Simply copy and paste all or part of the Lastminute.com* hotel description into Google. Often, it just uses the hotel's standard description text that also appears on its website.

Lastminute also includes secret hotels' TripAdvisor* review scores, including how many reviews they have. Just go to Tripadvisor, search for an area, eg, Venice, and sort by ranking. Then match up your secret hotel with those that have the same score and number of reviews, eg, 456.

If you've no luck, ask in the Top Secret Hotels Revealed discussion or, for the UK capital, the London Hotels Revealed thread. Secret-hotel pros on our forum can usually track them down in seconds. If you book, please post the hotel name and description after you get the Lastminute.com email revealing the hotel.

It's also worth pasting the details into the specialist website Secret Hotels Revealed. This site isn't perfect; only use it to corroborate what you've already found.

Ensure it's a bargain

Once you've found the hotel's identity, use comparison sites such as Trivago and TravelSupermarket* to ensure it's a bargain.

Done right, this is a superb way to a classy hotel in your budget. Yet you can never be 100% sure which hotel it is, so it's not for those desperate to stay at a particular place.

How much can you save?

Here's a little inspiration ...

I booked the 5* Grange St. Paul's Hotel in London for £109 (rack rate £215). OH YEAH BABY. MoneySaver lukey2

I booked the Hilton London Paddington for £69 for a double room. I had a look on the Hilton website and the equivalent cost would be £205 - bargain! MoneySaver carolinehulse84

Tips to cut costs worldwide

If you're just looking for a nice place to stay without breaking the bank, there are heaps of ways to get super-cheap accommodation. While it may lack facilities, you can get clean, functional rooms at a fraction of normal hotels' cost.

• Rent cheap holiday villas and apartments

  Whether a villa in Vendée, a cottage in Cornwall or an apartment in Amsterdam, bargains are possible on private holiday properties.

  You usually must do your own cleaning and washing up. But if you want space, privacy, a full kitchen, washing machine and more, it can be a winner. For big families and groups, it can halve costs compared to similar quality hotels.

  Check sites' offer pages and don't be afraid to haggle with owners. For a full guide, see Cheap Holiday Rentals.

• Hostels: Cheap, but not dirty

  Hostels can offer massive savings over hotel prices. While a few are squalid, many are clean and friendly, with free internet access and breakfast. In the UK, Youth Hostel Association (YHA) and Hostelling Scotland properties include fabulous castles and mansions.

  You're also more likely to strike up a conversation in a hostel than a Marriott. Don't think it's automatically a dorm bunk. Many offer singles, twins and doubles.

  To check out prices and availability, use Hostelbookers.com* and Hostelworld*, both of which give hostels a percentage rating, based on users' experiences. Even if they say a hostel's full, always try emailing direct, in case there's a spare room that doesn't show up. To read more reviews from past hostel guests and compare prices, try hostelz.com.

  When staying at Hostelling International hostels, you can get up to £3 off per night with £16 Youth Hostel Association membership (£14 by direct debit). Under-26s can bag membership for £10 and couples for £23.

• Want a week or two in a traditional resort?

  Don't ignore good old-fashioned package holidays. For holidays in traditional destinations, packages can undercut DIY online-booked separate flights and hotels. Read the full Cheap Package Holidays guide.

• Special opening rates

  New hotels often offer special rates to drum up custom, typically 50% off or even complimentary stays. To find new hotel openings, scour industry publications such as HotelChatter, Hotel News Resource and Hotel Designs. Call the hotel to ask about special rates (a bit of sweet talk goes a long way).

• Stay on a Sunday

  The day of rest is hotels' quietest booking day, thus you're most likely to get a bargain. Look out for Sunday special offers such as 3for2 nights or free bottles of champers.

• Join the club

  Many hotel chains have free-to-join loyalty schemes. The biggies are Hilton HHonors*, Marriott Rewards* and Starwood Preferred Guest. These loyalty schemes are worth joining, not so much for the free room nights, which can take ages to clock up, but for the special offers they send to members.

  Plus if you call the hotel and ask for a discount or ask for an upgrade when you check in, you're more likely to get one as a ‘preferred guest'.

• How to protect your holiday
  
  The ATOL programme gives extra financial protection if you're booking a holiday via an ATOL-licensed travel agent as part of a formal package. While this protection was previously only available to those on package holidays (and some flight-only bookings made via a tour operator), the cover now includes some DIY breaks.
  
  ATOL protection has now been extended to include flights and accommodation or car hire booked from the same company within a day of each other, even if they're not part of a formal package.
  
  So for travel brokers where you buy these within a day of each other from one firm, eg, Expedia*, Ebookers*, Opodo* and Lastminute.com*, you'll get extra protection. But for comparison sites such as such as Kayak* and Skyscanner*, sadly you won't.
  
