How to book a hotel on booking - step by step instructions. How to book a hotel on booking step by step instructions How to book a hotel on booking
Anyone who goes on an independent trip or even a short-term trip to another country or another city is faced with the problem of finding a hotel to stay or overnight. And if book a hotel yourself ten years ago it was quite difficult, but today, thanks to the widespread availability of the Internet and the general development of high technologies, this procedure does not present any particular difficulties. And the methods described below, which have been repeatedly tested on personal experience, not only answer the question "How to book a hotel on your own", but also allow you to save a considerable amount of money.
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Why is it better to book a hotel yourself
Today, it makes no sense to contact any travel company in order to book a hotel in the city you need. Why pay for the services of an intermediary when you can easily and easily do everything yourself? Moreover, intermediaries can charge both a fixed amount for finding and booking a hotel for you, and a certain percentage of the cost of living in the selected hotel. In the latter case, travel agencies are interested in you choosing a more expensive hotel, because their income directly depends on this.
Therefore, it is better to exclude this option right away and book the hotel yourself. And for this today there are three options, which I will tell you about in detail: booking a room on the hotel website; booking using the hotel reservation system and searching for a hotel at the best price using a special service - metasearch. Each of these options has some distinctive features, advantages and disadvantages, but first things first.
Self-booking a room on the hotel website
The easiest way if you know exactly which hotel you want to stay in during your trip. For example, you have already lived in this hotel before, or someone from your friends lived there and recommended this hotel to you. It is not difficult to book a hotel on your own, provided that you know the address of its official website (and finding the latter on the Internet is not a problem). True, it is still desirable to have basic knowledge of English, but there, in principle, everything is clear by logic. You can use the Google Chrome browser, which translates pages into Russian automatically or upon request. 
Above, I give as an example the booking form for the Jasmine Hotel Pattaya, where I stayed part of the time (5 nights) during my last visit to Thailand. On the "Booking form" website page (often this form is located on the main page of hotel websites), select the dates you need (check-in and check-out) from the calendar, choose the room type, number of rooms, arrival and departure dates. In order to see the cost, it was necessary to click on the "Calculate" button. If everything suits you, you can click "Book this Room". It remains to enter your data in the required fields, agree with the rules (put a tick in the appropriate box) and confirm the booking.
These columns may differ slightly on different sites: for example, they can be immediately located on the same page, but the principle of booking is just as simple. However, there are some nuances. And if the hotel described here does not need a prepayment at all (to confirm the reservation, it is enough to send an e-mail 24 hours before arrival, in which to write in words that you will definitely arrive), then many hotels immediately require a deposit, for which you need to enter bank data card on which the required amount will be blocked.
Also, the disadvantages of this method include the fact that the cost directly on the hotel's website is often higher than when booking the same room through a special service, for which the hotel often provides a special discount. However, the price can be lower, so you should check all the options if you really want to save money. In principle, you can book a hotel yourself using this method, but it takes a lot of time. Especially in a situation where you do not know exactly which hotel to prefer and choose from many options, repeatedly filling out the forms on each site separately and studying the room prices and the list of additional services that are included in the price of the selected room.
Hotel search through booking systems
In most cases, travelers do not know exactly where they will live and do not know the addresses of the hotel websites. However, they have a clear idea of how much they are willing to pay for an overnight stay and what specific amenities they need. Therefore, it makes sense to use a more progressive method that allows book the hotel yourself. We are talking about the use of popular booking systems that allow you to quickly select a hotel for the required dates in almost any city on the planet. First of all, these are Booking, Agoda, City.Travel, EasyToBook, etc.
This method has many advantages: a huge database of similar services and multiple filters allow satisfying the requests of almost all users. In addition to the city and date, you can choose the type of accommodation and room type, number of stars, distance from the city center or airport, price range, availability of Internet, TV and air conditioning in the room, availability of a pool, laundry, parking or fitness center in the hotel, availability of rooms for guests with pets and for smoking passengers, and other criteria. The search results can be sorted by cost (descending and ascending), popularity, star rating, guest reviews, etc.
