Difference between revisions of "Temp"

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(→‎Even harder hotels)
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{{Page|article|Save on Booking|Hotwire}}  
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{{seo|description=How to uncover "secret pricing" for hotel rooms that is lower than the "best available rate".}}
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{{Page|article|Home|Save on Booking}}  
  
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Using Hotwire is a great way to save significant amounts of money on hotel rooms. On Hotwire, you are not supposed to know what hotel you are getting, until after you complete your reservation. However, it is usually possible to figure out the exact hotel you are going to get, before you book.  
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{{ImageX|Secret.jpg|full}}
  
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{{ImageX|Sleuth.jpg|full}}
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Many travel websites claim to offer low hotel rates that you can’t find elsewhere. Sometimes, it’s even true.  
  
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{{Main|article}}
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<blockquote>
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=== Easy hotels ===
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“Private deal” websites often offer rates that are far better than what you can find on more conventional travel booking sites or even the hotel’s own website.
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</blockquote>
  
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'''It is extremely easy to uncover the name of many of Hotwire's "secret" hotels'''. When you click on the secret hotel's "What hotel will I get?" button, Hotwire will often show you the name of three possible hotels.  
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For example, you can save $150 per night off a $450 per night hotel room on the beach in Maui, get a $300 New York City hotel room for almost 50% off, or simply shave $50 off a $130 hotel room in downtown San Antonio. Prices consistently beat what is available from major travel websites like Expedia and Hotels.com.  
  
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{{Image|HotwirePossiblities1.png|600}}
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Private Deal discounts vary greatly from hotel to hotel. If you haven’t settled on a specific hotel, you may want to choose a hotel that has a highly-discounted private deal, rather than choosing your hotel first and then seeing if a private deal is available.  
  
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'''Every time you close the possible hotel list and re-open it, Hotwire will show a slightly different list'''.
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{{TOC}}
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*[[#How do these sites work?|How do these sites work?]]
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*[[#goSeek is the best single site to check|goSeek]]
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*[[#Kayak can show private deals, alongside its regular results|Kayak]]
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*[[#SnapTravel sometimes offers better deals, via a messaging user experience|SnapTravel]]
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*[[#Less useful sites|Less useful sites]]
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{{/TOC}}
  
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{{Image|HotwirePossiblities2.png|600}}
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{{Main|article}}
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=== How do these sites work? ===
  
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'''By the time you do it 2-4 times, you will notice that only a single hotel shows up every time'''.  
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Hotels typically control the pricing of their rooms on other websites, so that you’ll see the same “best available rate” on the hotel’s own website, as well as third party websites like Expedia. “Best Rate Guarantees” help keep hotel pricing consistent across the web.
  
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{{Image|HotwirePossiblities3.png|600}}
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<ul class="bulletlist">
  
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In this example, you'll be guaranteed to get the Fairmont Olympic, as it is the only hotel to show up every time the guaranteed list is displayed.
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<li>'''“Membership” based sites don’t have to stick to these standard room prices'''. They are free to kick-back part of their normal commission. Hotels also sometimes allow these companies to offer special promotional rates to more price-conscious shoppers, while maintaining higher rates on the more mainstream sites.</li>
  
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Unfortunately, for some hotels, Hotwire doesn't show a list of three hotels. They only show some potential hotel brands. For those hotels, you'll need to do more work.  
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<li>'''Members-only rates are often fully refundable'''. When you see how low the members-only rates sometimes are, you might expect that they must be non-changeable, non-refundable rates. However, that often isn't true. Make sure to check because it differs on a case-by-case basis.</li>
  
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{{Image|HotwireUnknown.png|600}}
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<li>'''In most cases, if you book from one of these sites, you won’t be able to take advantage of the hotel’s loyalty program'''. Just like when you book on websites like Expedia, you aren’t entitled to your loyalty program benefits and won’t earn any points on your stay.</li>
  
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=== Harder hotels ===
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Sometimes, the "private deals" for a hotel's are only a little bit less expensive than the hotel website's rate. For these hotels, we prefer to book chain hotels directly and participate with the loyalty program; and non-chain sites through some other site to get some sort of bonus points, cash back, or other benefits.
  
