Lost In Hotels? Use A Phenomenal Bargain Search Engine

Ever wondered how to find the best hotel deal in Bangkok? What’s the best way to find accommodation in Thailand? When it comes to Thailand, one of the most visited places on earth, you may be confused about who to use to find the best hotel deals. There are zillions of local travel agents, many websites and many smaller hotels which can only be booked directly. Now, there’s a phenomenally clear-cut solution:

Hotels Combined, a website comparing all the special deals and booking websites, such as Hotels.com or Booking.com. Many of those who would like to book in advance simply open several hotel reservation sites and browse through their inventory in different browser windows, jumping back and forth in between the different reservation sites in an effort to compare the prices and to find the best deals.

All of this is actually unnecessary since there are sites which do all of this work for you. HotelsCombined.com is such a price comparison search engine where you can search over 30 top travel sites at once. It will instantly compare all the rates and display the best rate for each hotel, all on a single user friendly page where you can sort hotels by guest reviews, star rating and of course prices.

What’s more you can limit the hotels only to the ones that meet particular requirements such as Broadband Internet, Parking or Handicap Access. The founder of Frommers Travel Guides, Arthur Frommer, said “I have recently found some of the best hotel deals imaginable through the use of Hotels Combined.” You can read his full blog entry here.

Let’s make a little test, shall we. In order to check the effectiveness of a price comparison we have compared prices for four randomly chosen hotels. The rates are for a one night stay for two adults on 1st of March 2008 from Kayak.com, HotelsCombined.com, and Expedia.com. Here are the findings:

Baan Sukhothai Spa & Hotel Phuket:
HotelsCombined.com – $117.75 – Best Price
Kayak.com – $148.09
Expedia.com – $163.25
(Note: Expedia shows the rate of only $106 on their city page, however when you go through to the booking page they apply one extra guest charge and tax and service fee and you end up with a much larger total price.)

Bandara Spa & Resort Koh Samui:
HotelsCombined.com – $182.33 – Best Price
Kayak.com – $182.33 – Best Price *
Expedia.com – $191.72
(* Note: HotelsCombined lists the highest number of Koh Samui hotels.)

Siam City Hotel Bangkok:
Expedia.com – $82.57
HotelsCombined.com – $82.57
Kayak.com – $82.57
(Note: All websites have the same rate. As we told you it may be due to a strict hotel pricing policy as this is a larger establishment.)

Pariya Haad Yuan Resort Koh Phangan:
HotelsCombined.com – $128.11 – Best Price
Expedia.com – No such hotel.
Kayak.com – No such hotel.

Above comparison has shown that it’s certainly worth checking hotel price comparison sites before making an online reservation. It’s very likely to save you few dollars or even much more for longer stays. It’s also important to note that many of hotel reservation sites even as well known as Expedia don’t show their final price until you click through to the booking details page.

So, in case if you would be comparing Expedia to another site you could be easily mislead to thinking that Expedia has a better rate only to find out that it adds it’s booking and other fees to the total price when you click through to a final booking details page. On the other hand we have Hotels Combined which shows all taxes and fees in their price comparison table on each hotel page, and seems to be finding top prices most of the time.

Another good thing about Hotels Combined is that they also link to official hotel websites and show prices provided by a hotel manager for some of the listed hotels. Once you have decided on your hotel it makes perfect sense to visit a hotel’s official site or even to give them a call to make sure you are getting the best available rate.

Good luck with your bargain hunting!

Via HotelsCombined.com