In my experience there are not any real secrets in the hotel booking industry. Cross checking the consistent call-to-purchase claims like ‘buy now or price may go up’, ‘secret deal’, ‘web special’, ‘Gold rewards price’ yielded a pretty flat cross platform pricing landscape. And so, after much laborious research, from the vast number of players in the Finding lodging field I consistently use these:
Trivago . It is a meta search platform that includes listings from the major players – Hotels.com, Booking.com, Expedia, as well as a number of the hotel chain sites. It is rather like Qeeq.com is for car rentals. If I am staying in a place for more than a night or two I will use Trivago to click through to the offer that I like. It is not a perfect resource, as I have found that some of the prices and availability vary when I get to the booking provider, but it is pretty reliable, and picks up many providers that I otherwise would not search out. Add Skyscanner’s hotel search tab, and include peer-to-peer options (but check out this AirBnb page for some caveats) if you are so inclined.
Based on the couple of hundred most recent hotel stays I most often end up booking through Booking.com (80%) and Hotels.com (10%). I used to be almost exclusively Hotels.com, but they gutted their rewards program and so are much less attractive. Expedia is getting more of my business now, if the price is right, because of their super straightforward OneKey+ credit card.
A very recent discovery for me has been Super.com. It looks like a super sketchy game site aimed at children. But in 30 bookings this Summer in Europe I found many competitor beating prices, and the promised ‘cash back’ showed up promptly and was only one click away from transferring to my bank account.
Additionally, absolutely take the three minutes to click on Retailmenot and Rakuten. Both sites always have discount codes for the biggest travel aggregators such as Expedia and Booking.com, as well as hotel chains such as IHG. Do not bother to even read the small print on the terms of the specific offer (such as ‘only valid in US’). Click to activate all the coupons, and after a few bookings you will be sure to receive notice that dozens of dollars have been credited to your account. These are relatively small wins, but when so much of my budget is spent on hotels, the 5-12% savings on most bookings, when combined with the daily 7.5% that the right credit card nets me, is very real money.
Premium travel cards always have a few hotel deals in the benefits bundle. Chase’s ‘The Edit’, Amex’s hotel program, Citi Strata, and per stay house credits tend to direct to higher end hotels, but positively throw money at me if I book through their travel portals and are used wisely. Even the non premium cards (United, Delta) have a couple of hundred dollars of hotel credits in the benefits list.
I really dislike the blossoming trend of burying ‘resort fees’ until the last reservation screen (like AirBnb ‘cleaning fees’). These can add $50+/day to the quoted price. Changes in disclosure laws in ‘25 now require many sites to list the total price, including taxes and fees. But there are plenty that still hide surprises until the final pay screen. A recent ugly hotel fight on Heligoland (I expect roughly one per year) reminded me of this truth. A ‘sometimes workaround’ – Set your VPN to Ireland, which requires, in most cases, all fees to be disclosed. Thus you can more easily compare like with like.
I include HostelWorld as they often have interesting spaces (and foreign kids skateboarding in the hallway). Most do not have private rooms, but many do. I have saved a ton of money in some really expensive cities, and the quirky vibe (and the entrancing hostess in Portugal) can spice up a stay.
Very occasionally (a recent stay in Bologna, and one in Aswan, Egypt) I was shut out in my three search engines. Due to big national holidays the cities were booked out of everyplace under $500/night. I had to cast a wider net, using AirBnb for the former, for an atypical short stay. For the latter I used the travel booking service at Chase Sapphire (did I already say that I love this card?). Chase will never find the cheapest place to stay, but they had inventory in a reasonable price range. Similarly, I keep a significant inventory of ‘points’ on my Chase card that I can transfer to Marriott Bonvoy card to give me extra options if in a jamb.
Of course I could have done prior research at Worldwide Holidays to discover that these cities would be sold out, but I am too lazy to do that for the tiny number of times it makes a difference.
About once a year, on a slow day, I will go back to doing a full cross platform price comparison on a couple of searches, just to see if the ranking has changed dramatically (the same way that I annually re-shop for phone service and insurance). In the meantime I feel rather confident that I am booking at competitive prices, and do not fret whether or not I am getting absolutely the best possible deal on every reservation.