Booking Hotel Rooms
Thing No. 1
Priceline, Hotwire and BetterBidding.com.
We probably have the same love and aversion to using Priceline or Hotwire as you. Wait, back up, let's just make sure everyone knows that Priceline and Hotwire are sites where you can get big discounts on travel, including hotel rooms, but you'll be committing to buying the room without a guarantee which hotel you're getting. It's not as terrifying as it sounds. You'll know lots of things before making the purchase like; what class of hotel it is, what neighborhood it's in, and what amenities it has, but the actual hotel name you won't know.
For many trips that works just fine. However for some we want the discount but don't want to risk not knowing which hotel brand we're getting and for that we use BetterBidding.com. Better Bidding is a site which has a ton of historical information on which hotel you're likely to get through Priceline or Hotwire so you can be much more confident when you use those services that you know what you're getting. We've used it a lot and had a 100% batting average on knowing which hotel will show up when we click "purchase". .
Thing No. 2
For booking rooms we recommend some of the same sites as for air travel.
There are a number of free travel meta-search engines (that’s what these sites are called). Check out sidestep.com for travel in the U.S. and mobissimo.com for international travel. They check all the discount sites like Hotels.com, Orbitz.com, or Expedia.com, and tons more. The meta sites don’t actually sell rooms, they provide connections to the places where you will buy. They do an amazing job getting the best price across all the sites.
Use groople.com if you’re traveling as a group. It has some nifty group organization features for taking care of all the rugrats heading to Mickeyland or your college goon-buddies getting your Swingers thing on in Vegas.
Thing No. 2
Listen to your peeps.
For reviews of hotels check tripadvisor.com . It has good complete consumer reviews, a pretty simple design and they also sell rooms. An alternative is HotelChatter.com which has no-nonsense reviews but a messy system of getting at the reviews.
Thing No. 3
Remember to doublecheck the basics
High-speed Internet in particular wireless
• A good gym and restaurant/room service
• Deals for the kiddies
• The best room. Rooms along the exteriors are usually noisier due to noise from the road. Rooms near restaurants, elevators, or ice machines can also be noisy, although they are convenient.
