Updated September 2008 Travel Toolbox Score A Cheaper Hotel Room 9 sites for savvy hotel shopping Courtesy, Flickr Knowing how to nab a good hotel rate is a nifty life skill for every traveler. But nobody appreciates saving a few hundred dollars more than a parent planning a family trip, especially this summer. According to a half-dozen surveys, more than half of American families will be scaling back on their vacation plans this year. The good news? Savvy hotel shopping isn’t rocket science. Anyone can pick it up in 20 minutes. Shopping online for a great hotel rate is a lot like searching for a super airfare. No single booking site delivers the lowest hotel price each and every time. Fortunately, booking a hotel is more straightforward than booking a flight. Since hotel room prices don’t fluctuate as much as airfares do, there’s no guessing game about when to buy. To find the best price, you need to arm yourself with information and then do some talking. Scenario A: You’ve picked a hotel Step 1: Get a feel for price. Just like when you shop for airline tickets (see 19 Sites For Savvier Air Travel), it makes sense to start with the Big Three booking sites when you compare hotel prices to get a feel for what a decent price looks like. Orbitz, Expedia, and Travelocity are so competitive that their lowest quotes are often within just a few dollars of each other. Step 2: Go to the aggregators. Aggregators use metasearch technology to mine from a deep well of sources—major booking engines, hotel sites, travel operators, lodging consolidators, you name it— to find the best rates. In our experience, the most reliable hotel aggregator for lodging in the US and Canada is Hotels.com. Step 3: Visit the hotel’s web site. It always pays to compare prices from the booking engines and aggregators to the hotel’s own web site. Some hotels guarantee that their online rates are the lowest you’ll find. (But it pays to be cynical. We occasionally see lower prices at non-hotel booking sites, even when a hotel has such a “lowest price” guarantee.) All prices being equal, it’s best to book directly with the hotel and avoid service charges. Step 4: Call the hotel and ask the right questions. You’ve already visited the web site, so why call? Because negotiating is a crucial last step that works more often than you’d think. If you are willing to haggle with hotel staff, you can often score a rate reduction, room upgrade, or other perk. When a hotel isn’t fully booked, reservationists are often empowered to beat any other rate—even its own online rate. To bargain effectively, you must be armed with the information you’ve gathered online. The conversation is like a dance. You ask how much it costs to stay in a particular category of room. The reservationist gives you the rack rate. Next, you ask three key questions: “Is that the very best price you can offer?” One of two things is going to happen. The reservationist might hold firm and tell you that’s the best she can do. If you’ve seen a better offer on the web, say so. Very often, this works like a magic password. We’ve seen reservationists shave as much as $40 off their initial offer, simply because we’d done our homework. Like Grandma always said, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” “Do you have any special packages for families?” There might be a great deal for families that you missed online, or an unadvertised special that the reservationist is empowered to offer. Family packages sometimes include a discount on a second guestroom, free kid’s meals, comped passes to a local attraction, free pizza and a movie, or a combination of these elements. “Can you throw in some free perks?” Understand that, while hotels are loathe to lower rates, they are often empowered to offer “soft” sweeteners such as a free breakfast, in-room movie rental, or resort credit to be used to purchase on-site amenities and services. Scenario B: You’re flexible about brand Two leading discount brokers, Hotwire and Priceline, are known as “opaque” booking sites. They can deliver some of the best hotel deals on the web, but there’s one big catch: Neither one will tell you which hotel you’ve got until after you’ve paid. Instead, you approve some basic parameters—general description, neighborhood, level of luxury—and they come up with hotels that match your criteria. If you’re willing to relinquish control over brand and book “blind,” you can be rewarded with a terrific hotel at a great price. Scenario C: You need a specialist Want a fab rate at a hip, boutique city hotel? The name to know is Quikbook. Unlike most booking sites, Quikbook only sells hotel rooms—not flights, car rentals, cruises, or packages—and it specializes in very stylish urban digs. We love how you pay nothing until checkout. And Quikbook guarantees that its price will still be the lowest 72 hours after booking—two days longer than the typical 24-hour promise you see at other booking sites. What tops our dream list of once-in-a-lifetime travel experiences? A night in the Old Faithful Inn, in Yellowstone National Park. No, wait—make it a weekend at the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, which boasts mindblowing views overlooking the north rim of the giant abyss. To reserve a room at either of these national treasures, you need to go through Xanterra, the nation’s largest operator of park-based hotels and restaurants. This is a particularly useful site for planning a summer or two ahead, since the most popular lodges can get sold out that far in advance. Most pet-oriented travel sites make our fur stand up. Behind every cutesy name lurks a computer-generated list of hotels whose managers simply ticked the survey box that says “pets accepted.” More often than not, reviews have been lifted from a mainstream travel site and don’t even mention pets. So where can you find some genuine doggie love? At PetsWelcome.com, whose “Lodgings Listings” section is segmented into more than 15 categories, from B&Bs and hotel chains to vacation rentals, ski resorts, and campgrounds. You can also narrow your search to find establishments that accept larger dogs (75+ lbs) and cats. We love the “Search By Route” tool. You type in your starting point and destination, and the site pulls up a map flagged with pet-friendly lodgings along the way. If we had tails, they’d be wagging. What travel-planning resources do you rely on? Please tell us. More family trip-planning advice: 6 Genius Travel Buys 6 Planning Powertools 19 Sites For Savvier Air Travel 8 Sites For Better Road Trips 21 Sites For Young Travelers