Oct 25, 2007
It still pays to call a hotel directly when booking a room
It turns out that one old chestnut of a travel rule -- you will always get the best price by calling a hotel directly to book a room -- still holds true, even in this era of Web specials and so-called "lowest price guarantees " by online booking engines.
In an excellent piece of gumshoe travel journalism by Dion Lefler of the Wichita Eagle (www.kansas.com/news/story/200385.html), Dion has compiled the data to prove that hotel booking engines -- from Travelocity to Orbitz to CheapTIckets.com -- often add questionably high fees to the prices they charge for hotels.
Lefler found that even the booking engine's pre-tax "basic rates" were around $4.50 above the hotels' own "rack rates," the highest price you'd pay to book directly, before taking into account any discounts, low-season price drops, or sales. What's more, according to Lefler's research, taxes and fees pushed the booking engine's prices up to as much as $21.84 above the going rate. Add to this the fact that some booking engines charge taxes based on their total price of base rate plus fees, not on the base rate alone, which is all that is taxable by law.
Lefler also points out that when a booking engine shows a hotel as being "sold out," it doesn't mean there are no vacancies. It just means the booking engine has sold out its share of rooms.
In other words: caveat emptor. Online booking engines may make finding and booking a hotel easy, but it won't always be the cheapest way to get that room. Ever since chain hotels introduced toll-free numbers, I've counseled that you almost always get a better rate by calling the hotel directly. It seems that advice hasn't changed even in the dot.com age.
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In an excellent piece of gumshoe travel journalism by Dion Lefler of the Wichita Eagle (www.kansas.com/news/story/200385.html), Dion has compiled the data to prove that hotel booking engines -- from Travelocity to Orbitz to CheapTIckets.com -- often add questionably high fees to the prices they charge for hotels.
Lefler found that even the booking engine's pre-tax "basic rates" were around $4.50 above the hotels' own "rack rates," the highest price you'd pay to book directly, before taking into account any discounts, low-season price drops, or sales. What's more, according to Lefler's research, taxes and fees pushed the booking engine's prices up to as much as $21.84 above the going rate. Add to this the fact that some booking engines charge taxes based on their total price of base rate plus fees, not on the base rate alone, which is all that is taxable by law.
Lefler also points out that when a booking engine shows a hotel as being "sold out," it doesn't mean there are no vacancies. It just means the booking engine has sold out its share of rooms.
In other words: caveat emptor. Online booking engines may make finding and booking a hotel easy, but it won't always be the cheapest way to get that room. Ever since chain hotels introduced toll-free numbers, I've counseled that you almost always get a better rate by calling the hotel directly. It seems that advice hasn't changed even in the dot.com age.
Write and read comments about this post.
Fifty years ago, 
Arthur Frommer is generally acknowledged to be the nation's foremost travel authority. He is the founder of the
