Over the years, I have been planning many vacations and trips for my family. We had visited many places all over the world, including North and South America, Caribbean, Asia, Europe and Alaska. It has become my passion to find best possible accommodations for us to enjoy our trips, while still maximize savings on hotel bookings to fit our budgets.
We are same as most of Americans who are making average middle class wages. Still we had stayed in some of the most wonderful places, such as 2 bedroom penthouse at BarcelĂł Puerto Vallarta and Copacabana Palace at Rio de Janeiro.
Over the years, I had developed a few strategies on how to maximize savings on hotel bookings. I believe these tips shared here should be beneficial to lots of vacation self planners.
How to maximize savings on hotel bookings
- Do your research as early as possible
- Never book non-refundable, unless the travel date is near
- First narrow down the area where you want to stay
- Consider vacation rental for large group
- Deciding which web site to book
- Taking advantage of cash back or mileage earning
- Use the right credit card to earn maximum points/miles
- Periodically review after booking
Do your research as early as possible
Unlike airfares, most of the hotel rates are fully refundable. You should start looking as soon as you have an idea on where your next destination and dates are. For some of them, especially if you book directly through the hotel web sites, there is no prepayment required.
I usually book one or two of them as “safety net”, so that I can cancel, if something else better comes along later. Because there is no prepayment, there is no financial burden to book a few. Just make sure to track them and set reminders, so you will remember to cancel them, before the deadlines!
Another reason you want to book your accommodations early is that, unlike airfare which changes dynamically, accommodation rates, including hotels and vacation rentals, rarely come down.
When hotel inventory is high, the rate is naturally lower than when the traveling dates are approaching and less rooms are available. Similarly for vacation rentals, the number of the available houses and condos in your destination is pretty much fixed; hence, the sooner you book, the more (cheaper) options you have.
Even though I start my research of accommodation early, sometimes up to one year ahead, I wouldn’t put down fully refundable payment, unless I am 90% sure that’s the one I will go with at the end.
Never book non-refundable, unless the travel date is near
As you want to start your searching as early as possible, you certainly don’t want to lock your options down by booking non-refundable rooms. Fortunately most of the hotels and/or vacation rentals provide fully refundable rates, some might be a little bit higher than the non-refundable rates. However, your plan could change, or something better might come along. Only choose non-refundable rate if your are 100% sure of the trip AND the date is near, AND the rate different is significant.
First narrow down the area where you want to stay
Depending on the purpose of the trip, you would want to make sure staying in the area for the conveniences of what you want to do. Obviously, if you are attending an event, you would want to stay closed to the event venue. If this is your first visit of the city, you might want to stay in the areas closed to most of the sight scenes, or, transportation hubs.
Once you have the area of your choice, the options of the accommodations will be narrowed down to do easy comparisons.
The trip can be quite memorable seeing a famous landmark just outside of your windows, such as this huge Eiffel Tower right outside of our two bedroom suite in Residence Charles Floquet 🙂
Consider vacation rental for large group
If you are traveling with children, you know getting a separated room makes a big difference for the whole vacation experiences.
Both my husband and I snore :-), so, we like to have a separately room for our son to keep our snoring from disturbing him.
However, booking a suite in a hotel can be very pricy, comparing with a regular room. Some times you might want to sacrifice the nice hotels’ amenities, if the rates of a big suite is just out of reach, but you need more than just a room. Vacation rental, such as Airbnb® and Vrbo® can provide such alternatives for the big groups.
Deciding which web site to book
Once you narrow down the list of hotels you might stay, based on the area and your budgets, it’s time to decide which travel web site you would book to get the best rates.
Comparison Sites
Get a general idea with comparison web sites, such as tripadvisor.com, trivago.com, hotels.google.com or kayak.com. These sites give you rates for different travel agent web sites to help you decide which site to book for your hotel room.
Hotel Official Websites
If you have status with the hotel chains, and the hotel official site offers similar rates as any other sites, definitely go with official site to take all the benefits for being a hotel premier member.
CITI thankyou.com
- If you have CITI® Prestige card, and the length of your stay is the multiplication of 4, read this. If the length is 4 nights, definitely check with CITI thankyou.com® portal to see how much saving you will get with one night off. CITI Prestige card members get 4th night free for hotels booking on the thankyou.com portal.
The rates offered on thankyou.com portal might be higher or lower than other travel sites. In most cases, especially for high end hotels, the saving of one night free can be significant.
Lots of people don’t like to switch hotels when they travel. On the other hand, we actually don’t mind checking out different area of the city, or different amenities, by switching to a different hotel/resort after 4 nights stay. If you are like us, CITI Prestige card gives you twice of 4th night free per year, as long as you don’t use them on the same hotel consecutively. This way would save you 2 nights for 8 nights staying on 2 different hotels. - If you have CITI Premier card, don’t forget to check what the rate is on CITI thankyou.com, after the benefit of $100 off $500.
