How to book cheap, excellent hotels in California
Categories: Technology, How-To's, San Francisco Bay Area, Cool Web Tools
My friend Mike just asked me how to find a cheap, excellent hotel in LA. Here's how to book great «««« & «««1/2 hotels for between $49-79 per night in two of the most expensive cities in America (they're in CA natch...)
I often overnight stay in LA... the best value hotels in SF and LA are around their airports SFO and LAX. This exercise may also apply for other cities with well developed airport communities (not NYC), I haven't tried it in other locales.
Priceline and Hotwire are somehow related, I think they are run by the same company. First check Hotwire to see what the going rates are for the "Best Value" tagged «««« / «««1/2 hotels. The hotels at SFO and LAX are rated approximately as listed below on Hotline / Priceline (btw, Orbitz tends to rate a little bit lower - a Hotwire «««« may likely be an Orbitz «««).
«««« / «««1/2
Westin
Hyatt Regency
Renaissance Inn
Embassy Suites
Sheraton
Marriott
Crowne Plaza
Hilton
«««
Holiday Inn
Courtyard by Marriott
Four Points Sheraton
Hilton Garden Inn
Hampton Inn
Best Western
No need to stay in anything worse like Travelodge or Days Inn, the hotels above are all pretty solid and comparable within their rating class. I personally give Westin, Hyatt, Renaissance, Marriott, Crowne Plaza and Embassy ««««
If Hotline's tagged Best Value is, say, $75 for a «««1/2, then bid on Priceline for a «««« hotel at about $15 below the Hotwire price (so, $60)... you will generally win at that price.
You can also compare your Priceline bid with a great Priceline winning bid monitor - Better Bidding . Check out Better Bidding's Priceline winning bid mashups by city.
Technorati tags real estate mashups better bidding travel websites Priceline Hotwire SFO hotels San Francisco+hotels LAX hotels Los Angeles hotels
This is a good summary of booking hotels for cheap. I would like to throw Travelgoop into the research tools that you mention. Travelgoop.com provides a venue for hotel consumers to post their price information. It allows for a more effective way to search/sort/filter pricing information.
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Pat and Marc:
Thanks for the great tips--and the formula. I used Priceline when I attended NAR in Las Vegas last year--but was really bidding in the dark.
Will also check into Travelgroop.
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Actually I am interested in booking a hotel in Europe, do you have any tips for that? I know it's easy with the internet but you don't always find your best options from a first try, I usually ask for recommendations.
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