Hotels are great places to score deals.
Think about how much money you spend there from the room itself to eating at the hotel’s restaurants to paying to park your rental car in the hotel’s garage. And think about what could go wrong when staying at a hotel, from a dirty room (or an iron that leaks grease all over your clothes—yep, that happened once!) to lost luggage or some jerk blasting techno music in the room next door.
Do I even have to say this? Take the opportunity to negotiate a better price!
When you’re booking the hotel room, you might use a travel site like Expedia, Orbitz, or Hotels.com, and that’s fine.
You may score a sweet deal. But you may also want to try booking the room through the hotel’s reservation line. Ask the hotel rep if there are any sales or discounts that could be applied to your reservation. If one of those discount travel sites has a better deal than the hotel itself, which is sometimes the case, ask the hotel to beat the site’s deal.
Arguably the most effective hotel-bargaining tactic is to ask for a room upgrade a few days before you arrive or when you’re checking in.
I remember my parents asking for a room upgrade whenever we checked into a hotel on vacations when I was a kid. Usually, the person at the front desk has some leeway to assign you a room on a higher floor or with a view of the ocean, for example, rather than one that faces the parking lot.
You may not be able to speak with the hotel’s general manager when you check in, but what you can do is call the general manager a day or two before you arrive. Say you’re thrilled to be staying at the hotel and want to know if it’s possible to get an upgrade to a better room, perhaps even to a suite, for no additional charge.
Whether or not you get an upgrade, you know as well as I do that you’re likely to run into some sort of issue during your stay—from a broken shower to a room that smells like cigarettes to crazy neighbors. Hotels take this stuff very seriously because now more than ever consumers have the power, via the Internet, to share their bad experiences with the world. Whether it’s writing a poor review on TripAdvisor.com or creating a YouTube video, people are very willing to share their experiences with more than just family and friends, and hotels know that. You may never want to return to the hotel, and that’s fine, but the last thing a hotel wants is negative press.
If there is a problem with the room, head back down to the front desk and ask to speak with the general manager. The hotel will obviously come and clean the room or try to fix the problem, but what it should do is offer you a freebie, such as free breakfast at the hotel restaurant for the rest of your vacation or, in some cases, a free night’s stay. The latter is what you want to aim for. Remember, even if the situation is terrible, be polite to the general manager.
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