[RATE GONE] ~$20 Best Western hotel in Zurich, including tax, and breakfast
 

[The rate was no longer bookable as of June 17, 2005]

November 1, 2005 to October 31, 2006.

Available on a web site I don't hear too much about: www.octopustravel.com

Apparently it is owned by Cendant, and affilated somehow with Gulliver travel (GTA) of the UK.

Zurich hotels are rather expensive. Even a moderate 2 or 3 star hotel like the Best Western Montana books for $100 and up.

However, for almost all dates between Nov. 1 2005 and Oct. 31 2006, this hotel is bookable for as little as $14 per night on Octopustravel.com. The rate includes all taxes and an "american" breakfast. Can't find the rate anywhere but Octopustravel.com. I got much higher rates when I checked other travel web sites, including Bestwestern.com.

The price is slightly higher for double or twin rooms for two people, and slightly higher for 'superior' rooms--which I recommend given the basic accomodations at this hotel.

The octopustravel.com site requred me to pay in full with a credit card, which was authorized for the full amount immediately, and then charged a few days later. In the booking process I was asked to create an account name and password, and the confirmation email, which came immediately, contained a link to their site which allowed me to print my "voucher," which indicated "confirmed," and also contained an instruction to the hotel that the rate was prepaid and so the hotel should only charge for "extras." The rate does not even appear on the voucher, but you can also print a 'receipt' which shows the rate. When I logged onto my new account at octopustravel.com, it showed the reservation as "confirmed."

I've appended some info below which indicates this is clearly not a 5* hotel. It's quite near the main train station apparently.

Although the web site indicates the Octopustravel firm (which is owned by Cendant) is in New York, the terms and conditions to the reservation (be sure to print these) contain a clause that California law will govern and Los Angeles County Court shall have jurisdiction. Fine with me-- the California courts are still slightly more consumer friendly than most.

Again, I couldn't get the under $20 price for any date prior to November 1st--but almost every date from then until Nov. 2006 was available.

I hope Octopus will measure up to the Travelocity standard of service. If anyone has experience with them either good or bad please let us know.

Best Western page regarding this hotel:
http://book.bestwestern.com/bestwest...ertyCode=94164

A rather negative description of the hotel:
http://www.thisistravel.co.uk/travel...in_page_id=101

From a press release:

About OctopusTravel.com:
OctopusTravel is an innovative travel company that offers an extensive range of products on the Internet, in 24 languages. Thanks to very close ties to Gullivers Travel Associates (GTA), one of the world's largest travel wholesalers, OctopusTravel frequently has availability when other operators are sold out.

OctopusTravel was recently placed amongst the three best online travel companies in the Telegraph Travel Awards, which is based on a survey of 25,000 readers, and it was No.4 in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 league table of Britain's top performing private companies. It has been nominated for a series of other travel awards, including the World's Leading Hotel Reservation Service, World Travel Awards 2004, the Best Holiday Add-On Company and Best Accommodation Only Company, Travel Trade Gazette 2004 and the Best Website and Best Accommodation Only Programme, Selling Long Haul 2004.

It has created highly successful partnerships with Air France, American Express, DFDS, easyHotel, Eurolines, Lufthansa, North West Airlines, United Airlines, Virgin Blue, Wanadoo and travel agents worldwide. OctopusTravel.com also works with several major European Banks through its relationship with Cendant. As of 1st April 2005, OctopusTravel.com became a wholly owned subsidiary of Cendant, one of the world's largest publicly-quoted travel groups.

Does seem like a great find...Expedia's listing it at around $132/night.

C'mon Hilton, match!! :D

j/k -- nice find! ^

Colour me skeptical, but why does only one little known website have this rate? And requires full prepayment to boot. The unusually long validity date also makes my spidey senses tingle, so to speak. Something doesn't seem right about this one, at least to me.

I've heard of Octopustravel.com before. Found them through a website of one of Europe's principal low cost carriers.

I'm contemplating booking this for a month at a time and inviting people to stay there as they wish. :D

$934 for 32 days' rent (for 3 people) including breakfast. Cheaper than the current accomodations. :D

Ryanair uses OctopusTravel. I used it to get an excellent rate at a nice 3* hotel in Venice.

Priceline Hong Kong uses the OctopusTravel portal if you want to book a "named" hotel.

TripAdvisor links to OctopusTravel in its hotel listings.

I've seen other companies use it too.

The rates also seem to depend on the site you use to enter OctopusTravel. Sometimes the Ryanair site will have deals that other sites do not have, and so forth.

I sit corrected on octopus, though it still seems a bit of an odd 'misprice' to me...

Why does the website require that you input all guests' names? I'm thinking of just booking 2 rooms and hoping someone else will want to get for a few days.

The voucher provided -- to be printed out and given to the hotel at check-in after making the booking -- indicates the names of the guests in each room. I've seen one guest's name being on a voucher to be given to a hotel before, but don't recall seeing all the names of every guest being on such a voucher before.

I'm in. Three doubles over New Year's for 6 nights. $360 all in!!!

Thanks OP.

Thanks. It looks like you can change the names on the reservation at any time. If it works, great.

Looks like it's no longer available. Just try to book several weekends and nothing was showing up. Not a single hotel through this website.

Edit to add that apologies to everyone as the rate is still available. I had entered invalid dates. Sorry.
This is indeed a great find for an expensive city like Zurich. :)

It does seem to allow you to change names once you've logged onto octopustravel.com. Not sure if it would work if you changed the name of the primary person though.

Once my reservation was confirmed, confirming email was received, the reservation showed "confirmed" on the website and the charge (full prepayment) came through on my card, I bought a plane ticket for February in reliance on all of the above. So I do hope not to have any problems. I hope someone goes in November (apparenty the first available month) and reports back.

excellent find.So do you think if we get the confirmation and pay for it then everything should be ok?Or could they ask for more money once we get there? :)does anyone have any tips to get a cheap flight to Zurich from scotland?

When you print the voucher to give to the hotel; it says something to the effect that the stay is fully prepaid via GT. It doesn't even say the rate, I think.