Booking a hotel used to be simple. Today, with dozens of booking platforms, dynamic pricing, and an ever-growing list of “deals”, it can feel unnecessarily complicated. This guide focuses on how to book smarter, avoid common traps, and choose the option that genuinely works best for you.
Start With Comparison — But Don’t Stop There
There are a plethora of hotel booking sites, and it’s rarely obvious which one offers the best value. Prices can vary not just by platform, but also by cancellation terms, inclusions, and even the device you’re booking from.
Once you’ve found a property you like, it’s worth checking:
- One or two major booking platforms
- The hotel’s own website
If the price, room type, and conditions (such as cancellation policy) are the same, booking direct can often be advantageous. Hotels typically pay booking sites commissions of around 15–25%, so direct bookers are often more favourably viewed. While upgrades are never guaranteed, guests who book direct are more likely to be first in line when availability allows.
Refundable vs Non-Refundable Rates
Before COVID, many platforms (notably Booking.com) frequently offered fully refundable rates at the same price as non-refundable ones. This made flexible bookings a no-brainer: if prices fell or plans changed, you could cancel and rebook.
That’s far less common now. Refundable rates still exist, but they are often more expensive. Choosing between refundable and non-refundable comes down to how committed your plans really are.
If this is a main holiday, flights are booked, and you have a fixed itinerary, most people are already highly committed — and in practice, very few actually cancel. In those cases, non-refundable rates can make sense. There’s also a psychological benefit: once it’s booked, the decision is done, and you’re not constantly checking prices or second-guessing yourself.
For most of the genuine reasons you might need to cancel — illness, disruption, emergencies — travel insurance should cover you.
Chain Hotels and Loyalty Schemes
With chain hotels, booking direct is often the clear winner. Prices are usually the same as on third-party sites, but direct bookings are typically:
- Eligible for loyalty points and status benefits
- More likely to include perks such as free Wi-Fi, late checkout, or room upgrades
If you stay with a chain even a few times a year, these benefits can add up surprisingly quickly and can materially improve the overall value of a stay.
“Blind” Hotel Bookings
Hotel-filling or “blind booking” websites — where you don’t know the hotel name until after purchase — can offer excellent savings, particularly in major cities.
That said, they are very hit and miss. They tend to work best for:
- Short stays
- Solo travellers or couples
- Flexible, price-conscious trips
They are generally not recommended for longer stays, families, or trips where location, room size, or specific amenities really matter.
Do VPNs Actually Save You Money?
Using a VPN to change your location can sometimes result in different prices — but not often. While there are occasional examples where this works, it’s inconsistent and rarely worth the effort. Any savings tend to be small, unreliable, and difficult to reproduce consistently.
Cashback Websites: Useful, but Not Risk-Free
Cashback sites can be a great way to claw back some extra money, particularly on expensive stays. However, they’re not always the win they appear to be.
In some cases, we’ve seen providers quietly charge higher prices to users arriving via cashback links, which can completely negate the benefit. While this behaviour isn’t widespread yet, when it does happen the price difference can be significant.
As more companies move towards increasingly sophisticated dynamic pricing — influenced by:
- When you book
- Where you book from
- The device you use
— this is likely to become more common. This isn’t speculative: Uber was famously found to charge higher surge prices to iPhone users and even to users with low battery levels, based on a perceived higher willingness to pay.
The safest approach is simple: always compare the cashback price against the standard price in a fresh browser session.
Timing and Price Fluctuations
Hotel prices are dynamic and can change daily. Unlike flights, there’s no universal “best” time to book, but a few broad principles help:
- Prices often drop closer to the stay date for city hotels with abundant supply
- Resorts and peak-season destinations usually reward early booking
- If you book a refundable rate, it’s worth monitoring prices and rebooking if they fall
Don’t Ignore Reviews — but Read Them Properly
Reviews matter, but context is everything. Focus less on the headline score and more on recurring themes. A single bad experience is noise; repeated complaints about cleanliness, noise, or staff are signal.
Also pay attention to:
- How recent the reviews are (management and standards change)
- Reviews from travellers similar to you (families, couples, business travellers)
- Whether the hotel has responded — thoughtful, pragmatic responses often indicate good management
It’s also worth remembering that reviews are biased by who chooses to leave them. Some people diligently review every stay, good or bad, while others only leave feedback when they want to complain.
That said, be sensible: a very low overall rating is rarely reassuring, regardless of context.
Be Careful with Filters
Filters can sometimes mislead rather than help. A common example is parking. On road trips, filtering for “free parking” can exclude hotels that charge for parking but are significantly cheaper overall.
For example, a hotel charging $20 per day for parking may still be $50 per night cheaper than alternatives offering “free” parking.
Not All Hotels Are on Booking Sites
Some hotels simply choose not to appear on booking platforms, often because they’re unwilling to pay high commission fees. These properties can sometimes be cheaper when booked direct.
The challenge is that these are often “unknown unknowns”: you don’t know which hotels aren’t listed. This is most common when you already have your heart set on a specific property, particularly at the luxury end — and in those cases, it’s always worth checking the hotel’s own website.
At the budget end, a classic example is Premier Inn in the UK. For non-UK readers, Premier Inn is the country’s largest hotel chain and, despite being a budget brand, often ranks highly for both service and value. It does not appear on third-party booking sites, so booking direct is the only option.
Final Thoughts
There’s no single “best” way to book a hotel. The smartest approach is flexible and informed: compare prices, understand the trade-offs, and choose based on how much you value certainty, flexibility, and perks for that specific trip.
A few extra minutes of checking can make a meaningful difference — not just to the price you pay, but to the quality of the stay you end up with.
Holiday Nerd 