Everything to keep in mind when booking a hotel for vacation

Planning a getaway? Then you’ll have to book a hotel room. Or maybe you prefer to rent a house or room from an individual. Both options are good and may afford you a great vacation, but there are certain things you should keep in mind when booking so you don’t get ripped off.

As the subject is long and involved, today we’ll focus on hotels, on everything I keep in mind every time I go to book accommodations for my vacations. If you follow these tips, you can save a little money and, above all, avoid some unpleasantries.

Follow the rule of 7

I suppose I’m not saying anything new when I tell you that before booking a hotel room, you must check references. Luckily, we’ve got websites such as Tripadvisor (or its Android and iOS apps), which offer outspoken traveler reviews.

An unwritten rule of mine is to make sure I don’t reserve anything below 7/10 or 70/100 points or 3 stars minimum, especially if a hotel has repeated reviews with low scores. It’s possible that a hotel has an average of 70 through many high scores and a few low ones that make its ratings go down. That being said, if negative reviews dominate, there’s a reason why.

Don’t obsess with negative comments either

This point doesn’t take away from the previous one: don’t consider every negative comment that you read in a review. There are some very fussy people (“unbelievable, there were only 6 types of juice at the breakfast buffet!”) or those who simply had a one-off bad experience (“they gave me a room with plumbing problems”). If these kinds of comments are not commonplace in reviews, don’t worry: unfortunately, that person was “jinxed” or had a bad day, but that doesn’t have to happen to you!

What’s more, even the best hotels may make one-time errors during your stay. For the most part, these cases are solvable (for example, if one day you find dirty sheets, complain to the reception desk… and you’ll see that the next ones they put on will be white and spotless!).

Carefully analyze why that room has a lower price

Alright, you’ve already used a website for comparing prices (like Trivago) to find the best hotel price. You go to the booking website and oh, surprise, there are assorted prices for the same type of room. What makes a double room with a queen-sized bed cost 60 dollars and the one below 81? Well, various factors, some obvious and others included in the “small print.”

Among the most obvious are occasional offers that hotels use to fill up on certain dates or the fact that one room is somewhat smaller than another, less illuminated, or with not-so-nice views. If these aspects don’t matter to you, go for the cheapest room! That being said, you should investigate a little further… and here is where the “small print” comes into play.

A cheaper price for a seemingly identical room may indicate a change in booking conditions. The clearest example is the right to cancellation: as a general rule, hotels don’t charge you anything if you cancel a booking before a certain date, and if you cancel with short notice, they’ll charge you only a part of it.

However, hotels also may have rooms without the right to cancellation, which means that even if you notify them in advance that you can’t make it, they’ll charge you the full booking amount. You may think nothing will go wrong, but once, to save a few measly euros, I booked a room without the right to cancellation. Just that one time (the only time in my life), I had a major setback that forced me to cancel my stay on the same day I arrived… I didn’t see those dollars ever again!

There are hotels that don’t offer the right to cancellation but do offer insurance if something happens. It usually costs a few euros and it ensures that, if you have to cancel your room, you’ll get your money back. Seriously, it’s better to lose 10 euros than a couple hundred, right?

Watch out for extra charges

For most hotels, common services are almost always covered, but not necessarily. For some hotels (increasingly fewer), you have to pay a surcharge for wifi, certain toiletries, use of hair dryers or other small fees. It’s not a lot of money, but keep that in mind when you book and, above all, don’t be surprised if the receptionist wants to charge you for them… it’s clearly indicated in your booking