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On and off over the last couple of years, Hotwire has been showing the "exact" number of user reviews for each of its hidden hotels and each of its "standard rate" hotels. As a result, you could very quickly uncover the identity of the hotel by simply matching the two listings with the exact same number of reviews (and hotel rating). To make things simpler, you could sort and filter the list, so that the secret hotel listing and the corresponding named hotel were often displayed directly adjacent to each other in the search results.
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<li>'''Each site offers a distinct set of deals—it can be worthwhile to search more than one'''. While there is plenty of overlap, each “Private Deals” website has its own set of discounted rates.</li>
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</ul>
  
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Unfortunately, Hotwire has been limiting the number of hotel results on every search, so that very few "Standard Rate" hotels are included in the results. As a result, you often can't simply locate the named hotel in Hotwire's own search results.
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=== goSeek is the best single site to check ===
  
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'''To find the matching hotels, you'll need to compare the Hotwire hidden hotel listings to the regular listings on another Expedia-family website'''.  
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'''[//goseek.com goSeek] is our single favorite website for finding members-only rates'''. It revolutionized our ability to get find excellent hotel pricing at many hotels.  
  
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For example, here's a potentially interesting listing from our example search in Seattle that unfortunately doesn't show actual hotels when you click "What hotel will I get?".
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goSeek is not a booking site per-se, but a meta-search engine that searches several different private deals websites. In other words, while you can search for members-only hotel deals on goSeek, you’ll book them through a partner website.  
  
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{{Image|HotwireSeattle35.png|600}}
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The site is easy to use and offers less expensive rates on a large number of hotels in a wide range of destinations. It even compares their member-only rates to the regular rates available from several more mainstream travel sites.
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{{Image|GoSeekResult1.png}}
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{{Image|GoSeekResult2.png}}
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{{Image|GoSeekResult3.png}}
  
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In the past (and hopefully in the future), you only needed to find the regular hotel listing on Hotwire for a 3.5 star hotel with a 4.6 rating, and exactly 1,036 user reviews. For the time being, you'll need to find it on another site. $198.
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goSeek offers a premium membership for $20 per year that provides access to even lower rates for some hotels. If you use this site on a semi-regular basis, it is easily worthwhile. However, since goSeek shows everyone when a premium-only rate is available, there is no reason to sign up until the first time you want to take advantage of a premium-only rate.
  
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<ul class="bulletlist">
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=== Kayak can show private deals alongside its regular results ===
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<li>'''Search for hotels on [//www.expedia.com Expedia]''' or another Expedia family site. Search for the same dates and location as you do on Hotwire.</li>
 
  
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<li>'''To make it easy to find the hotel, filter by star rating and sort by guest rating'''. You need to filter or sort by star rating in order to get them to display for each hotel. We suggest filtering by star rating so that you can sort by guest rating.</li>
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'''[//kayak.com Kayak] isn’t as good as goSeek at uncovering private deals, but it has the best members-only offers of any of the mainstream travel sites'''. You can uncover these deals at the same time you are checking the prevailing hotel rates at your destination. Simply by being signed-in to the Kayak website or app, you’ll see “Private Deals” for a handful of hotels alongside the regular results. These rates are often cheaper than you can find anywhere else.  
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In this example, we filter by three (and three-and-a-half) star hotels. If you wanted to match a bunch of hotels, match the 5 star, 4 and 4.5 star, and 3 and 3.5 star hotels as separate groups.  
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{{Image|KayakResult1.png}}
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{{Image|KayakResult2.png}}
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{{Image|ExpediaStar.png|250}}
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  {{Image|KayakResult3.png}}
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Then sort by guest rating and move down the listings until you find the guest rating that corresponds to the hotel. Expedia doesn't always list these strictly by rating, so you might need to check a little above and a little below the main set of hotels with matching ratings.
 
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{{Image|ExpediaSort.png|250}}
 
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<li>'''Look for a hotel that matches the details of the hidden hotel'''. The number of reviews is usually a little higher on the main Expedia site than on Hotwire, but should be close. The actual rating number should match, but there is a small chance it won't, if has moved up or down recently. If there is a crossed-out price on Hotwire, the price on Expedia is almost always exactly $1 or $2 higher.</li>
 
  
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{{Image|Expedia35Results.png}}
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===SnapTravel sometimes offers better deals, via a messaging user experience===
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In our example, you can see that the Embassy Suites Pioneer Square is a good match for the $131 hotel.
 