Reservations are made in the system after registration or simply entering some of your data. As a rule, the final stage of the booking is entering your bank card details. The booking systems themselves do not charge a commission, and in most cases you have to pay for the hotel in cash upon check-in. However, during the booking process, the money for the room is blocked on the card by the hotel itself until your check-in. If for some reason you did not come to the hotel, the whole amount or part of it as compensation goes to the hotel.
After completing the self-booking of the hotel, the system gives you a booking code, which you can write down on a sheet or print. The specified number remains to be presented at the hotel reception at the time of arrival and pay for the selected room at the price that was indicated in the system at the time of booking. This is important, because with a regular check-in "from the street" the cost of living in a hotel is often higher than when booking using special services or on the hotel's website.
Personally, more than once I had to book a hotel on the Internet, sitting on the sofa in the lobby of the same hotel, because it was much cheaper than just going to the reception and asking for a room. In general, there are only two obvious drawbacks to this method of booking a hotel on your own. Firstly, you cannot be sure that it is in the chosen hotel search engine that you are offered the best price for a specific type of room. Secondly, until now, many hotels, especially in Southeast Asia, are not represented in popular search engines, i.e. remote online booking is possible only on the hotel's website.
How to book a hotel through metasearch
It would seem that the method described above, which makes it easy to book a hotel on your own, has almost only advantages. However, the third method, which I will now talk about, is even more interesting. The essence of this method is to search for hotels not directly through the hotel search engines, which I described above, but using a special metasearch, which allows you to book a hotel you like not only according to the selected criteria, but also at the best price (or under the best conditions). At the initial stage, the selection of hotels through metasearch does not differ from popular search engines, as you can see for yourself by using the hotel search form below for the best price.
You just need to fill in the column "Name of the city or hotel", select the day of check-in, day of check-out, room type and click on the big button "Find". In a few seconds, you will be taken to the results page, where you will be offered hundreds of hotels of various classes and prices. Similarly, in the left column of the page, you can narrow the search range using all kinds of filters based on a variety of criteria (price, star rating, hotel type, services, etc.). It is also very convenient to be able to sort the search results by price, reviews, or the size of the discount, which sometimes exceeds 60%.
However, the most important feature of the service is that it cannot be used to book a hotel, because its main task is to provide an opportunity to compare prices for the same hotel and a certain class of room in a selected hotel in various search engines. Currently, the service compares offers from 32 popular booking systems at once. You just have to choose the one in which the room you like is offered at the best price or with the best conditions. As you can see in the picture below, the cost of one and the same room sometimes differs quite seriously, even if it is booked for just one night. If you plan to stay at the hotel for a week, you can save a lot when booking in the "right place".
I draw your attention to the fact that initially the service shows in the results several types of rooms and the price, which is the lowest for this type of room in one of the booking systems. In order to consider all the options, you need to click on the name of the hotel, and on the page that opens, click on the big "Plus sign" next to one of the types of rooms in the hotel. After that, all the options will be revealed, among which you can choose not only by price, but also by some additional conditions.
For example, in the screenshot below, the cost of staying in a Superior Bungalow ranges from $ 34 to $ 35 when using various booking services. On the one hand, $ 1 is not that large sum, so you can simply choose a service that is more convenient for you, for example, Booking. However, a careful study of the description of the conditions gives an idea that in some cases breakfast is included in the price of accommodation, and in some it is paid separately (for this class of hotels it is usually about $ 5). 
On the same screenshot, you can see that a standard room without breakfast can be booked for a similar cost. For me personally, the choice between a superior bungalow at a lower price with breakfast and a standard room without breakfast at a higher price is obvious. I suspect that many of the readers are currently struck by the thought: you just need to choose a booking system in which the lowest prices and the most Better conditions and look for hotels only in it. I also once thought so, but practice has shown that the idea is unsuccessful. Those. One hotel is best booked through Booking, while another hotel or room of a different class is much more profitable to book through Agoda. And if you choose another hotel, it turns out that these named booking systems cannot compete with EasyToBook, which on the date you need provides a 40% discount on accommodation in this hotel.
