Are you paying too much for your hotel room?
Hotel comparison and booking sites claim to offer the best price when you book through their platforms, but there’s a little-known trick that could save you money.
When we rang the hotel directly, and quoted them the lowest rate we’d found elsewhere, they were able to match or beat it five out of 10 times.
The biggest saving we managed to secure was £18 off a night’s stay in Glasgow.
Hidden hotel savings
There's a very good reason why you won't find these prices on the hotel's website. Online travel agents (OTAs) want to have the best deals for themselves, so they ban many hotels from advertising lower rates on their own websites. These are known as rate-parity clauses.
OTAs also charge a commission for every room booked on their site, and hotels have to raise their prices accordingly. That's why you have to call or email the hotel directly – and it helps to already be armed with your best quote.
During our spot checks, a few hotels eventually dropped their rate once we mentioned cheaper prices we'd found elsewhere – one even asked for a screenshot as proof. That's why it pays to compare prices online before calling.
Even when you can't negotiate a better price, we've previously found that the hotel may throw in an extra perk like a room upgrade or free breakfast.
Planning an overnight stay? These are the best and worst UK hotel chains as rated by you.
Skyscanner: the cheapest comparison site for hotels
You may think of Skycanner as a flight booking site, but – of all the booking platforms we checked – it was the most competitive for accommodation. It gave us the best price seven out of 10 times. Remarkably, for one Liverpool hotel Skyscanner’s price was less than half quoted by any rival site.
Skyscanner also came joint top of the table in our survey of the best travel comparison sites, scoring highly for usability and the relevance of its search results. It was followed by Kayak and Tripadvisor, which both found the cheapest price in five out of 10 scenarios. In contrast, Expedia and Hotels.com were the priciest options six out of 10 times, more than any other booking site we checked.
Be aware of unreliable third parties
However, there are more factors to consider than just price. While Skyscanner, Kayak and Tripadvisor regularly provide competitive offers, this often involves booking through third-party agents like Priceline or Agoda.
We’ve heard complaints of booking errors, strict cancellation terms and poor customer service with some online travel agents (OTAs). So booking directly with the hotel won’t just get you a better price a lot of the time – it also provides peace of mind.
Want to know who you can trust? See our best and worst accommodation booking sites.
Hotel rates are going up
Getting discounts when travelling is key right now given that the price of holidays has risen sharply since last year.
In the UK, hotel room rates are up by nearly a fifth. A night in a three or four-star hotel this Easter is £119 on average compared with £100 last year. In Europe, the average rate is £119, up 10% on last year.
Our research
In September 2022 and January 2023, we compared rates for 10 UK hotels for one night across 10 major OTAs and comparison sites. We then contacted each hotel directly to see if they could beat our best quote. You can have your say on what we research and help us achieve change by joining Which? Connect.
