We are headed to a family event in a month and they have a room block rate at a nice hotel. However, looking on line it appears I can get a better rate on kayak (much better than other sites like booking dot com, expedia or even the block rate. I have not used kayak and the rate (we are going for 4 nights) is non refundable. Has anyone booked through kayak? I have looked at kayak for airfares but not anything else. Thoughts? Any chance the hotel would match the price if I called? TIA
Call the hotel and ask.
What has tripped us up (no pun intended) on Kayak is a last minute change. One member of the group ended up arriving the night before everyone else (original flight cancelled due to anticipated bad weather, but was able to get an earlier flight; called the hotel AND adjusted the reservation on Kayak) but the change did not go through. Ended up paying “rack rate” for a bad room the night before the actual reservation kicked in, then had to move rooms, and neither Kayak nor the hotel would adjust the rate for the extra night.
So it’s great when it works, and it ends up being more expensive when it doesn’t.
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My FIL recently got burned booking his hotel through a third party site when there was a medical emergency and he had to cancel. If he had booked with the hotel there wouldn’t have been a problem but he lost all the $ and got no hotel credit.
Personally I’d call the hotel first and see if they’ll match the kayak price.
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Sometimes when a room block is reserved, the individual doing the reserving has to “guarantee” a certain number of rooms will be booked. A worry would be that reserving using a third party would not “count” against the blocked rooms, if that’s important.
Perhaps calling the hotel directly to see if they would match the price and count it in the block?
I mainly travel for work and was instructed to book through the hotel website, not a third party, for cancellation policies. But since they’re paying for it, I don’t have to worry so much about a difference in price. My spouse tends to use the third parties, like Kayak. If there is a cancellation, you have to go through the third party.
There are often cheaper prices on the hotel website that are non-refundable as well (which I don’t choose when booking work travel).
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Another thing to keep in mind is that you might not receive hotel loyalty points or credit for nights stayed if you book through a third party.
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This hotel/club has changed ownership numerous times and is currently not owned by or affiliated with any of my loyalty brands. It had been, last time I looked at it, so was hopeful it still was, but.. nope
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well, rats. That super cheap rate on kayak disappeared (“no longer available”).
I’d call hotel directly and ask them to match the 3rd party rate (take a screen shot). I’ve had some success with that and gotten them to match. When you book directly with hotel, you have more options when travel goes sideways and someone needs early check in, late checkout or even extend a day or cutting reservation short. Good luck! Nearly always, I avoid the 3rd party sites and try to get the hotel or airline to match and am usually successful.
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Called the hotel but realized into the conversation that I was talking to an offshore agent. He was not helpful. Even thought the price for the room block hasn’t been set yet (incorrect) and that I could only book for Fri and Sat (I could book for Sunday but not Thurs). There is a resort fee and a parking g fee and they are $$$
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I’ve noticed as you start to search for rates online, the prices can go up. My company even recommends searching in a private browser. I think it’s called Surveillance Pricing.
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It doesn’t. And if the wedding block folks are coming to a breakfast as part of the booking, the wedding family will have to pay for these guests for the breakfast at (sometimes) a different rate.
You might be comparing apples and oranges here…but since the lesser rate is no longer available, I guess it doesn’t matter.
Did you try calling the hotel desk directly?
You don’t directly book from Kayak. Kayak is more like a search engine that compares prices at a variety of different lodging websites and links you to/through them, similar to Google’s lodging search. You book through the lodging website that Kayak links to/through. The associated rules and potential risks vary depending on the particular non-Kayak website you are booking from.
When booking lodging, I always compare prices across multiple websites. And I usually end up booking through a 3rd party website at a substantially lower price than would occur going directly through the hotel. It’s not unusual to have >50% discounts below hotel website price. I’ve never had a negative issue associated with booking through a 3rd party instead of directly through hotel.
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I have rolled the dice and gone with Travelocity, for flights, quite often. I’ve used Hotels.com a few times as well. I do not buy the insurance. This is risky, but I’ve not yet been burned.
The biggest risk was using Priceline to go to Alaska to visit my sister – I did the “Name Your Price” thing to good benefit, getting round-trip tickets for like $400. Regular price then was about $700 on the major carriers, so I did well. Sure, I had two layovers on both legs, but at that time they were worth the $300 I saved.
However, having been through CLT and knowing how much American now uses them as a hub for points south, I’m a bit wary to schedule any itinerary through that dumpster fire without insurance of some kind. Luckily we’ve had plenty of time between connections there, because every single time we have flown into or out of CLT, we have sat… and sat… and sat… on the plane for seemingly at least an hour, regardless of the conditions. I would never agree to, say, an 8am arrival and 9am connecting departure there. I’d be freaking out. lol
While possible, I think it’s far more likely that you experienced dynamic pricing. It’s quite common for hotel prices to dynamically change as availability at a particular hotel changes, expected demand on particular dates changes due to external events, risk of room going unfilled changes, etc. Prices may go up or go down.
Location-based pricing is also common among many hotel chains, where price varies by your IP address. For example, in the news story at Client Challenge , the author compared prices at many hotels under the following 5 conditions:
- Bay Area IP
- Bay Area IP, Incognito/Private browser
- Phoenix IP
- Kansas City IP, Mac
- Kansas City IP, Windows
The author found that using incognito/private browsing mode didn’t decrease prices at any tested hotels. In one case, it increased prices slightly, which I suspect relates to not being eligible for a discount without cookies. The author also found that newer/older PC didn’t matter, nor did Mac vs Windows. However, what did matter in many cases was IP address. Bay Area residents were sometimes charged more than Phoenix and Kansas City residents. The author writes,
“For instance, on Hotels.com, the same room in the Little Charlie Hotel was offered at $423 a night for the San Francisco users. For Kansas City users, it was $234 a night; for the lucky Phoenix-based address, it was $181 per night.”
Does using a VPN work as an alternative to private mode?
They protect against different things. Your IP address and location is visible in private mode, so private mode does not protect against location/IP based pricing (see above). You need to use VPN or similar instead to control location. Private mode protects against pricing based on search/browsing history, cookies, and similar. VPN does not protect against this.
Or more simply you could use a lodging search aggregator like the ones discussed above. If a particular hotel is pricing high due to IP or browsing history, then you won’t choose that one, as it won’t be the lowest priced option in the search aggregator. You’ll instead choose the lower priced lodging website for that particular hotel, that does not price high based on such factors.
Curious though: If you log out, clear cookies at a new session, then back in with a different IP location through a VPN ( maybe even a different city or country), how would they track your search?
In this particular case there is nothing being held at the hotel - just got a negotiated price. No idea if they are doing hospitality bags but it’s not a big concern. One of my s’s lives walking distance from this hotel so if we stay there we will stay at their house Thursday night before checking into the hotel. For several reasons we feel it’s better not to be under foot at their house during the weekend. And there is another piece to this puzzle that makes it probable that we will stay somewhere else. But to be safe I booked 3 nights in the block for now.
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Cookies are stored are your local browser, so whether you use VPN to change your IP or not does change whether your cookies and related information hidden. However, clearing your cookies would do so, regardless of whether you use VPN and/or private mode.