SO helpful. I need to send this to a few of my friends. I ve used Priceline in the past, especially

As much as I love hostels and other forms of cheap accommodation, there is something nice about the luxuriousness of hotels. They are clean and quiet, feature comfy beds, strong disney hotel resort florida showers, and lots of soap I can take for later.
But luxury comes at a price. Hotels certainly aren’t cheap and I hate spending a lot of money for a room I am only going to be in for a few hours. It s why I mostly avoid hotels I don t think they are a good use of money (and there are far better accommodation options out there ). If I’m not in a hostel, you can usually find me at a cheap guesthouse or at an Airbnb.
But I’ve been traveling a lot for “work” lately (conferences, speaking gigs), and with the seemingly endless hotel booking disney hotel resort florida sites out there, I decided this was a good time to do some testing and find out which sites offered the best deals.
I also picked five cities to research: London, Los Angeles, Paris, NYC, and Seattle. I picked stays close to the current date of research disney hotel resort florida and then far in advance, on both weekdays and weekends.  (I did my research end of March, which is why the dates are different than what you’d expect from a post published in early May.)
I searched six booking websites: Expedia , Hotels.com , Booking.com , Hotwire , Priceline disney hotel resort florida , and a new one called TravelPony in 2, 3, and 4 star categories. Below are the data tables with the lowest price shown (Priceline rates are based on their search listings, not the bidding section of the site). You can also just click here and jump down to my analysis disney hotel resort florida if you don t want to look at the tables.
I went into this experiment with the assumption that Hotels.com and Expedia would have the most expensive rates and Hotwire would be the cheapest (casual searches in the past had led me to believe this). TravelPony has shown a lot of promise but, they are new and have limited inventory (sometimes they returned zero listings), so I didn’t have great expectations for them.
First, when TravelPony had availability, they usually won, especially in the 3 and 4 star categories. They blew the competition right out of the water. disney hotel resort florida In many instances, they are substantially cheaper than their competitors.
Why? Well, for that, let’s step back for a moment and talk about why prices are what they are.  Hotels have a variety of rates – pre-paid, flexible, corporate, discounted, and more. And while rates go up and down based on demand, disney hotel resort florida they don’t (luckily) swing as widely as airline prices. disney hotel resort florida They are a bit more static.
Hotels sell rooms to these booking sites at a discount, disney hotel resort florida which is why you often see rates cheaper on these sites than on the hotel’s website (more on this in a bit). The big booking companies then price in their costs, marketing, and whatever else to come up with a base for their displayed price.  TravelPony (according to the CEO, as I asked why his rates were so low in an interview) doesn’t do that. They simply rely on word of mouth. Plus, they require you register to see the hotel prices, thus falling into a “club” category that allows them to give cheaper rates. They are getting the same rates as the big booking sites but don t need to increase their price as much.
But those overall numbers disney hotel resort florida mask a lot of variance. In the same city, depending on hotel class, we could have a different disney hotel resort florida winner each time.  TravelPony was the winner in the US and in higher class hotels while Priceline was great for 2 star hotels, Hotwire for 3 star, and Expedia dominated London and Paris.
Note 2: This past weekend I did another round of testing and even added in two new cities – San Francisco and Rome. The results were pretty much the same, though Booking.com tied with Priceline in 2 star hotels in San Francisco, regardless disney hotel resort florida of date.
Before I go into what this means for the booking process, it is important to remember that when you book hotels via 3 rd party websites, you don’t earn hotel points or status for your stay. In order to get that, you must book directly with the hotel.  And this is why these online booking sites can offer cheaper prices. In exchange for that, hotels make them give up their customer’s right to award and elite status eligibility (also, their massive purchasing power helps).
First, what about those meta search sites like Trivago or Hotelscombined ?  Hotelscombined claims to search disney hotel resort florida thousands of websites (including hostel booking sites) but my cursory searching showed that they didn t return as many cheap places as they say they will. They showed a cheap three star room in downtown London in June for $134 per night but Expedia came back with $91. And they often didn t show more than just a couple of websites. I d skip them.