This is the significant advantage of metasearch: you can always quickly compare where it is better book a hotel yourself... At the same time, metasearch is completely free for you, i.e. the cost of a room for a direct search on a specific service will be the same. Another advantage of metasearch is the ability to study hotel reviews in several booking systems at once. You can do this at the bottom of the page that opens after you click on the name of the hotel you like. Having chosen for yourself a room at the hotel at the best price and with the best conditions, just click next to it on the "Book" button. After that, you can proceed to the booking procedure itself on the service page that opens, which differs little from booking a hotel on its official website.
The best way to book hotels today
Using at one time all three methods of searching for hotels described above, I made sure that the third of them is the most convenient and practical. All my friends and acquaintances who at one time learned about the service from me or from other sources were convinced of this. It is this service that allows you to book a hotel yourself via the Internet and guarantees that the option you choose will be the most affordable or offers the best conditions for living at the same price. In order to finally understand the possibilities and advantages of the service, I recommend that you practice using it in advance (of course, without paying for rooms, if you are not going to rest yet). Then the moment you really want to book a room at the best price using the described metasearch, you will not have any difficulties.
The article, which I highly recommend reading, tells about a number of important nuances that will allow you to quickly find the most successful accommodation options at the lowest price per hotel room during your vacation or business trips. I hope the information from this voluminous article was useful for you and now you know exactly how to book a hotel on your own and, most importantly, know how to do it in practice. And if you still have questions - write in the comments, I will try to answer promptly.
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When organizing an independent trip, the main thing is buying cheap plane tickets and booking hotels. In most cases, your vacation experience depends on the right place of residence. By the way, you can use the services of booking site. In this publication I will tell you how to reserve a hotel on your own, what problems may arise and how you can save money.
There are 4 key ways you can rent a hotel yourself:
Reservation of hotels directly on the hotel resource or by phone.
Search for housing on the spot.
Search for a hotel through online booking systems.
Accommodation search through hotel aggregators
Let's consider in more detail any of these options.
Reservation of hotel rooms on the official website or by phone
Not all small megalopolises have reached progress and location on the same booking. You can find hotels in the required city through search systems, catalogs, Yandex and Google maps. We will find out the address of the hotel, its phone number and website, if any. Then we contact the hotel administrator by email, phone or book on the official website if there is a booking form there. Such a search for a hotel is long and difficult. You will have to review many hotels and spend a lot of time before you can find the right one. We use this method only in small towns, where few hotels are available in booking systems, or during times of mass demand, when booking shows that 99% of hotels have already been booked, and what is left is too expensive. There is always hope, and all of a sudden it will come out to find something better.
Search for accommodation on site
This method consists in the fact that you go to the resting place and begin to walk around or go around the beautiful resort on your own, asking the local inhabitants for rent. This method may be suitable if you are traveling for a long time. Then there is an opportunity to rent more affordable and bargain for a discount. With the usual rest for 1-2 weeks, the method is ineffective. You will spend a lot of time, but you will not be able to save cash. Moreover, the found housing should be checked first of all on the Internet. Some hotels call high room rates without prior booking.
What is a hotel reservation system
A hotel reservation system is a website where any tourist has the opportunity to reserve a hotel. Speaking in ordinary words, it is an online database of hotels all over the world. They contain all the conditions for good booking and a virtual assessment of the upcoming recreation area. For example, in order not to scroll through hundreds of hotels, you can set a filter by cost, by star rating, by the presence of some special conditions. All booking systems have a couple of photos of each hotel, which you can personally assess the place. Some sites offer the ability to leave reviews about the places where the traveler has lived. Before booking, it is better to read such reviews and evaluate in the complex what the vacationers liked and what they didn’t.
Updated: 2019-3-13
Oleg Lazhechnikov
86The most important thing to start planning an independent trip is buying tickets and booking accommodation. Tickets are a separate topic. Now let's figure out where to start and how to properly book online accommodation for your trip, be it a hotel (hotel), guesthouse (guest house) or hostel. Now there are many booking systems (such as Booking, Agoda, etc.) and services (for example), on which you can search for hotels and compare prices for it in different booking systems.
