Luxe Hotels, Low Prices
With the hotel business booming, great deals on upscale rooms are harder to come by -- but not if you know where to look.
From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, March 2005
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Last, call the hotel and ask for the lowest rate. You may find the best deal by negotiating directly. Be politely persistent. Ask the clerk, "Is that the best you can do?" Inform him or her of any better deals that you have found elsewhere. Consider dropping the name of a rival hotel nearby that features comparable amenities.
Some hotels are free to negotiate lower rates than what Web sites offer, and some aren't. For example, several big chains, such as Hilton, discourage their front desks from undercutting the rates posted on their own Web site. And some individual hotels discourage their staff from undercutting rates posted with online agencies. Still, it's worth a call.
If you want to stay at a specific hotel and a Web travel agency says that it's booked, check the hotel's own site. Web agencies occasionally inform you that some hotels have "no availability." But that phrase and similar ones mean only that rooms are not available through the agency. For instance, when we recently inquired about a room at the Westin Copley, in Boston, Expedia responded that it "could find no available room" for the dates we had chosen. But Westin's own Web site listed vacancies.
If you have more time, other strategies are worth exploring. You can try checking lesser-known online booking services. Also, you may gain a negotiating edge by calling a hotel's front desk directly, instead of a central reservation line. Hotel managers often have the leeway and incentive to offer lower rates that agents at a chain hotline don't, says Ed Perkins, a travel expert with online newsletter MyBusinessTravel.com.
When you call a hotel may sometimes work to your advantage. Sundays are often best. The staff members who set rates are usually off from work and the front desk may feel freer to deal, says Peter Greenberg, author of The Travel Detective.
Try taking the extra step of calling the hotel again on the day you'll arrive to see if it has lowered its rates at the 11th hour. This often happens when the hotel is not as full as expected.
Luxury upgrades
Demand for the top luxury hotel rooms leapt last year, suggesting that room rates will rise this year. In response, consider this strategy for savings: Choose a room in a slightly less lavish hotel, such as one in the Westin or Renaissance chains, instead of booking into a truly tony one, such as the Ritz-Carlton. Then, when you check in, upgrade to a suite. Upgrades range from free to $100, usually based on how palatial the suite is. It often costs $15 to $275 less to reserve a standard room first and to upgrade on arrival than it does to book a suite straightaway. The best time to ask for an upgrade is in the early afternoon on the day you arrive -- typically before business travelers check in and snap them up, says Joel Widzer, author of The Penny Pincher's Passport to Luxury Travel, who has upgraded on arrival about 450 times.