  This is worth considering if you can, as it's an extra way to build in extra protection for your stay if you're flying. See the MSE News story ATOL Travel Protection Extended for full info.

More ways to cut accommodation costs

If you're feeling brave, there are a few other routes to cutting the cost of accommodation. Of course, always check out thoroughly and consider safety.

• Try camping

  Good old camping's a fun way to explore the great outdoors and get away on the cheap. MoneySavers rate the website UKCampsite.co.uk, which lists sites by area and by facilities, plus includes user reviews.

  Read the Great Camping Hunt for a full list of MoneySavers' top tips on safe, hassle-free camping.

• Rent a spare room for your holiday

  Short-term room rental sites, such as Airbnb and Wimdu, offer rooms in private homes in big UK cities and overseas. These often beat hotel prices, athough, of course, take safety precautions. See the Rent a spare room for your holiday forum discussion for people's experiences.

  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.

  Alternatively, The Hospitality Club links up like-minded folk from across the world, be it for a roof for the night or a guided tour through town.

• Exchange homes

  A number of home swapping sites, such as Home Base Holidays and Homelink, allow you to switch your home with someone's elsewhere in the world. Reports vary from a way to make lifelong friends to holidays from hell, plus do compare fees before joining. See the Great Travel Swapping Hunt for tons more tips on this.

• Work for food and board

  It's possible to bag free food and accommodation, in exchange for a few hours' work a day, usually on farms. Two of the biggest programmes are HelpX and WWOOF (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms).

And just for fun, or if you're feeling really desperate, you could always sleep in the airport!

Top tips for cheap UK hotels

The first port of call for hotels in the UK are the same cheap hotel finding websites as for anywhere else in the world. Yet once you've done that, there are many more ways to keep down the cost on home soil.

• Hotels at a third (ish) of the price if you've got Tesco points

  Regular Tesco shoppers who have collected up Tesco Clubcard points can trade them in for Rewards Vouchers, which can then be spent at hotel chains such as Marriott, Thistle and Best Western.

  The big advantage is that Clubcard points are worth 1p in-store, but their value's up to three or four times as much when converted to Rewards, so you could get a hotel for a third or quarter of the price.
  
  The snag is hotels usually only let you use vouchers against their rack rates, which are often much higher than their cheapest internet ones. Before exchanging your Clubcard vouchers, carefully compare prices on Trivago first, as you may get better value for your vouchers elsewhere.
  
  For more on maxing Tesco vouchers' value, read the Boost Tesco Points guide.

• 

  Travelodge £12 sales

  Hotel chain Travelodge* regularly offers £12 to £25 sale rooms. The ultra-cheap rooms are released in tranches. To bag serious bargains you need to know when a new batch's been released. Therefore if you try to get a room at the start of a genuine sale, there's widespread availability.

  The regularly-updated Travelodge Sales deals note lets you know when the latest sale starts, and Travelodge sales updates are always included in the free weekly MoneySaving e-mail.

• Get youth hostels at a discount

  For British breaks, the Youth Hostel Association is a decent bet. If you're planning to stay more than five nights a year, consider YHA membership, which saves you paying the non-member supplement of £3 per person per night.

  If you've Tesco Clubcard vouchers, you can use these towards annual memberships and overnight stays.

• University stays outside term time

  Always thought you could have got into Oxford? Well now you can. The fab site University Rooms rents halls of residence rooms left empty during the holidays in a host of UK cities, including London, Oxford and Cambridge, plus a few worldwide. Singles start at about £20 and doubles from £75.

  While it's not the Ritz, many MoneySavers have been pleasantly surprised, and surroundings at Oxford and Cambridge colleges can be stunning. The website Travelstay also lists cheap some university rooms across the UK.

• No-frills hotels in London and Edinburgh from £25

  As long as you've no aversion to orange, Easyhotels is another option. It has pads in London, Luton, Glasgow and Edinburgh, with simple rooms from about £25 a night. Again, the earlier you book, the better the chance of a lower price.

  The no-frills Tune Hotels chain has London rooms from £30 or sometimes less with promos. It’s run on the budget airline model: while it’s clean and does the job, guests pay a few quid extra for towels, TV use and housekeeping.

• Hoxton Hotel for £1

  This chic hotel in London occasionally runs £1 room promotions. Rooms sell out incredibly quickly, but are always in our weekly e-mail so you'll know in advance when to go for it.

• Don't spend Avios points on hotels

  Formerly called Airmiles, Avios is a points scheme like Nectar and Clubcard, earnable in Shell, Tesco and by spending on credit cards.
  
  But think twice before spending Avios points on hotels. In our research we found these gave poor value for points - you're usually better off redeeming on other rewards such as Eurostar or flights. For 30 ways to push to the max, see our Avios points boosting guide.