First, everything is in detail. At the very end of the post, I will tell you how I book hotels myself, in what order.
What do you need
To book a hotel on your own, you need a little time and three simple things that most already have:
- Access to the Internet. Now it is almost everywhere: home, mobile, in cafes, shopping centers, hotels, etc.
- Bank card (debit or credit) Mastercard, Visa or similar. You need to do it in advance, before the trip, in your hometown.
- Email. Its address must be indicated when booking, there you will receive a confirmation email and a booking code.
By the way, some systems now allow you to book a hotel without a card.
What is a booking system
A booking system is a website that allows you to book a hotel; in fact, it is a database of hotels around the world. Hotels themselves are added to it in order to be able to rent out their rooms via the Internet. Booking systems do not charge users a commission for using its database, but receive money directly from the hotel. That is, as a rule, the cost of living in a room via the Internet or on the spot (at the reception) does not change for you. But it all depends on a particular hotel, because it is he who sets these prices, for example, he can carry out a promotion that when booking in advance you will receive a discount (and there will be no discount on the spot).
In any booking system, you can select hotels according to different criteria - country, city, dates, number of people, availability of certain services. Payment is made by bank card (). After payment to you on email an email will come with your booking details (booking confirmation).
Which booking system should you choose? There are no clear-cut rules, a matter of habit, one interface is clear to some, another to others. However, the number of hotels in different countries in the booking systems is different. Therefore, there is such an unspoken rule: there is more choice of Asian hotels, and more suitable for Europe and Russia.
List of hotel reservation systems
The most popular booking systems:, Islet, Hotels.com, Expedia.com. There are also booking systems specializing in hostels, but now Booking and Agoda have become very large services, and they have hostels, apartments, and even houses with villas.
And here are my instructions for each service:
You can search for hotels in different booking systems and compare the results. Somewhere the interface is more convenient, but somewhere there is a larger database of hotels. Therefore, it is best to use Hotel search engines who are looking for all the booking systems at once. In fact, these services do most of the work for you. More about them below.
Apartment booking system
I want to make Airbnb a separate item. This is a service that offers private accommodation. Most of them are apartments, rooms in apartments or even houses of local residents. This service helps homeowners earn money by acting as an intermediary between them and you. By the way, you can also rent out your apartment for daily rent in this way, if you wish (anyone can participate).
If you are not yet familiar with the service, then be sure to read about it, which explains what it is, how to register correctly, how to book accommodation, etc.
So, Airbnb has some really cool options that are primarily interesting for families with children and companies of several people. Because often the apartment can accommodate not two people, but 4-6 or more. And with this approach (you usually pay for all accommodation at once) it comes out several times cheaper than in a hotel. Indeed, the hotel would have had to take several rooms for such a number of people. Moreover, living conditions in an apartment can be much better than in a hotel. For example, most apartments have kitchens, many also have Washer... These are very relevant points when traveling with children.
What are hotel search engines
The hotel search engine is a service where you can search for hotels in all popular booking systems at the same time. That is, such a service looks for the hotels you need right away, both in Booking, and in Agoda, and on Ostrovka, and in other systems. Manually would be tortured to sort out them. Hotel search engines are also called aggregators, metasearch engines. In fact, this is a kind of hotel Google.
How does this happen? You just also set the search criteria you need (country, city, dates, room services) and the search engine gives you the results - a list of hotels. And then, having selected a specific hotel, you will see the cost of living in this hotel in various booking systems (Booking, Agoda, Ostrovok, etc.), that is, you have the opportunity to compare and choose. When you make your choice, the search engine will redirect you to the website of the selected booking system, where you will make your hotel reservation. That is, the search engine itself does not sell anything, it only searches. There are no additional or hidden fees. The principle of operation resembles those already familiar to everyone. You can read more about services in my instructions:
One of the best, in my opinion, hotel search engines is. It has very good integration with Booking and other systems, it has everything necessary filters, the hotel's rating is shown immediately. I also personally like the display of hotels on the map, as I often look for accommodation in a particular place. And when you move the map, the hotels are shown throughout the entire territory, even if initially I indicated a different city in the search. Thus, it is easy to find hotels between cities or on specific beaches without even knowing their names. You can try searching yourself through the form below.
