How do I book a hotel room on my own?

The need to find a temporary place of residence away from home in the modern world can arise for a variety of reasons. It can be a business trip, a visit or a vacation in a popular tourist country. But before a vacationer tired of the working year can immerse himself in the coveted waves of the azure sea, he will have a considerable preparatory stage, in which the search for housing for the duration of the trip is also important. In this article, we will figure out how to book a hotel online and consider some of the pitfalls that we may encounter in this important matter.

It would seem that in the era of the ubiquity of the Internet, it is not difficult to find the necessary information, just type a query like "how to rent a hotel room" into the search engine and immediately get a bunch of links. However, it is already more difficult to filter the wheat from the chaff in such abundance, often it requires spending a lot of time without any guarantees for the best option. In the situation of finding a hotel, the task can be somewhat simplified by using one of the specialized sites with a good reputation, for example booking.com, hotels.com or airbnb.com. In general, the procedure for booking a hotel room through an aggregator website looks like this:

1. Choose the hotel that best suits your preferences and budget.
2. Carefully read the terms of booking and cancellation (we will discuss the details of this stage in this article a little later).
3. When making a reservation directly, you should enter a number of standard data, at least you will need to specify the names of the guests, the current phone number and the email address to which the booking confirmation will be sent. It is also often necessary to specify the details of a bank card, and these data may be required even if there is no prepayment. However, it is often possible to pay for a room using other means of payment, for example, an electronic wallet or cash. The received booking confirmation should be printed out, this may be useful when applying for a visa and checking into a hotel.

Of course, this is just a simplified description and in fact booking at a hotel is a slightly more complicated process. Let's look at the nuances of booking in more detail.

Hotel reservations: selection criteria

Choosing a place

First of all, it is worth choosing a place of temporary residence, taking into account its location and accessibility of transport. If this is a tourist trip with a planned visit to local attractions, then their location should also be taken into account. The same applies to business trips, with the difference that when booking a hotel, you will need to take into account the transport accessibility of the enterprises or offices you are interested in.

Price comparison

It is not uncommon for reservations of the same room to differ on various resources, and the difference can sometimes be very noticeable. The user can compare prices for booking hotel rooms using one of the popular meta-search systems, for example www.hotelscombined.com, www.tripadvisor.ru or www.trivago.com.

Terms of registration and booking

There are offers that allow you to make a reservation without prepayment and, if necessary, cancel it, this is quite convenient, but, as a rule, the most expensive option. There are also diametrically opposite situations in which cancellation is impossible, and the prepayment will go to the hotel, even if the potential guest refuses to stay. It should be noted that the option with full prepayment can often be much more profitable, however, in case of force majeure, such a choice may result in wasted funds.

Even in the absence of prepayment, when booking a hotel room, you still need to enter your bank card details, which serves as some kind of reservation guarantee for the hotel. At this stage, funds are not debited, however, if you do not show up at the hotel without warning at the agreed time, this may cause a fine. As a rule, information about the possibility of applying such sanctions is indicated on the booking website.

Conditions for making a deposit for accommodation

There is a practice of freezing part of the guests' funds on the card as an insurance premium, which will go in favor of the hotel partially or completely if the guest spoils any property of the hotel. In a normal situation, there is no additional debit, but the money will not be available for any operations until the lock is lifted. You should not try to deceive the system and indicate a non-working credit card when booking, with a high degree of probability the hotel will check it and if there are no funds on the card, the reservation will be canceled.

Additional conditions

In large hotels, utilities and room cleaning are included in the room rate, but in some cases such a service can cost an extra penny. Facing the need to pay extra for something at the end of the stay period can be an unpleasant surprise. The reason for the annoyance may also be the information received on the day of departure that the room price includes any convenient additions that the guest unknowingly did not use during the entire stay.

Taxes and additional service charges

Usually, taxes and fees are included in the cost of living, but in some countries, this is not the case and as a result, the total amount may be significantly higher than expected. This kind of information is usually available on the aggregator site, but it is often written in small print and arranged so that it is not conspicuous. The same rule may apply to service surcharges.

Food

Often, only breakfast is included in the room rate, and in this case, you should find out in advance about restaurants or cafes located near the hotel or along the planned routes. It is possible that the hotel provides guests with full meals and at the same time boasts good cuisine, but even in this case it would not be superfluous to know about such a pleasant bonus in advance.

Commission and additional costs

When paying for a room with a card, you often have to spend additional percentages of the requested amount. Small hotels often redirect these expenses to their client and, in case of refusal, may ask them to pay the difference in cash. Just as in the case of additional payment for the service, often such information on the aggregator site is not obvious and is hidden somewhere in the "Notes" section.

Check-in and check-out conditions

It is not uncommon for small hotels to receive guests at certain hours. It is most often possible to arrange an after-hours check-in in such a situation, but this may result in additional expenses. An alternative may be the need to wait for arrival for several hours, which will not add any positive to the trip.

Seasonality and travel time

If the trip is planned in advance, then there is an opportunity to save money when booking a room by simply performing this procedure at the appropriate time. For example, when traveling to an area with a large number of beaches, the lowest room price will be in winter, when the hotel does not have a large influx of guests. The rule also works in the opposite direction, i.e. during the period of the greatest demand for hotels, their cost increases significantly.

The star rating of the hotel

In the minds of many people, the phrase "five-star hotel" is strongly associated with the highest level of service. Meanwhile, this characteristic determines only the availability of additional options: pet walking areas, a swimming pool, a gym, etc. Such opportunities are not always necessary, for example, if only adults take part in the trip, it is at least unreasonable to pay extra for the presence of a playground in the hotel.

Getting to know the reviews

Often, reviews not only allow you to learn "first-hand" about the selected hotel, but also serve as a source of additional information. So you can find out about an inexpensive and cozy cafe located near the hotel or an interesting souvenir shop. In addition, with the help of reviews, offers are filtered and often hotels with a large number of negative ratings simply cannot promote their services through popular services. For this reason, it is worth avoiding offers published on various bulletin boards or forums, which are often the refuge of small owners who do not pull out competition on large sites. It should be borne in mind that the well-known name of the hotel chain is not a guarantee of good quality. Hotels of the same famous brand located in different parts of the world can differ dramatically in terms of service, so you should look for reviews of exactly the hotel you are going to check into.

Cancellation of the reservation at the last moment

In most cases, timely notification of the hotel administration about the cancellation of the reservation helps to avoid a fine. It is recommended to cancel your reservation at least one day before the agreed time of arrival at the hotel. The received cancellation confirmation letter should be saved, it may be useful in case of a dispute. If possible, clarify all the nuances of booking you are interested in by phone in a dialogue with the hotel administration.

After all the formalities are settled, do not forget to save the contacts of the support service of the website through which the reservation was made and the contacts of the hotel administration. We hope that the information provided in this article will be useful to you and will help make your future trips positive and fruitful.

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