American Express Offer
If you are an American Express Gold or Platinum card member, don’t forget to check their AMEX offers. They constantly offer statement credit back with major hotel chains. Check out this page for current list.
Note that their hotel offers are mostly required to book directly with hotel websites.
TripAdvisor Plus (TripAdvisor Plus has been discontinued as of March 2nd, 2024.)
You might want to check how much you can save with TripAdvisor Plus®, especially for lengthy stays. TripAdvisor Plus is a membership program. Even thought it costs $99/year, in most of time, the saving of one booking can be greater than the membership fee itself.
I remember TripAdvisor used to let you see the hotel rates as if you were a member, and ask you to join, only if you decide to book. However, recently, I don’t see them showing such rates w/o login as member first. Still, they give you 30 days free cancellation policy, as long as you don’t make any reservation.
TripAdvisor Plus negotiates special rates with hotels. Hence, the saving is per night. If you have long stay, the saving can add up greatly.
For example, I was looking for a suite room in NYC for my family of 3 to travel in summer 2023. As many of you may know, summer is the peak season visiting NYC. I found this great rate of $220.24 for an one bedroom suite at Manhattan Club in midtown NYC for July 2023. Total for 11 nights is $2,840.52 (fully refundable) with TripAdvisor Plus, comparing with Expedia.com of $4,915.35 (non-refundable). It is a whopping $2,000+ saving on a 11 night stay!!
On the other hand, I would only pay for this service, if I am 100% sure I can get a lot more than the membership fee for the hotel I want, comparing with all the methods mentioned above.
Taking advantage of cash back or mileage earning
Many travel web sites partner with cash back program, such as Rakuten, or mileage earning program, such ad AAdvantage® eShopping, Alaska Mileage Plan® Shopping and United MileagePlus® shopping. Make sure before you go to the travel agent web site, login to one of those cash back/mileage earning web sites, and click on their link to take you to the travel agent web site. Worth noting that this earning is in addition to the credit card mileage/points earnings you might have.
For Airbnb bookings, you can earn Delta miles by using this link: https://www.deltaairbnb.com/ . For Vrbo, if you have Capital One Venture or Venture X card, login to your account, and use their shopping link to get 5% statement credit back. If not, you can also earn United MileagePlus miles with Vrbo bookings. Visit here for more details.
Personally I like to use Rakuten. Instead of cash back, I can earn American Express® Member Reward points with $1 cash back = 100 points, which is much better value, when transferring points to partner airlines’ miles.
You can also install Rakuten Chrome extension or Firefox add-on, which will automatically alert you, if you surf to any of their affiliated partner for earning points.
Signing up Rakuten® is free. Currently they are offering $10 welcome bonus by signing up.
Use the right credit card to earn maximum points/miles
Once you decide on which hotel to book and where to book it, it’s time to decide which credit card you should use to earn most of miles.
If you are booking directly with hotel web site, it makes sense to use hotel’s co-branded credit card, as usually they provide the most benefit.
If you are booking with credit card travel portal, such as Chase, American Express, CITI and Capital One, you have no choice but using their credit cards.
It is worth noting that booking hotels on Capital One travel portal with Venture X card earns 10X points. This might be a big factor during your decision making.
For any other travel web sites, such as Expedia, TripAdvisor and Orbitz, you should use CITI Prestige or CITI Premier, as both give you 3X points on hotels and Airbnb (not Vrbo).
If total of your booking is about $500, CITI Custom Cash card would be the best choice, as it gives you 5X thankyou points for up to $500. Note that CITI Custom Cash does charge foreign transaction fee, so the hotel charge should be USD to use it, or it’s not worth it with the fee.
Periodically review after booking
If you book the accommodation early and fully refundable like I recommended, you should periodically do a search with your spare time, just in case something better and/or cheaper comes along.
Conclusion
Does it look like a lot of work to just make an accommodation booking? It is actually not. Considering you only take a few time vacations a year with your family, and spending so much money each time, you really want to maximize savings in all aspects of it. Just follow these highlighted principles should do the trick.
With the booking I mentioned above for our NYC summer 2023 trip, comparing to the non-refundable rate on Expedia.com, we saved $2,000+ for a fully refundable one bedroom suite just for the hotel along,. In addition, I earn 2,840 X 4 = 11,360 AMEX Member Reward® points via Rakuten plus 2,840 X 3 = 8,520 CITI thankyou® points with my CITI Premier card. Not a bad saving for a little bit of extra steps taken.
After have the trip booked, you should consider getting a travel insurance policy to protect your vacation investment. Read our tips for choosing a right policy and filing a claim if needed.
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Vincent Robison
I have strong passion of traveling, and finding great travel deals. I was born and grew up in Taipei, Taiwan. However, I had lived in New York for most of my life, and travelled all over the world.
