Best choice for hotel deals?

Some of you might travel a lot more than I do. Just curious, what are the preferred ways of saving on hotels

  1. Book directly with hotel chain
  2. Book via a hotel aggregator e.g. hotels.com, trivago
  3. Book via a travel aggregator e.g. Hotwire, Booking.com, JustFly
  4. Choose travel package that includes hotel options
  5. Other e.g. Credit card rewards, AAA, etc
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We mostly use Hotwire.

As long as we filter for hotel class of 3+, and guest reviews of at least 3.5 we’re generally happy.
Price can vary slightly (a couple of bucks) between mobile app and website.

We’ve also used Priceline and Travelocity, but not recently.

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@jjaym - Thanks for the feedback. I have used Hotwire myself for both flights and hotels as individual events. It is somewhat amusing that Hotwire attempts to upsell other services e.g. hotel, rental car, after the flight booking. Glad to hear it is an option used by some.

Things don’t always go smoothly with hotwire. Last night we had a confirmed reservation. Hotel didn’t have it and my room wasn’t available. Got a room at another hotel and hotwire is researching it. I expect that they will refund me the pricier hotel bill, but it was definitely an inconvenience. They have treated me reasonably well in the past when they’ve screwed up.

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@jjaym - Sorry to hear about the inconvenience. Will be interested to learn the outcome of Hotwire’s review and their response.

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They are reimbursing us the cost of the more expensive room. The situation is annoying, but all is good and it only took a couple of days to resolve.

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@jjaym - Glad to hear that Hotwire responded relatively quickly. In some ways, refunding you for the higher priced room is the least they could have done for you. But, at least Hotwire acknowledged the problem and there was no long drawn out process to get you a refund.

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