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</ul>
 
  
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'''Things are a harder in the less common case where Hotwire doesn't show a crossed out price or the number of user reviews'''. In that case, you'll need to more carefully look at the hotel's exact amenities and neighborhood information in order to attempt to uncover the matching hotel.
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We've also found some very good deals through '''[//getsnaptravel.com SnapTravel]'''. In some cases, these deals show up via goSeek. But sometimes, they are inexplicably only available when you access the SnapTravel service directly.
  
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=== Some helpful websites ===
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SnapTravel works via Facebook or text messaging, rather than through a website or app. You send a message to their service and they reply with a link to view their deals. We find that this can be more cumbersome than using the other services. But having access to the additional deals makes it worthwhile.
  
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There are a handful of websites that try to help you identify Hotwire hotels. They can all be helpful, but unfortunately none of them are a completely reliable substitute to the more time-consuming approach described above.  
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{{Image|SnapTravel.jpg}}
  
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<ul class="bulletlist">
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=== Somewhat less useful sites ===
  
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<li>'''[//betterbidding.com Better Bidding]''' is a forum where people provide information about the hotels that they wound up getting on Hotwire. They then compile a list of all the reported hotels for each “type”, “star rating”, and “location”. You can look through this list for matches—the hotel that you are likely to get will usually be listed. However, it won’t always include your hotel, the list of amenities doesn’t always exactly match, and you can’t see some of the other important clues, such as TripAdvisor information. So, while it is probably the best of these options, it isn’t totally reliable.</li>
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'''[//hotels.com Hotels.com]''' heavily advertises their “Your Secret Price” hotels and the discount percentages sometimes seem significant, but the true discount is usually much less than it appears. When you compare their secret prices to the prices available on other mainstream websites, they are often the same or just slightly less expensive. That's great if you are just booking on Hotels.com anyway to take advantage of their reward program. But you can often find much better rates on our favorite secret deal websites.  
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{{Image|BetterBiddingResults.png}}
 
  
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<li>'''[//hoteldealsrevealed.com Hotel Deals Revealed]''' has a list in a more useful format. However, it includes fewer of the possible hotels, because less people are reporting information. It might be easier to figure out the mystery hotel, but it also is more likely that the mystery hotel simply won’t be in the list.</li>
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'''[//club1hotels.com Club 1 Hotels]''' is a fee-based website that claims to give you great wholesale rates. They got a lot of press when they launched via an effective blog-outreach program coupled with “free” charter memberships. We find the site difficult to use, and once you factor in their hidden booking fees, it generally doesn’t offer better rates than what you can find on the free websites mentioned above. The service may improve over time.  
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{{Image|HotelDealsRevealedResults.png}}
 
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</ul>
 
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=== Convenient tools for Priceline Express Deals ===
 
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We generally recommend using Hotwire because they provide essential information about every hotel as part of their website. However, Priceline is also a major player in the “opaque” pricing space (in addition to their famous “name your own price” hotel program).
 
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If you use Priceline, a Chrome browser extension called '''[//chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hotel-canary/akjikdkembhkhceaegjokdpggfcefigk Hotel Canary]''' works to automatically uncover the identity of each hotel.
 
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Once you see a list of the Priceline hotel express deals, you simply press the hotel canary button. Then, when you position your mouse over each hotel, the extension will either identify the probable hotel, or give you a few different likely possibilities.
 
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{{Image|HotelCanaryResults.png}}
 
  
 
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{{Next|hotels 101}}  
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{{Next|Luxury hotels}}
 
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Revision as of 02:05, 12 June 2021

  Home, Save Money on All Your Travel Reservations

Secret.jpg

Many travel websites claim to offer low hotel rates that you can’t find elsewhere. Sometimes, it’s even true.

“Private deal” websites often offer rates that are far better than what you can find on more conventional travel booking sites or even the hotel’s own website.

For example, you can save $150 per night off a $450 per night hotel room on the beach in Maui, get a $300 New York City hotel room for almost 50% off, or simply shave $50 off a $130 hotel room in downtown San Antonio. Prices consistently beat what is available from major travel websites like Expedia and Hotels.com.

Private Deal discounts vary greatly from hotel to hotel. If you haven’t settled on a specific hotel, you may want to choose a hotel that has a highly-discounted private deal, rather than choosing your hotel first and then seeing if a private deal is available.