Book a hotel in advance or search locally
Local search is more relevant for inexpensive Asian countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and where there are many small hotels at every turn. But in Hong Kong, Singapore, or Europe it is cheaper and easier to book everything in advance. However, I still prefer, whenever possible (when I know the exact dates) to book everything in advance so as not to waste my time searching, there are all the tools for this, it is foolish to ignore modern technologies.
- By booking in advance, you will be sure to have an overnight stay on arrival. You can fine-tune and plan the entire trip at once and, thus, the likelihood of getting out of schedule is minimal. This is especially true if you go to a popular place during the season, you can just stay on the street and not find empty seats.
- Again during preparation, you can read real reviews from guests in booking systems and take into account all your wishes: distance to the beach, air conditioning, pool, WiFi, etc. On the spot, you will have to go to all the hotels in a row and ask what is available, and it will also not be entirely clear what the service is, not asking people on the street.
- The most important thing in booking in advance is to save time and energy. The fact is that searching on the spot is far from a romantic activity, and not everyone will like spending even 1-2 hours walking around various hotels in the heat and after a long flight. No, of course, if you have come for several months and you need to carefully select accommodation for this period, then this may be justified.
- It often happens that the prices when booking online are lower than directly on the spot. I remember that I made a reservation right at the hotel reception (it was almost 2 times cheaper), no matter how strange it may sound.
- When obtaining a visa, printouts from the booking system may be required to confirm that you have a place to live. For example, the consulate of France (and many other European countries) accepts printouts from
Some nuances when booking
- Specify the check-in time (usually around 2 pm) and check-out time (around 12 noon). Some hotels are very strict with this and may charge you one more day if you are late. You also need to understand that if you come earlier, the hotel will be able to accommodate you only if it has such an opportunity, otherwise you will wait.
- Check the opening hours of the reception, otherwise, if you arrive late in the evening or at night, you can come to the closed doors.
- The withdrawal of money for a hotel or the possibility of booking a hotel without payment (with payment upon arrival) depends entirely on the particular hotel and its policy.
- Please read the cancellation policy carefully, especially if there is a possibility that you will need to cancel your reservation. Usually, a reservation without any penalty can be canceled some time before arrival. In some cases (for example, there was a special offer), the reservation is not canceled and the money is not returned. All this is indicated on the page of a particular hotel. Also, in case of no arrival, they may begin to write off money for accommodation.
- Sometimes it is possible to book a hotel not only without prepayment, but even without specifying bank card details. Of course, you can score and not cancel your reservation later, but I would not recommend doing that, there is a risk of being fined (the cost of one night). Alternatively, you can register a new account every time, but IMHO it's easier not to bring it up to this.
- If the type of bed is very important (a large double or two singles), it makes sense to contact the hotel or at least read the reviews, since it is not always clear what is meant in the room description. Although personally, I have never encountered problems.
- It is best to always have a printout of the hotel reservation (voucher) with you or a file with it on your phone to display on the screen. But usually it is enough just to give the last name or the booking number.
How do I book hotels and life hack
Life hack for those who are used to. Search for a hotel on your usual Booking, copy its name and paste it into the search box for the dates you need. Thus, you will find out if the hotel is offered at a cheaper price, for example, in Agoda, Ostrovka and others.
With a little use of various sites, both booking systems and search engines, you yourself will figure it out. There is nothing difficult in finding and paying for a hotel or guesthouse. I am looking for housing in the following sequence:
In Thailand, if I don't know exactly when and where I'm going to stay (for example, I'm going 800 km by car), then I'm looking for accommodation right in the direction of the service. But again, not without the help of services. I have mobile app from Hotellook (Android, iOS, Windows Phone), the convenience of which is that it can show hotels right next to your location. Sometimes it is enough to walk 100-200 meters and there will be the desired hotel. Actually, these are not all the possibilities, there you can search and book hotels in advance, which I also do.
