Best Discount Hotel Deals

Are you on a tight budget for your next vacation?  There’s no need to settle for a cheap motel just because you’re pinching pennies.  You can find great hotel deals for fine establishments if you know where and when to look.  Even some of the best hotels in the world offer huge discounts on their rack rates.  The hard part is finding those rates when you need them.  Here are secrets that budget travelers can use to find deals for great hotels.  With these strategies at your disposal, you can stay in a nice hotel rather than a shabby motel on your next budget vacation.

Check the Hotel’s Website

This might sound like a not-so-secret tip but the majority of people hunting for deals tend to go straight to websites like Priceline and Orbitz.  Rather than booking a hotel on one of these sites, check directly with the hotel’s official website first.  The hotel’s official website may feature exclusive deals and discounts that are even better than the ones you found on third-party sites.  Many hotels list deals on their websites that cannot be found anywhere else.  Your best bet is to check with the hotel websites directly and compare the deals you find with those listed on third-party sites.  If a deal you find on an official hotel website is better, call to confirm availability.

Make the Most of Online Bidding

If you are pretty flexible about what hotels you are willing to stay in, online bidding websites are an option.  When used properly, bidding websites can get you ultra-low prices on hotels.  However, online bidding is not a good option for anyone who wants more control of where they will be staying.  If low prices are your top priority, bidding sites can be an invaluable resource.

Comparison Shop

You may think that since the internet is constantly updated with real-time information, all travel deals websites will have the same prices listed but that is not the case at all.  In order to get the lowest prices on accommodations, it is advisable to check with a variety of different sources for low budget travel information and bargains.  An easy way to do this is by subscribing to a feed on a website that regularly publishes hotel deals from all around the web.  This will save you the hassle of having to visit one website after another each day in order to keep up with the latest bargains.

Ask about Special Discounts

If you are in the military, a member of the AAA, a student, or a senior, ask hotels directly whether they can offer you a special discount.  If you have kids, ask the hotel prior to booking whether or not they allow kids to stay for free.

Be Flexible

Plan your trip during the off-season or midweek.  Doing this can save you up to 50% on hotel rates.  Timing is everything since prices are dramatically cut when the demand is low.  Call the hotels you are interested in and find out when their off-season rates start.  If you plan on staying in a hotel for longer than a week, inquire about weekly rates or whether they have a “stay seven nights, get one night free” type of offer available.

And last but not least, check to ensure that the rate quotes you get include taxes and surcharges.  What might seem like a great deal at first glance may be quite the opposite once you see the total after taxes, surcharges, and incidental fees.  Make sure to check with the hotel about any charges that may be added to your bill at the end of your stay such as telephone charges.  After all, the last thing you want is to end your relaxing vacation with an unpleasant surprise.

Staying in Clean Hotel Rooms

You don’t have to be Tony Shalhoub from the TV series Monk to worry about the germs lurking inside your hotel room. Visit Here http://chittagong-guide.blogspot.com

Any time you live out of a room that is not your own, one that may not be as clean as you like, you might find thoughts of bed bugs and dust balls dancing in your head. You may wonder when the last time the bathroom was scoured or wonder how many people have wiped their dirty hands on the hotel room curtains. And, of course, you may fervently hope that no previous patrons lived by the mantra “what happens in a hotel room, stays in a hotel room.”

For those who travel frequently for business or pleasure, there are a number of things you can do to reassure yourself that you are staying in the cleanest hotel possible:

Be Picky: When cleanliness is a factor in choosing a hotel room, you can’t let your decision be dictated by price: expensive does not necessarily mean clean. Instead, keep in mind the hotel’s reputation. Many booklets and travel guides will rate hotels based on several factors, one of these being cleanliness. If a hotel received five stars for food, but only one for cleanliness, you’ll know that that hotel has great food, pieces of it just might be stuck inside the carpet strands of your hotel room floor.

