How to book a hotel with a discount?

A large part of any travel budget is accommodation costs. Are there ways to save on a hotel? And how to book a hotel with a discount? Today we will try to answer these questions.

How to search for hotels online correctly?

First of all, you should decide what you expect from a hotel, and form at least approximate criteria for your search. For example, location near the metro, a bathtub in the room, a rooftop pool, etc. Now let's move directly to the search.

• Compare prices on hotel booking sites, for example, booking.com, oktogo.ru, ostrovok.ru and others. Often, the cost of accommodation in the same hotel will differ on different sites.

• Double-check the price on hotel metasearch engines: hotellook.ru, hotelscombined.ru, etc. Due to high competition on such sites, hotel booking agencies artificially lower prices to be first in the list of options.

But remember, such dumping is not always due to a reduction in agency revenue; sometimes the price is low only because taxes were not included.

Before deciding where you will book a hotel, be sure to go all the way through the booking process, as additional fees are usually added to the price at the final booking step. Another popular way to lower prices is to play on currency exchange rates. The fact is that many hotels and services charge in euros or dollars, while prices on the website are displayed in rubles at the rate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. Due to conversion, you may actually pay more or less than what was indicated during the search. Everything depends on the conversion rate of the bank whose card you will use for payment.

• After comparing prices on hotel booking sites and metasearch engines, it's time to visit the hotel's own website. In the vast majority of cases, the room rate on the hotel's website is higher than on booking sites. But don't pay attention to these figures; you only need the hotel's contact information to write to them.

The fact is that hotels pay a rather large commission to booking sites, which can be up to 15-18%. It is more profitable for any hotel to rent a room directly to a tourist with a 5-7% discount than to pay 15-18% to a website. That's why you should mention that you found their hotel, for example on booking.com, and the price there is $100, but if the hotel offers you better conditions, you will gladly book your stay directly with them. Believe me, most hotels agree and provide discounts.

• Another way to save on a hotel is to register for the booking service's loyalty program and subscribe to their newsletter. For example, booking.com regularly sends out newsletters with discounts of up to 50% on some hotels for registered users.

If you regularly use booking.com, you are most likely already a member of the Genius program. All program participants receive a 10% discount on hotels marked with a special icon.