Jump to


How do these sites work?

Hotels typically control the pricing of their rooms on other websites, so that you’ll see the same “best available rate” on the hotel’s own website, as well as third party websites like Expedia. “Best Rate Guarantees” help keep hotel pricing consistent across the web.

  • “Membership” based sites don’t have to stick to these standard room prices. They are free to kick-back part of their normal commission. Hotels also sometimes allow these companies to offer special promotional rates to more price-conscious shoppers, while maintaining higher rates on the more mainstream sites.
  • Members-only rates are often fully refundable. When you see how low the members-only rates sometimes are, you might expect that they must be non-changeable, non-refundable rates. However, that often isn't true. Make sure to check because it differs on a case-by-case basis.
  • In most cases, if you book from one of these sites, you won’t be able to take advantage of the hotel’s loyalty program. Just like when you book on websites like Expedia, you aren’t entitled to your loyalty program benefits and won’t earn any points on your stay.

    • Sometimes, the "private deals" for a hotel's are only a little bit less expensive than the hotel website's rate. For these hotels, we prefer to book chain hotels directly and participate with the loyalty program; and non-chain sites through some other site to get some sort of bonus points, cash back, or other benefits.

  • Each site offers a distinct set of deals—it can be worthwhile to search more than one. While there is plenty of overlap, each “Private Deals” website has its own set of discounted rates.

goSeek is the best single site to check

goSeek is our single favorite website for finding members-only rates. It revolutionized our ability to get find excellent hotel pricing at many hotels.

goSeek is not a booking site per-se, but a meta-search engine that searches several different private deals websites. In other words, while you can search for members-only hotel deals on goSeek, you’ll book them through a partner website.

The site is easy to use and offers less expensive rates on a large number of hotels in a wide range of destinations. It even compares their member-only rates to the regular rates available from several more mainstream travel sites.

GoSeekResult1.png
GoSeekResult2.png
GoSeekResult3.png

goSeek offers a premium membership for $20 per year that provides access to even lower rates for some hotels. If you use this site on a semi-regular basis, it is easily worthwhile. However, since goSeek shows everyone when a premium-only rate is available, there is no reason to sign up until the first time you want to take advantage of a premium-only rate.

Kayak can show private deals alongside its regular results

Kayak isn’t as good as goSeek at uncovering private deals, but it has the best members-only offers of any of the mainstream travel sites. You can uncover these deals at the same time you are checking the prevailing hotel rates at your destination. Simply by being signed-in to the Kayak website or app, you’ll see “Private Deals” for a handful of hotels alongside the regular results. These rates are often cheaper than you can find anywhere else.

KayakResult1.png
KayakResult2.png
KayakResult3.png

SnapTravel sometimes offers better deals, via a messaging user experience

We've also found some very good deals through SnapTravel. In some cases, these deals show up via goSeek. But sometimes, they are inexplicably only available when you access the SnapTravel service directly.

SnapTravel works via Facebook or text messaging, rather than through a website or app. You send a message to their service and they reply with a link to view their deals. We find that this can be more cumbersome than using the other services. But having access to the additional deals makes it worthwhile.

SnapTravel.jpg

Somewhat less useful sites

Hotels.com heavily advertises their “Your Secret Price” hotels and the discount percentages sometimes seem significant, but the true discount is usually much less than it appears. When you compare their secret prices to the prices available on other mainstream websites, they are often the same or just slightly less expensive. That's great if you are just booking on Hotels.com anyway to take advantage of their reward program. But you can often find much better rates on our favorite secret deal websites.

Club 1 Hotels is a fee-based website that claims to give you great wholesale rates. They got a lot of press when they launched via an effective blog-outreach program coupled with “free” charter memberships. We find the site difficult to use, and once you factor in their hidden booking fees, it generally doesn’t offer better rates than what you can find on the free websites mentioned above. The service may improve over time.




Hotel.jpg
Hotels 101: Get the Best Deal on Your Hotel Room
Hotwire.jpg
Get a Great Hotel Rate with Hotwire (and Other 'Opaque' Booking Tools)
ChaseLuxury.jpg
Take Advantage of Luxury Hotel Programs for Valuable Extra Perks
Send comments or suggestions to editor@travelstrategies.com or leave a comment below.



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