Hotels - Direct reservations vs. Priceline,Expedia, etc

ebeeeee
Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:01:01 +0000

Former hotel manager here. Go to expedia and see what rates you can find. Then call the hotel and ask about discounts, AAA, Senior Citizen, mention the school, ask “is that the best rate you can offer”. If the rate is higher than expedia, tell them so. Sometimes they will tell you that they can’t offer that rate over the phone and you should book with expedia.
As others have mentioned, expedia makes you pay up front and their cancellation policies are often more stringent than the hotel. If you can make the price equal, always book through the hotel directly.
If you start asking around, often the hotel will find a midweek, tuesday in January, or whatever discount. Particularly if they have a lot of rooms still available for that night.
Tripadvisor is great for hotel reviews but as with most of the online reviews you do have to take them with a grain of salt.