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| The Best Hotel Booking Sites My 2019 Guide |
The 9 Best Sites for Booking Hotels
I go into more detail below but these are the best sites for booking hotels, saving money, and finding last minute hotel rooms.
Booking.com consistently has the best hotel rates. It’s safe, reliable, and easy to use. It’s my favorite website for booking hotels and planning a trip.
When should you book hotels? As soon as possible. Rates almost always go up (not down) and I rarely save money by waiting. Advanced booking is even more important for kid-friendly hotels.
What days have the best hotel rates? Generally big cities (that are popular with business travelers) will have cheaper rates on the weekend. Resorts and holiday destinations (that are popular with tourists) will have better prices on weekdays.
I’m not a huge fan but here are my tips for using Airbnb.
My answer to a common question: Booking.com vs Hotels.com.
My single best hotel tip: If any problems arise about your booking (the room type, the cost, free breakfast), threaten to leave a critical review on TripAdvisor or Booking.com. Don’t be mean, rude, or dishonest – but make it clear that you will be writing about your stay on a travel forum or hotel review site. This is huge for hotels and a bad review can really affect future business.
On This Page
The Best Sites for Booking Hotels – In Detail
1. Booking.com – The best site for finding hotels
Booking.com Phone Number: 1 (888) 850-3958
Booking.com Email: customer.service@booking.com
Booking.com Website:
Booking.com
Booking.com App:
Download
Booking.com Review: The most reliable hotel booking site. Easy to use and convenient for trip planning.
Reviews of Booking.com
These opinions are a mix of my personal experiences and what I hear from readers and online customer reviews.
- The best prices of any online booking site.
- Good customer service when something goes wrong.
- Be aware that there are different types of reservations: most can be canceled with no charge, but some have cancellation fees or charge the full amount upon booking with no ability to change or cancel.
- Booking.com’s “Verified Reviews” (only confirmed guests can leave a review) are more reliable than what you’ll find on Tripadvisor but fake reviews are still possible. Be sure to read as many reviews as possible.
- The maps on Booking.com are better than other sites but they can still be incorrect. If precise location is important then double check on Google Maps.
Why and How to Use Booking.com to Book Hotels
- Booking.com has a super handy calendar view for all the hotels you’ve booked. Now you don’t have to search through your emails to find out where you’re staying on your last night in Paris – it’s all right there in your “Bookings” tab. (This sounds like a minor deal, but it really makes a big difference.)
- Reviews on Booking.com are from verified guests (people that actually booked a room through the website at that hotel). Every hotel is graded on friendliness, comfort, location, facilities, staff, value for money, and wifi-quality. I have found a score of 8.8 and above means the hotel will be excellent (pretty much 5 star or exceptional value for money). 8.0 and above is basically a 4 star. 7.0 and above is a good quality 3 star hotel. I never book anything below a score of 7.
- Booking.com has the clearest descriptions of the idfferent rooms. Though it’s still far from perfect so additional research is often required to be sure you’re getting the exact room you want.
- Booking.com has nice large pictures so you can see what the hotel is like. Also has lots of photos of individual suites and room types (but you need to enter potential dates to see these room pictures).
2. HotelsCombined.com – Good site for last minute hotels
Hotelscombined Phone Number: 1 800 001 041 (toll free only for Australia)
Hotelscombined Email: customerservice@hotelscombined.com (this usually gets the fastest response)
Hotelscombined Website:
HotelsCombined.com
Hotelscombined App:
Download
Hotelscombined Review: Good for last minute hotels and often great for family reservations as it has a larger selection of rooms than Booking.com (and displays those options in a clearer manner).
Agoda Phone Number: +44 20 3027 7900
Agoda Email: cs@agoda.com
Agoda Website:
Agoda.com
Agoda App:
Download
Agoda Review: Specializes in Asia where it can find some great discount hotel deals.
Tripadvisor Phone Number: 1 (781) 800-5000
Tripadvisor Website: customer-support@tripadvisor.com
Tripadvisor App:
Android •
Apple
Tripadvisor Review: Good for hotel reviews but not great for finding the best rates.
Hotels.com Phone Number: 1 (877) 903-0071
Hotels.com Email: customerservice@hotels.com
Hotels.com Website:
Hotels.com
Hotels.com App:
Download
Hotels.com Review: Hotels.com is good for finding cheap hotels but it’s the site I get the most complaints from readers about canceled bookings or overbooked hotels.
