The best website for booking hotels for beginners
Introduction
When we got addicted to the travel bug, all our hotel bookings were simply based on finding the lowest price for the hotels that we wanted to stay in. We were indifferent to the source of our booking as long as the price was the lowest. While this strategy looks good on paper, it is not the best. There is a better way.
The Normal Booking process
Most people would use 2 to 3 OTAs (Online Travel Agents) to search for the lowest prices across various hotels. We typically use TripAdvisor.com to view rates across multiple OTAs as they show prices inclusive of all taxes. A sample search for Fairfield Marriott at Amritsar shows the following result
We can see 6 OTAs all showing the same price of INR 4,174 per night. A beginner would typically be agnostic and choose either option and still feel that he got the best deal but not all options are equal.
Hotels.com rewards
Hotels.com has a rewards programme which is free to sign up for all users. You simply need to login before making your reservation.
The Hotels.com reward program is utterly simply. You stay for ten nights and get one night free (You only pay taxes). Consecutive stays for 4 days across a single hotel also count as 4 nights. The value of the free night is a simple average of the fare paid for the ten nights. This is effectively a 10% cash back. In order to keep your collected nights from expiring you need to stay once within a rolling period of 12 months from the last activity date which is a fairly easy requirement.
Redeeming the free nights is also a breeze. While Hotels.com has added a convenience fee of INR 300 for each redemption night, the fee is waived off when using the app.
Transparency
The best thing about this program is how simple it is to understand for everyone and the Hotels.com team has a super slick interface which shows all information at your fingertips. I find them to be much better compared to other programs out there like MakeMyTrip Double Black, Expdia Rewards etc. where returns are not really that great. A 10% cash back is music to our ears.
Their dashboard shows the free nights you have collected along with average value. You also see useful information like due date for expiry of your collected miles (These get rolled over automatically to 1 year from your last stay date). You can also see the details of hotel stays contributing to value of each of the free night.
You can also see the current value of your collected nights as they progress towards the free night. This is super convenient. There is also a dashboard which shows your upcoming stays (Nights are credited in a few days after check out)
As you can see, there is a plethora of information available and the system is simple and works like a charm.
Strategies for maximising value
If you thought 10% was the upper limit of your cash back then you are mistaken. There are some opportunities to double/triple dip and improve the value of your cash back as well. Some of the best ways to stack these offers are not available to us Indians but let me highlight them anyway for anyone else who can make use of these fantastic offers
- 10x bonus with Capital One Venture – These cards give a 10x bonus on all spends on hotels.com using a dedicated link. This takes the cash back to a fairly high 20%+
- Discount Gift Cards – These are gift cards sold online via various agencies like BJs, newegg, mygiftcards etc. These are typically physical gift cards which can be delivered to a US location and hence out of reach. (Do let me know if anyone finds an online one)
Tip #1 – Anyway, for the rest of us, there is still a way to increasing value. We love collecting airline miles and head over to Topcashbackmonitor.com to see which airline travel portals allow us to earn more miles. We have typically found that the BA Avios store offers the best value for Hotels.com. The rate is typically 4 Avois per GBP but was at 12 Avois per GBP during an offer period 2 months ago. The Avios credited are lower in case if you earn hotels.com reward nights (was 5 Avois per GBP in the promotion). The good part is that Avios is one of the most useful miles especially for short distances in Europe.
As you can see we earned 2252 Avios on a booking of 450 GBP. That’s slightly more than half the amount of Avios required to fly from Munich to London at off peak pricing which is great!. BA Shopping portal also sends you a confirmation email like this prior to your stay which makes the whole process more transparent. Assuming we value 1 Avios at INR 1, this is an almost 5% additional cash back taking our total cash back to 15%. This is not bad at all.
Tip #2 – Consolidate your hotel bookings. We are not just talking about you but your family as well. The reward nights are linked to an email id and the name on the reservation can be for anyone. We ensure that all hotels for all family members are booked by us and consolidated in this single account. Its much more easier to track things. Heck, you can offer a 5% cash back to your friends and book their hotels using this method if you really want to stretch it.
No Brainer Circumstances
There are some circumstances where using Hotels.com is a no brainer even for the experienced traveler. Some of these are outlined below
- Booking an independent hotel which is not affiliated to any chain (As you cannot earn hotel points on bookings made via OTAs)
- If you are not loyal to a Hotel brand (Hotel points spread across multiple chains will end up getting expired if you do not put in the effort to track them properly and keep them from expiring)
- If its too difficult for you to track (If you prefer a 10% cash back which is simple to understand over an approach which requires more effort but probably pays back more)
Our experience
While we hold status across multiple Hotel chains, we are still loyal users of Hotels.com for reasons explained above. However, there was one instance which happened around 3 years ago which clinched our loyalty. We had booked a long weekend stay at the Taj Lake Palace in Udaipur which is one of the most luxurious and unique properties in India situated in Lake Pichola. We had booked almost 6 months before for a special occasion and were really looking forward to our visit.
Two weeks prior to our visit, we received a call from Hotels.com stating Taj had cancelled our reservation. While we have had wonderful experiences with Taj properties across India, this one still hurts a bit. Hotels.com wanted to move us to the Leela palace and we simply refused stating that this was a dream holiday for us. We pushed them to get our room back from Taj.
Since Taj was not willing to help, Hotels.com upgraded us to the Oberoi Udaivilas. There was a big wedding in Udaipur during that weekend and both Taj Lake Palace and Oberoi Udaivilas were almost fully booked. We were upgraded to the Premier Rooms with a semi private plunge pool. While the Lake Palace rooms were around INR 25,000 (USD 350) a night, the Udaivilas rooms were almost double the cost. I guess this sort of thing does not happen to everyone but their level of service has kept us loyal to them for the past 5 years and we can gladly recommend their services to everyone.
Conclusion
Hotels.com offers a simple 10% cash back which is easy to understand and use. They have a plethora of properties available for booking and should cover various types of hotels irrespective of your budget. You should definitely check it out the next time you plan to book a hotel.
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