FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - A week in the Boston area - advice please
Old Apr 6, 2017, 2:32 pm
  #10  
Blumie
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: MSY (finally); previously NYC, BOS, AUH
Programs: AA EXP, 6MM; BA GLD
Posts: 17,198
Originally Posted by Yorkshire Traveller
A bit of a update - and seeking more advice on our tentative plans.

We're thinking of stopping for a an night or two in the Providence area and then the remaining four nights somewhere to the north east of Boston (perhaps on the coast?). Then we could make day trips to Salem, Provincetown, Boston and Portsmouth.

I've found the hotel prices in the Boston area to be truly eye watering during this period - $300+ tax per night - that's more than my mortgage payment used to be per month! and is beyond our budget hence deciding to stay well outside the city.

Any suggestion on areas where to stay gratefully appreciated - perhaps AirBnB would be the way to go?
Reposting something I posted earlier in case you missed it:

Boston hotels are very expensive that time of year principally because Boston has so many universities that have graduation ceremonies in May.

To save money in the Boston area, you could stay in the suburbs and take "the T" (public transportation) into the city. I use Hotwire.com with great success in the Boston area. Hotwire offers unsold hotel rooms at discounted prices, but the catch is that they don't tell you which hotel you're getting until you've already committed to and paid for it. Here's what I recommend to eliminate any risk:

(1) search in Boston for the dates you want (you're usually better off waiting until the day before arrival to get the best rates);

(2) once the results appear, click on "Filter by Guest Rating" and select "9 out of 10" (I find that as long as I select a hotel with at least a 90% approval rating, I'll be completely fine;

(3) click on the shaded area of the map that is labeled "Waltham - Newton - Wellesley." These are suburbs directly to the west of Boston and provide for excellent access to Boston, whether by driving or by public transportation.

Almost all of these hotels will offer free parking, and many will include breakfast. Based on my own experience, if you are offered a "3.5 Star Boutique Hotel" with those search parameters, it will end up being the Hotel Indigo Boston Newton Riverside, which is directly next to the Riverside Station on the Green Line of the T, making getting into and out of Boston very easy. (You could of course book directly with the Hotel Indigo, which might be more expensive but would eliminate the risk of being assigned a different hotel on Hotwire. But even if you're assigned a different hotel in the area, you easily can drive to Riverside Station, where you can park at a reasonable cost, and take the T into Boston.)
I'll add to what I previously posted that I use Hotwire a fair bit, and I find that as long as I select a property that has at least a 90% user approval rating (Hotwire calls them "Recommendations"), I'm never disappointed. (And for that matter, I never would book a property with less than a 90% rating.) So after you do your search on Hotwire, click on the drop-down box labeled "Recommendation" and select the 90% and above option.
Blumie is online now