But in general, it is better to book in advance, at the peak of the season in Tae it happens that all suitable hotels on the day of contact are already completely occupied and you have to settle in where, in other situations, you would not.
P.S. Add if you forgot something :)
Life hack 1 - how to buy good insurance
It is unrealistically difficult to choose insurance now, so I am making a rating to help all travelers. To do this, I constantly monitor forums, study insurance contracts and use insurance myself.
Lifehack 2 - how to find a hotel 20% cheaper
Thanks for reading
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Comments (86)
Oleg Lazhechnikov
Natalia
- Firstly, by booking a hotel on Booking and in other systems, you get a defender of your interests in the person of this service. You will have a document (reservation) confirming your reservation and all its conditions, including the final amount. And if suddenly the hotel administration will offer you another, worse number, you just call (even just threaten it) to the service where you made the reservation, and the hotel will be required to fulfill its obligations.
- Secondly, reservation systems and services for finding cheap hotels allow you to compare many hotels, find out reviews about them, and thus choose the best one.
- Thirdly, very often the hotel offers tourists who contact it directly, booking rooms at an inflated price. When a hotel places its ad on booking systems, it tries to keep the cost as low as possible due to the great competition. Indeed, in the booking services there are dozens, hundreds and sometimes thousands of hotels in one city - you need to stand out and make the best offer to the client.
- Internet access
- Plastic card Visa, Mastercard or similar.
- You will find the most suitable holiday accommodation option
- The service is absolutely free, and in many cases it even provides large discounts on accommodation (with some companies, RoomGuru has direct agreements on discounts, i.e. if you booked a room already at the reception (without RoomGuru, upon arrival at the resting place) , you would pay 10-20% more than using this service).
- The service finds hotels with the most low prices and with the highest level of comfort
- Each hotel on the site has a description, a photo, a list of what is in the room, and most importantly, there are reviews that are written by people who have already rested in this place.
- The service itself has received millions of positive reviews from travelers from all over the world.
- With the money saved, you can buy more sweets on vacation and get better :)
- Choose hotels with a rating above 7
- Read reviews carefully
- If you want to save money, then choose housing further from the city center and popular beaches
- If you want to save money, then book a room a few months before the arrival date, in which case the prices are much lower than usual
- Read the list of what is in the room
- Read the cancellation policy
- It will be cheaper to book a room with full prepayment than paying upon check-in
- If you book a standard room at the hotel in the evening (after 17:00) on the day of arrival, then upon check-in they almost always offer a more comfortable room (for example, a suite). This is due to the fact that standard, which means inexpensive rooms are in the greatest demand and often they are all booked, and expensive rooms are rarely booked, so more comfortable rooms are offered to those who book them late, because the cost of service is both standard and deluxe. the hotel is the same.
- If you consider yourself a person who can insist on his own anywhere, then you can use the following trick: when booking, indicate what you need for smokers, and upon check-in, insist that there was an error and you need a non-smoking room, then you will be given more comfortable room, but on condition that you check in in the evening.
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10 tips for those who want to book a hotel room cheaply. How to find the best price and specials? In which system to make a reservation? Book in advance or search locally? All answers are in this review.
Friends, we have formulated 10 basic principles of finding hotels at the lowest cost. Learn these rules and take into account when planning your vacation! They will help you save money.
In this post, I share my tips on how to book hotels best. on one's own- this is information for those who organize their own trips. If you prefer to relax on a voucher then check out my tips,.
1. Compare prices and save!
You can book a room in the same hotel at different prices. The thing is that different booking systems offer different prices (the reason is different agreements with hotels and the size of the commission). How to find the best price? Fortunately, very simple!
There are special services that compare prices among all the most popular booking systems (such as Booking, Agoda, Ostrovok, Ozon, etc.) and determine where you can book a hotel cheapest. The difference in cost for the same room can be significant: 20%, 30% or more. Why overpay? Let's compare prices in a minute and find Best offer! In addition, each system has its own database of hotels: some are not in one, some are not in the other.
