:D!

1) You should always check multiple booking channels including the hotel's own website if possible. Like vandykes44 says sometimes hotels.com is cheaper than the hotel's own website, but then again sometimes it isn't, even after subtracting cashback and the 9.09% for hotels.com rewards.

If you can be bothered to make a phone call or email (± know the relevant language) you can often negotiate a significantly lower price, due to my next point.


2) I believe hotels.com takes a commission of 15-20% from subscribing hotels', which is how they fund their voucher program and cashback plus all the "secret discounts" they like to spam us with.

This commission is probably similar for booking.com/expedia etc and it may even be that high for booking "direct" with a hotel chain (this funds your points and benefits) as opposed to actually booking direct with the hotel.


3) There seem to be several options for hotels to be paid when they join up with hotels.com. Firstly most hotels have refundable and non-refundable rates.

For non-refundable rates, sometimes you pay hotels.com and sometimes they just forward your card details to the hotel, which charges you directly. If you pay hotels.com then Amex is always accepted even if the hotel doesn't, since I assume hotels.com just pays the hotel by bank transfer periodically. The latter is rare, only seen it twice, couldn't use Amex since the hotels didn't take it, and furthermore couldn't use hotels.com reward nights - I take this to mean these hotels don't have an agreement to be paid in bulk by hotels.com.

For refundable rates, you can of course pay the hotel on check-out, but most of the time there is also the option to pay hotels.com at the time of booking. Doing this has currency advantages as in the next point. Though again, sometimes you can only pay the hotel directly when you actually turn up.



4) I hope you either have EUR and GBP cards or your card has no currency conversion fees, because there is no need to pay in euros with the German site nor in pounds with the UK site.

Hotels.com doesn't scam you on currency exchange and they are able to charge cards in any of the currencies they list at the top, at a rate which is close enough to the rate that you'd get with a 0% forex fee visa/mc/amex.

When I search on hotels.com, once I have a short-list I always change the currency to the hotel's local one, in order to compare with the hotel's own website. But when it comes to paying hotels.com I often change it to a third currency and pay using a card in that currency (or multi-currency cards like Revolut) which fixes the exchange rate (hopefully to my advantage), and avoids DCC or any other fees.


So which payment option was the case for your stay? Did you pay hotels.com or the hotel? What currency is shown for the original transaction on your card statement? Did you really get a credit card receipt for your card? If so the transactions should have shown up in rubles on your card and been converted to the card currency by your card issuer - yet the ruble hasn't dropped by 27% against EUR or GBP so it seems very odd.

Concerto

The payment option was a non refundable rate, so I could use one of those extra night's credit vouchers. So I paid hotels.com online at the time of the booking. The bookings show up in Euros exactly as booked on my statement. I really did get a credit card receipt from reception, can't remember if it was directly for my card (because I don't have the receipts here at the moment) but I imagine so because I had to show my card at check in presumably as a guarantee. A bit mysterious in a way, but I was charged exactly what I booked and I was happy with the price, as well as the hotel itself.

Travelomania

A great point I always consider when making a hotel booking.




A longtime user here and I am currently on my 39th-Hotels.com-stay this year alone.
Chiming in and absolutely have to agree - totally LOVE Hotels.com - cannot praise them enough !
I am always buying Hotels.com gift cards at a discount (in the US) - sometimes double/triple dipping - and with checkout through TopCashback for another (usually) 4% CB the hotel-of-my-choice nightly rate simply cannot be beaten.

Concerto

You know, I had to choose a hotel "blind" in Moscow during the World Cup last Summer. There were few options left and none of the Lonely Planet recommendations were available and my preferred chains had no rooms left for points or money. I took a chance on a hotel offered by hotels.com, a guesthouse with incredible taste that turned out to be excellent and was only EUR55! So I tend to trust hotels.com in a similar way to Lonely Planet (I think LP gets hotel recommendations pretty well spot on).

amonisis

Do you have to be the person who stays in the room for it to qualify for the 10 stays/free night? I travel often for work, but i also book travel for 12+ people. I currently use Expedia because i get all the points no matter who stays.

Hornetcoach

As long as you book through your account you can book for other people and the rooms will qualify. You don't have to be present. Use the Capital One Venture card which gives 10 points per dollar for hotels.com. You must use the special link hotels.com/venture.
Hotels.com is owned by Expedia.

Concerto

Definitely managed to book for other people and receive credit, even on simultaneous nights (i.e. booking more than one room in different names for the same night). That is one headache less to deal with in this whole hotel loyalty thing.

Travelomania

Pfewwww .... that's the reason I mostly book through Hotels.com - their customer service is so great !
Had a booking for a week from today, but being in a different time zone I got mixed up with the cancellation time, which is 16 hrs ahead.
No problem whatsoever and within 2 minutes I had a fully refunded cancellation !

Concerto

I think they can, within reason, bend a lot of rules. They know that travelers make mistakes and that time zones can confuse people. Their customer service has also been excellent on the few occasions I have needed it. Do you have status as such with hotels.com, or are you just a normal hotels.com customer? I have Silver status, which I think helps a little.

Travelomania

Yes, Gold status
I do not chase status any longer with the major hotels chains. It is simply not worth it.
And although Agoda is sometimes the winner in price, I love the freedom Hotels.com provides me and I can book (and cancel) as I please without any consideration for chain-status. In addition, I often stay in locations where there are no chain-hotels available. (i.e. Lausanne springs to mind ).
There was an awesome deal here in the US last week where I was lucky enough to be around to notice and bought for thousands of $$$ in Hotels.com gift cards with > 20% off. They make the use of Gift cards so easy and customer friendly and these will be used for stays that have yet to be booked next year.
And as a bonus I still have 5 free nights left at this point in time, nights that still will come in handy !

samwise6222

Finally a hotel that tells you what you are going to get!

Travelomania

Are you perhaps confused with Hyatt ?
Since I get the above perks only when I check in with my status at the Hyatt Vendôme, Paris ?

samwise6222

i didn't realize that they started listing all the gold amenities. This makes booking much easier and exciting. A lot of properties with Marriott Gold / Hyatt Discoverist, Explorist level benefits.



















Tokyo Marriott


Seoul Marriott


Best Western Sydney


Vegas (!!!!)
.

eponymous_coward

There are $50 hotels.com GCs available for $40 (and $100 ones for $85) from newegg and other sources right now.

https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.c...egg-gyft-ppdg/

15-20% off BEFORE the hotels.com free night rebate is pretty strong. I find it pretty hard to milk loyalty programs to the 30%+ effective rebate point.

fredc84

Yea, I picked up 3 $50 ones from newegg.com. Apparently, you can do it again after 48 hours so that'll fall on the last day of the deal if I do it again.