The Best Hotel Websites for Top Destinations
Here are direct links for some of the most popular destinations in 2017:
Hotels in Europe
Hotels in Asia & South Pacific
Hotels in the USA & Canada
Hotels in Mexico & the Caribbean
How to Get the Best Hotel Deals
- 1. Start your hotel search as early as you can – hotel rates only go up and rarely go down.
- 2. Visit cities on weekends, visit resorts through the week (for the best deals).
- 3. Use Booking.com or Hotelscombined.com to find the best rates for your destination – filter by review rating.
- 4. When you find 2 or 3 highly rated hotels, contact the hotels directly and ask if they can beat the rate you found online – they often can and will.
- 5. Book the hotel that has the best rate.
- 6. Email the hotel after booking to confirm stay, make any special requests, and ask for a free upgrade.
- 7. When you check-in ask again for a free upgrade.
When is the Best Time to Book Hotels?
Here’s a huge generalization that works pretty well for most situations: For hotels that have a business clientele last minute booking can offer good deals. For hotels, resorts, and vacation rentals that have tourists as their primary guests then booking 3 months to 6 months prior to your stay is likely the best plan.
Why? Business travelers are much more likely to arrange and make last-minute (or last week) travel plans. A month before a given date, a hotel in the financial district of London might not have many bookings but will not start discounting those rooms yet. It will still expect to make a lot of bookings in the week or two before that time frame.
Often it’s not just about the price. Early booking will get you the best rooms at a similar price to the less coveted rooms. E.g. A huge family room that is only a little more than a cramped double room.
A hotel in Cancun, Phuket, or Bali that has a lot of openings in a month will start to worry. Most of its guests should have already booked those rooms so the hotel will start to aggressively discount those rooms.
What Day of the Week Has the Best Hotel Deals?
It depends what type of hotel you’re booking.
Business hotels will offer bigger discounts on the weekends (when business clients are at home). Budget hotels will have empty rooms (and discounts) through the week because the people that stay there (weekend shoppers, concert goers, university students) come on there weekends and return home Sunday night.
Why Do Hotels Use Booking Sites Like Booking.com?
Here’s where it gets tricky for hotels. Yes, they want to fill some of those rooms. Even if a guest is only paying half the rack-rate it’s still a lot more than zero. At the same time hotels do not want to establish the practice of rewarding guests that wait the longest to book. Then everyone will book last minute expecting (and probably getting) discounted rates.
Hotels offer those rooms to hotel consolidators so that the price discounts don’t reflect directly on the hotel itself. A hotel guest that learns from another guest that they got a 50% discount by booking through Booking.com would probably shrug their shoulders and try to remember the name of the website. But if that same guest learned that their friend simply booked through the hotel’s website and got a vastly cheaper rate, they’re likely to be upset and displeased with the inconsistent way the hotel charges customers.
As well, when guests book through 3rd party websites they often book other travel options (travel insurance, airfares, rental cars). These serve to obscure the true cost of the hotel room so a direct comparison to the rate another guest paid can’t easily be made.
What’s Included and Are There Extra Fees?
When you’re comparing different rates from different websites be sure to check what’s included in the quoted price. Are there extra fees and taxes?
Extra costs could include an of the following:
- City, State, and Country taxes
- City, State, and Country surcharges and other fees
- Booking service fees (often disguised as hotel charges)
- Hotel energy surcharge
- Hotel resort fee
- Spa or swimming pool fee
- Phone or internet availability fee
- Short stay surcharge or room cleaning fee
- Parking
- Credit card surcharge
Clearly it’s not easy to compare 2 rates with all these extras to consider. Taxes and booking fees are the biggest ones so if you’re feeling overwhelmed focus on those and you should be fine.
If you’re staying at a big resort it might be wise to check the hotel’s official website to look for extra fees that may be applied (e.g. a charge for using the spa).
Most websites have search options for the following specifics:
- Swimming Pool (Indoor and Outdoor)
- Spa
- Fitness Center
- Kitchenettes
- Wi-fi
- Parking
- Location (and vicinity of the airport).
- Airport Shuttle
- Non-Smoking Rooms
- Rooms or Facilities for Disabled Guests
Be sure to use these if you’re looking for a hotel with special features or characteristics as in my experience they’re accurate.
A final tip, is to check whether breakfast is included. When you arrive at the hotel you can even ask (with a tone of voice that expects that it is included). It’s often of little cost to the hotel to serve another buffet breakfast but this can be a huge savings for you especially over the course of a week or extended stay.