When I'm getting ready for my next trip, my usual hotel search pattern always starts with looking for options on price comparison services. This is the first and foremost thing to do when looking for and booking accommodation!
Example differences in price for a room in the same hotel in different booking systems:
2. Take advantage of promotions and great offers
"Profitable proposition" is one of the filters that can be used on Roomguru. By putting a tick in front of it, we will see all the current promotions that allow you to book a hotel with a significant discount.
For example, a good hotel in the center of Prague can be booked for 4000 rubles instead of 5800 rubles. And renting a villa in a luxurious five-star resort in Phuket is only for 5200 rubles instead of 8000 rubles!
3. Find the best dates
The cost of booking a room at the same hotel on Monday and Saturday can vary greatly. As a rule, prices in hotels are higher on weekends and holidays. Therefore, if you have the opportunity to shift the dates of your trip and stay at the hotel and this allows you to save money, use this.
You can also book a hotel at a lower cost during the low tourist season (for each destination it has its own). For example, the prices for rooms in April and May are almost two times lower than in March - we took advantage of this and perfectly.
4. Book your hotel online
Is it cheaper to look for a hotel locally, without prior booking online? More often than not, no.
You will be surprised (I am also surprised by this fact), but in 90% of cases it will be cheaper to book the same room in the same hotel on the online service than at the reception! The difference is not too big, but still noticeable - usually 10-20%.
There are other disadvantages to finding housing on site. You have to waste time and effort (with a suitcase, in the heat or in the rain, looking for a hotel or a guest house is a dubious pleasure). There is also a risk of getting a pig in a poke: they came and looked, the number seems to fit, and then it turns out that in the evening it is very noisy or the Internet does not work. If you book a room in advance, online, after looking at the reviews of other tourists, such threats are minimized.
I look for hotels on the spot only when I go to the real wilderness, hotels in which are simply not represented on the Internet, in online booking systems. This is what I did when traveling on and. There was no other way out.
5. Book your hotel in advance
The sooner you book a hotel, the better your chances of finding the best hotel, the best room and the best price. Do not neglect this rule, do not be lazy and do not delay! This is especially true for popular destinations and peak dates. For example, in the high season it is quite difficult to book a good hotel at an adequate price in Turkey, Sochi, Crimea, Prague, Paris, Cuba, Cyprus, etc. overpay, and check into mediocre hotels.
6. Find a place where hotels are cheaper
The cost of rooms in hotels depends not only on the star rating, brand, but also on the location.
As a rule, hotels in the very center of the city are the most expensive (although there are exceptions). If there is a need to save money, why not check into a hotel a few kilometers from the center, and get to attractions and places of interest by public transport or on foot? For me, this is even more interesting - you can see the residential areas of the city, and not just the combed and glossy center.
Also, to save money, you can book a hotel even (attention!) In another city. Example from my personal experience: while preparing for the trip to, we made a reservation at the hotel Ibis!} in the suburbs of the capital - Zaandam. The room cost half as much as in hotels in the very center. The hotel itself is modern, clean, nice and comfortable. We spent only 10 minutes walking and 7 minutes on the train to get to the center of Amsterdam. So we got more comfort at a lower price - beauty!
Moreover, it is possible to shift the location in this way when choosing a hotel not only for the sake of economy, but also for pleasure and comfort. If the financial issue is not acute, then, in my opinion, it is better to spend the same amount on accommodation in a good hotel of a higher level and with excellent reviews a couple of kilometers from the center, than to check into a mediocre hotel in the very center with overpriced prices.
7. Choose the best option for the company
If you are traveling with your family, with friends or in another group of people, then look at different types of accommodation to find the best option for comfort and price.
For example, if two married couples are going on vacation, then do not rush to follow the obvious path and book two separate rooms in the hotel. Check alternative options - maybe you can rent a house, villa, apartment with several separate rooms for the same or less money.
Is it difficult to choose the best hotel? Check out ours for popular cities and resorts:,,.
