So there I am at my house on a Saturday night and everyone has gone to sleep. It is 11:00pm and as I click on channel after channel I come to the conclusion that there isn’t anything good on TV. I walk over to the computer and begin to go on a few websites. I remember the past few business trips I have been on the flights haven’t been crowded and the hotels seem to have lots of empty rooms. Clearly the economy is affecting them dramatically. Since that is the case there must be great deals at hotels.
With that thought in mind, I reviewed all of my upcoming trips that involved hotels. There were six of them in five different cities. After checking the first one, I noticed that the company website–not Orbits or Priceline–had lower rates than I was getting. After cancelling one reservation and rebooking a new reservation, the savings were almost $100.00. Mission accomplished on the first reservation. I won’t bore you with all the details, but I repeated the process five more times and guess what? Each time the same thing happened: I was able to get a lower rate. The total savings on those trips had to exceed $500.00.
To me that savings is huge…especially with all the people we have travel over the course of the year. The amazing thing was it doesn’t take that long to find out if you can get a lower rate and once you do it you get a confirmation email within seconds!
I was amazed and glad there was nothing on TV!
- Have you noticed this trend as well?
- Are you using sites like Priceline more often?
- What are some of your best practices that can save money with regard to travel?
I look forward to reading your comments.
krista joyce says:
Hi Merrill,
Good insight on your behalf here…
Before joining the MR industry – I worked for an investment firm managing their hotel portfolio (several hotels across OR, WA and ID) for a number of years.
I’m well versed w/ the travel industry. Sites like Orbitz, Priceline, Hotels.com are only contracted to buy the “left over” inventory of rooms at any given hotel (whether 5 star or motel 6). Right now – hotels are struggling for occupancy and they have more than enough inventory available that they’re actually loosing money when they give space to these third party reservation engines. They keep their exposure on these sites so that they don’t have to pay huge renewal fees – but you are RIGHT. Going directly to the hotels website to make reservations will get you a much better deal right now.
Airlines deals aren’t as spread out – reports are showing you can still find some good deals on these other sites but only if you’re booking 3 or more months in advance. Otherwise it is best to go directly to your airline for reservations as well.
krista joyce says:
Oh – I fogot a quick tip for everyone to consider…
if you’re traveling to a more corporate based city (where the city primarily gets there tourism from business travel versus leisure/vacation) – you can get HUGE discounts if you can book your trip on a Thursday/Friday (or even weekend – but that’s hard I know). Most corp. driven cities see their occupancy take a big dip on weekends and the way hotel’s performance is evaluated is on an average scale of occupancy all week. So even if they’re full Mon thru Wed – if the later part of the week is down it screws up their ratings (standardized reporting across the industry). These numbers are what the owners/invetsors use to gauge the hotel’s ‘health”…. it’s very important to them.
Anyways – back to the point – Instead of booking your meeting on Tuesday or Wednesday – try to schedule it for a Thursday or Friday (although I know airfare inflates a little still with this pattern but not by too much unless you’re going to Vegas or something…)
Merrill Dubrow says:
Krista,
Good advice for all of us to use.
Thanks for the tips.
Merrill
Steve Gentile says:
Merrill -
I like routine and when I travel away from home, I choose the same hotel in each city more times than not. It is so refreshing to walk in, after a long flight, a long day of research, etc and be greeted with a personalized “Good evening Mr Gentile – how did your research go?” “Welcome, Mr Gentile, how was your flight to Chicago today?” They know my preferences and peevs, my pleasures and pains.
Because of this – I call the hotel directly and always get a fair rate. I guess it’s just the people-person in me but bringing the bellman a Kangol cap from NY because he thought mine was cooler than lake effect snow or buying some flowers for the manager for no reason – that small investment goes a very long way in a person’s world,
Try it – save Priceline for Shattner. And I just found out my childhood neighbor is a pilot for Continental “And we’d like to welcome my childhood friend Steve to this flight!” How cool is THAT?
Merrill Dubrow says:
Steve,
That is really cool. I play softball with a pilot from American Airlines and always look to see if he is on my flight – no luck so far.
Thanks for sharing.
Merrill
Matt Gershner says:
I do this all the time lately and usually save a fortune. For PMRG at the Wynn in Vegas recently, the conference rate (negotiated a year in advance) was $265/night. I had gotten $199/night from the Wynn’s website. I then saw a promotion for $129/night so I changed my reservation.
Not long after that, I received an e-mail giving me one night free (but it upped my nightly rate to $169). I stayed at the Wynn for $340 + tax for 3 nights. My savings were over $450 alone. My co-workers each booked the $129/night. Among the 5 of us we saved over $2k on the conference rate.
Connie Ruben says:
Another thing which I know is not often convenient is to just walk in and get a price. The price will almost always be lower than anything you could get on line or even over the phone. Once you are in their hotel they are not going to let you go. Every hotel has a break even number which is usually around the $60 range. It really comes down to what is cost the hotel to change the room (house cleaning and laundry). The cost of the room (rent/overhead) is there whether they rent it out or not. The advantage to having them give you the room at their break even is they can usually count on you spending money in other areas – room service and restaurant as well as Internet.
This is also true of renting a car. I always rent a car in advance – but when I get to the airport, I ask for the rate and it is almost always lower than the one quoted -even with my “preferred customer status”. Thank fully they let me cancel the one i booked in advance and take the new rate.
Connie
Merrill Dubrow says:
Connie,
That is a GREAT idea – I never have tried that but will for sure. Car rental prices keep going up and up and sometimes are more expensive than the flight.
Appreciate your contribution.
Merrill
janet says:
Just today I saved almost $100 when I rebooked my reservation at the Courtyard New York Manhattan/Times Square South. It works.
Erin Weinland says:
I have found great deals by being persistent and not being afraid to ask for a lower rate. For a cruise that I booked several months ago, I made a reminder to myself to check the rates every 2-3 weeks. Each time I saw the rates fall, I re-contacted the travel agency and asked for a better deal. And every time, they complied! Sometimes they were able to give me a lower rate, sometimes they threw in extra perks for the trip. I ended up saving over $1000!
Bill Priest says:
In checking several rental car company websites for a weekend rental I was surprised in getting the best rate from Hertz (usually one of the most expensive). The catch – full payment in advance. I haven’t noticed this offering before for rental cars, perhaps it’s a new trend (or I’m behind the times), but if your trip is a sure thing this is a good way to save some dollars on a car rental.
Bob Graham says:
We have a corporate website that we are required to use for travel. The website has our corporately negotiated prices as well as any memberships that we choose to enter. Among all of my frequent flyer and hotel rewards number is my AAA number. It never fails, when I enter the information for a hotel stay, the cheapest rate that the website comes up with (it lists a number of rate options) is not the corporate negotiated rate, but the AAA rate. Maybe the corporation should just buy AAA memberships for all of its traveling employees.
Karen Dawson says:
I know prices are crazy these days, but my suggestion Merrill would be to go back to your corporate travel agency and advise them what’s happening. If they’re not willing to call the hotels direct, I’d be glad to. On a similar vein, My recommendation would be to NOT book a cruise online right now, prices are too volatile…and the online booking sources like Travelocity or the cruise line themselves are not going to call you if their prices drop; that’s my job and one of the services I offer. It’s a great time to travel for the consumer, because the deals are surely out there. My other piece of advice would be to buy travel insurance for any personal travel. I just saved a honeymoon couple $ 500 on their hotel stay at the Atlantis because the prices had dropped; had they not bought the insurance they wouldn’t have been eligible for the refund.