15 Tips for Booking Hotels Online
This is the cheat sheet for booking hotels online.
- Important! – Like airfares, hotel prices go down and go up. Unlike airfares, you can (usually) cancel hotel bookings and book a different hotel – or book the same hotel through a different website. So if you see a decent deal book it. And then keep looking for a better deal.
- Important! – Verify directly with the hotel after booking through an online booking website (e.g. booking.com). This is easy to do and well worth it. Occasionally, you’ll get an even better room than if you hadn’t contacted them. For example, if you send an email saying something like this, “I just booked a room with your hotel on Booking.com. I wanted to confirm my booking and make sure you didn’t need any more information. We’re a family of 5 so really need this to go smoothly. Thanks.” At the very least it lets the staff know you’ll need a bigger room. Maybe it won’t change anything but occasionally some of the time it will.
- Important! – If you belong to a hotel loyalty program and want to get hotel points by booking directly through the hotel you can still benefit by using 3rd party hotel websites. Simply look for deals for your chosen hotel then phone the hotel and state exactly the deal you found online. They’ll often offer you the same price on the same room. (Though not always, as sometimes they have sold these hotel rooms as a block and are not looking to discount the remaining rooms they still have booking access to.)
- When booking a hotel for a family of 4, family of 5, or family of 6 then booking two hotel rooms will often be cheaper than booking one large family room. The catch is that when you book two hotel rooms hotels usually won’t guarantee that they are beside each other – so if you do find a large family suite at a good rate that’s often the best choice.
- How to book luxury hotels? – Be sure to check multiple websites (including the hotel’s website) to find the best prices. Unlike budget and moderate hotels there can often be huge rate differences between different sites.
- Print your confirmation email (or have easy access to it on your phone) to show at reception. 9 times out of 10 you won’t need it but on occasion the hotel might not have received the reservation info and the confirmation will help.
- If you’ve already decided on the dates of your hotel stay then you’re starting from a disadvantage. Sometimes you have to travel on specific dates but if you can swing it, try to book hotels before you’ve settled on your dates.
- Check multiple sites before you book: the hotel’s website and at least 2 hotel booking sites.
- If you’re looking for a specific hotel and see that it’s full on the nights you need then be sure to check a second or third website as this can simply mean that the first websites’ allocation of rooms has sold out, not that the entire hotel is booked full.
- If possible contact hotels directly to ask for deals or inquire about special offers. This is a pain and it’s become less and less effective as the online deals have become so competitive but it’s still worth a try. It can be especially effective if you’re staying for a week or more. Hotel booking sites won’t be able to offer special deals based on length of stay.
- The biggest risk with reserving through a hotel booking site isn’t that you’ll be scammed out of your money by an illegitimate business (all of the websites that I list in here are reputable) but that they will overbook your hotel and you’ll get an email a few weeks before your stay saying that your room is not available. This is very rare, but it does happen. Contacting hotels directly after you book (I’m mentioning this twice since it’s so important) makes this scenario much less likely.
- If you book a non-refundable hotel (read the fine-print) you will never be able to cancel so be certain before you reserve it.
- The more particulars matter to you (e.g. special room requests, king or queen sized bed, bathtub, space for cot) the less well booking sites will suit you. That said, many sites are very good at passing along your specific requests when you book, so be sure to include any necessary needs or preferences when you place the booking (there’s usually a form when you can add extra information).
- For budget hotels it’s often better to book directly with the hotel. Usually they won’t be listed in the hotel booking sites anyways.
- Airbnb, Agoda.com, and Hotwire.com are travel websites that accept PayPal – if that’s important for you.
- If booking an apartment or family run B&B through a site (e.g. Venere) don’t assume that the same apartment will be payable using a credit card. Confusing I know. The initial credit card is used to reserve the room with Venere, but when you arrive (and need to pay) the owner might only accept cash.
- Email the hotel directly a day before arrival (regardless of how you book). It’s a pain but it’s worth the effort. If you show you care about your booking, your room, and your stay – then your hotel will too.
- Final Tip: This isn’t concerned with hotels but it can be a big life-saver. Take a photo of your passports with your phone before you start your trip. If you ever lose your passport (or even just can’t find it during check in) this can be a huge help in getting it replaced.
Booking Hotels in Paris
Booking Hotels in London
Booking Hotels in New York City