8. Use your All Airlines card
(Photo © Hotel Internazionale Ischia / Flickr.com / CC BY-SA 2.0 License)
9. Is it cheaper to live in a hostel?
If you are traveling alone, then yes, you will save - it is always cheaper than booking an entire room.
Whether you are traveling as a couple, family or with friends, hostel accommodation is rarely financially justified. Often, booking a separate room is no more expensive (sometimes even a little cheaper) than two rooms in a hostel. At the same time, you will get much more comfort.
10. Should I book the hotel directly?
If the hotel has contacts, then you can book the hotel directly. But that doesn't make much sense.
Introductory Image Source: © PortoBay Trade / Flickr.com / CC BY-ND 2.0 License.
It is quite easy to book a hotel on your own, every year more and more tourists and travelers book accommodation on vacation in this way, without resorting to travel agencies, while saving up to 70% of their money. This became possible thanks to the search systems for available rooms in hotels around the world. It is enough to enter the data (city, date of arrival and departure, number of people) into the search and within 5 minutes "stake out" a suitable housing.
What you need for booking
To book a hotel room, you will need:
It is important to note that not all plastic cards are suitable for booking payment. For example, in most cases it will not be possible to pay for a number with a VISA Electron card. We need the so-called "registered" bank cards... How to distinguish a named card from an unnamed card? Yes, simply, your name, surname and the card number itself (sixteen-digit number in the middle of the card) are squeezed out (not printed) on the nameplate.
Where to book
There are a lot of hotels in the world and in order not to search for them “manually” for several hours, you need to use the search engine for available rooms, which in a few seconds will select the most advantageous option for you to stay in the right place. This service scans trusted hotels around the world and provides information about them in a convenient form (like Yandex, which scans the entire site and gives an answer to the request that you entered in the search bar, only RoomGuru specializes in finding accommodation, it is much more convenient for this and provides discounts), and also with its help you can book any room you like in a few minutes.
Pros of booking through RoomGuru
Disadvantages of booking through RoomGuru
Instructions
In order to book a hotel yourself, you need to follow a few steps. And so, in order.
Step # 1. Go and enter the data (Where are you going, arrival date, departure date, number of guests). As an example, I'll take a look at a hotel search (Thailand).
Step # 2. You will be redirected to a search results page, which shows hotels with available rooms according to the parameters that suit you. Also on this page on the left there is a block "Filter by your criteria", thanks to which you can clarify which option will be most suitable. In my example, I need a 3-star hotel with a price from 0 to 2999 rubles and with breakfast included, so I check these boxes in the block on the left.
Step # 3. After setting all the filters you need in the block on the left, you will see only those options that fit the selected parameters. Now your task is to choose the most suitable hotel, preferably with a rating higher than 7, because this suggests that it is quite comfortable here, the staff cares about their customers, and the food is delicious (in general terms). To view reviews, photos, descriptions, just click on the hotel name.
Step # 4. After you have chosen a suitable hotel, you need to book it. To do this, simply click on the "Book" button next to the preferred accommodation option.
Step # 5. You will be redirected to the website of the RoomGuru partner (do not forget that this service is looking for hotels, but you need to book them on another website). Depending on the partner site, the interface is different, but the procedure is similar for almost everyone. Press the "Book" button already on the partner's website.
You will be taken to a page with detailed description... Choose the required number of rooms (usually 1) and click on the "Book" button (the interface is different on different sites).
Step 6. Now you need to enter the data for booking (name, surname, e-mail, password, number of guests in the room, registration address and payment information). Read the terms of payment carefully, in some cases the money is debited from the card immediately, and in some it is debited only upon check-in. After entering the data, click on the "Book" button.
That's all, you have booked the hotel yourself. An electronic booking confirmation will be sent to your e-mail, print it out before departure, because some hotels require this very confirmation.
Two nice "tricks" of booking
There are some tricks that experienced travelers use, even if you are not, then this will not prevent you from using these techniques to improve your conditions on vacation for free, however, they do not always work, only 70 percent, but still better try, it doesn't cost money to try.
That's all. Now you shouldn't have a question of how to book a hotel yourself. Travel and enjoy life.