I would AVOID Trivago. My research showed that they consistently over-rated their hotel listings. A four star hotel on their site was listed as a two or three star hotel (or a three star was a one star) on the site they took you to for the actual booking process. This was consistent over numerous cities and dates. Here’s a screen shot to illustrate the point:
They also rated a hostel in NYC as four stars (no hostel disney hotel resort florida is ever four stars). I didn’t catch it the first couple of times, but when I did, I was shocked. Because Trivago sends you right to the booking page on another website, this change of class would be easily missed by consumers. You might end up in a two star hotel when you wanted a four star. I don t think they are intentionally misleading people but the error occurred often enough where I wouldn t trust Trivago and will say you absolutely shouldn t use them.
Finally, let’s talk about Tingo .  Tingo is a website that refunds your money if the price of your hotel room falls after you book it. It’s a wonderful way to ensure you don’t have to worry about getting screwed. Before I booked anything, I would check your hotel’s price on this website to see if it is lower or equal to the prices you found on the other search sites. If it was, I would book here to take advantage of their price drop offer. You can t go wrong with them.
I would start with your preferred site (for US domestic hotels, I’d make that TravelPony), search two or three other websites, and then check the hotel’s website (don’t forget to call – hotels often match rates). I’d spend, at the max, thirty minutes on booking a hotel.  I found that the variation between sites isn’t enough to justify spending hours looking for a deal. At the end of the day, wasting hours of your life isn’t worth trying to save a dollar or two.  Moreover, many larger booking sites have their own loyalty reward disney hotel resort florida programs and, if you consistently use one site, the rewards disney hotel resort florida might be worth it to stay with just one site, even if it isn t the cheapest option.
Don t spend hours searching for a hotel room. My research showed prices don t fluctuate that much so it s not worth the time to do so. Follow the steps above, get a great cheap room, and enjoy your trip.
Thank you for all this helpful research! I usually do a quick search and book the one that s the cheapest, if of course I m not staying with friends or family. This will come in handy as I book a few more trips before heading to Spain for the year.
SO helpful. disney hotel resort florida I need to send this to a few of my friends. I ve used Priceline in the past, especially their bidding feature and have been happy 90% of the time. However, I m a big fan of airbnb lately. I haven t heard of TravelPony so I ll definitely be checking that out. Thanks for sharing, Matt!
It s worth noting that all of these websites leave cookies which then boost prices on subsequent searches on that page and other travel website pages. In other words, if they know you re looking to book in Seattle from May 5-7, those prices will increase as you keep checking. Your best bet is to browse in a private/incognito browser, or clear your cookies restart every time.
Booking sites track everything and they definitely use cookies to track behavior and change prices. How often it happens is a matter of conjecture. If you plan to look at places over a a few different browsing sessions, I would consider clearing your cookies.
How is this data driven when you are not comparing identical products? Hotel pricing varies wildly based on availability, location, room type and any number of variables which have nothing to do with star rating .
Secondly, dynamic pricing? Booking sites track everything and they definitely use cookies to track behavior and change prices. disney hotel resort florida Have you ever considered that pricing is often based on availability and may change based on demand, so returning a few days later will often mean that pricing has been adjusted? Upping the price based purely on a returning customer s cookie just serves to annoy the customer and ensure that they are less likely to book through the site.
I have been through all the above and now find the cheapest way for hotels is putting the dates into tripadvisor and they act as a search disney hotel resort florida engine and bring up rates from 5/6 of your usual sites such as hotels.com etc. make sure you click more and see all the quotes as the cheapest rate doesnt always come up on the main price section.
disney hotel resort florida To your comment on another article: Articles about my life and what I m doing are not fluff pieces. This is a PERSONAL blog and as such I write about personal things, such as changing how I travel. I write because I enjoy it. Read or don t read but my thoughts aren t fluff to me. I don t tell you your thoughts are useless. You know why? Because no one s personal thoughts are useless.
I ve never met Matt and I doubt I ever will. I m way beyond his target age range. But I love reading everything he writes, what s going on with that segment of the traveling population. I don t understand why anybody would continue to read something they didn t relate to or why they would bother to take the time to complain. It s not as if there are a bazillion other travel blogs out there. Go read some and lay off Matt.
amen sister! What does he want, his money back? It can be all about Matt if he wants because it s his website. He s