Look Around: It’s usually pretty easy to tell if a hotel room is clean or if it’s dirty. This doesn’t require tracing over every ounce of furniture with a prestine white glove, it simply requires looking around. If you notice that the towels are dirty or the bathtub is filled with slime and grime, then mention this to the hotel room staff. If you notice that your sheets are stained or your TV stand contains the world’s largest collection of dust, don’t be afraid to ask to be moved. You aren’t only paying for a hotel room, you are paying for a clean one.

Stay Away from Smoking Rooms or Rooms that Allow Pets: Both smoking and pets – and not to mention pets that smoke – can dirty up an otherwise clean hotel room. Smoke lingers in the air and rests on the tangible items of the room, leaving them discolored and filled with an ash-tray like smell. Pets walk on beds and carpets with muddy or wet paws. They roll around on the floor with possibly flea infested fur and mark their territory in foreign places, forever leaving your hotel room knowing that “Spot was here.”

Get Rid of the Spread: Ah, the hotel room bed spread. If there is one thing in the hotel room that hasn’t been cleaned in a while it’s probably the comforter, a fact that ironically brings you very little comfort. If you think about it, you probably don‘t wash your home bedspread all that often, perhaps saving it for the “Spring cleaning” times of year. This is often true in hotel rooms: bedspreads aren‘t washed with great frequency. The sheets, however, are washed regularly. Simply removing the bedspread, and cranking up the heat if it gets cold, can save you from sleeping under a blanket of germs.

Hotel rooms may seem impossible to keep immaculate: so many people circulate in and out that it’s hard to keep track of all the germs. But, the hotels reputed for cleanliness are often reputed for a reason: they are, in fact, clean. Limiting your traveling to these types of hotels can also limit your exposure of things to which you don’t want to be exposed. If you can’t limit yourself to hotels known for being clean, then simply travel with your own cleaning supplies, a hazmat suit, or, naturally, a giant bubble.Visit Here http://chittagong-guide.blogspot.com

The recent economic woes and collapse of the housing market is leading some investors to consider non-traditional property investments – specifically buy to let hotel rooms – as safer bets compared to traditional buy to let and renovation projects.

Under normal circumstances the phrase ‘non-traditional investment’ would not be associated with playing it safe, but the investment market at present is far from ‘normal’. The uncertainty in the financial markets and the collapse of both property prices and mortgage lending, have hit property investors hard. For those investors looking for a good place to park their retirement funds, safety and diversification are key factors.

The idea that you can buy hotel rooms might seem like a strange concept but its growing appeal is down to these very same motivators. Experienced hotel and resort development companies invite individual investors to buy hotel rooms within high-end hotel developments. Investors who buy hotel rooms see returns from both capital growth and regular income from rooms let.

Buy to let properties have always offered savvy investors a keen return, but as mortgage rates climb faster than rents can go up, many have been left out of pocket. Moreover any time the property stands empty means hefty monthly mortgage repayments and no income.

Buy to let hotel rooms offset these risks by basing the investors’ income on the performance of the hotel as a whole, not their individual suite, and so provide a regular income level. Even a half full hotel can provide a solid return on investment for private investors who buy hotel rooms.

Of course, having all your eggs in one investment basket is still a risky move, which is one of the reasons why buying hotel rooms is often viewed as a way to diversify an existing portfolio. Buying a hotel room is much more of an investment in tourism than a straight property play.

It’s a fact that particularly appeals to those planning for retirement as, provided you don’t need the free stays on offer, you can even buy hotel rooms via your self-invested personal pension (SIPP) scheme.

Case in point, a recent development in the upmarket tourist town of Sesimbra is offering freehold luxury suites on a buy to let basis.

Keen to attract secure investments the developer is also offering to cover all closing costs and paying cash back to early investors.

Of course, for those not buying via a SIPP, investors also get the perk of free stays in the hotel as well – a little bit of luxury to part the dreary economic clouds.

I am trying to book a room with Holiday Inn in Santa Barbara, CA. It gives me the option of having a regular hotel room or a “leisure” room. Both are listed with the same bed size. I can’t find anywhere on the website that explains the difference. Any ideas?

Incoming search terms:

• whats the difference between a holiday inn standard room and a leisure room