Liberated Traveler Series #3 - Hotels

TWiBT Presents
Liberated Traveler Series – Hotels
Chapter 3

 

Be sure to read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the Liberated Traveler Series to help yourself get started.

 

Last summer, I took a road trip from Miami to Montreal for an entire summer.  Aside from visiting a few friends, we stayed in hotels a majority of the time.  Every single hotel we stayed at was rated as a 4-star hotel, yet we never paid more than $40 per night at a hotel.  Although this is already a pretty good deal, this post is going to show you how to obtain that and possibly do better for yourselves.  There are many different ways to find accommodations to stay at when you travel and you don’t need to break the bank.  This post will explain some of the methods in detail.  This chapter will cover the most common form of travel accommodations, hotels.

First off, hotels will usually be one of the more expensive options, so if you are on a super tight budget, just read on.  In order to get a really good deal, you will sometimes need to be flexible.  Let’s talk about your options.

 

-Hotel Points.  Just like frequent flyer miles to airlines, hotel points allow you to stay at many properties in a given hotel chain for free.  Personally, I don’t value hotel points nearly as much as frequent flyer miles.  Its not that they are worth so much less than frequent flyer miles, but rather I have an easy enough time finding accommodations that suit my style of travel for really cheap.  On the other hand, if you’re planning to stay at ultra-luxury resorts and get room upgrades, you’ll definitely want to consider getting a credit card that has affiliations and bonuses with a hotel chain you’re interested in.  As a side note, I do keep my American Express Platinum card for upgrades in Starwood Hotels.

 

-Search Sites.  Travelocity, Orbitz, Experia, Priceline, where to start!?  While many of the popular travel sites turn up the same results, some other sites like Kayak and Momondo scour a variety of travel search sites and give you the results.  Although I don’t often book through them, it gives me a good scope of what hotels in a particular area cost.  You might even find a good enough deal just on these sites alone.

 

-Priceline “Name Your Own Price” Feature.  At Priceline.com, you can search for hotels listings OR you can use the NYOP (Name Your Own Price) Feature.  How the NYOP feature works is that you type in how much money you are willing to spend (they recommend 50% off of the average price), select a few geographic regions in or around your city, and you wait to see if a hotel accepts it.  Your results are usually given to you within a minute or so.  If a hotel accepts, you are automatically booked and charged, so don’t play around with it unless you are serious about getting a hotel.  If your bid is not accepted, you either need to change some aspect of your original bid or wait 24 hours to try again.  You can use sites like BiddingForTravel.com, BetterBidding.com, or BiddingTraveler.com to actually see what other people have bid so you can learn what to bid from their results.

These are the basics of booking a hotel with a decent discount.  You must also consider being flexible.  For example, if you go to New York.  You will most likely get a much better price if you stay outside of Manhattan.  Last time I went, I stayed at a 3-star hotel in Queens for about $43 per night.  The hotel was barely one street away from the metro station, where I'd take the subway to all points in Manhattan.  Make use of public transit, it'll save you a ton of money.  Use sites like HopStop or Google Maps to help you find out routes to use public transit!  Other times, I've stayed in airport hotels which often have free shuttles to the city center.  Be Flexible!

The next chapter of the liberated traveler series will focus on alternative methods of accommodations that can save you even more money!

 

-Jason of TWiBT