The most obvious way to secure hotel reservations is to examine your itinerary, select a hotel conveniently located in your destination or overnight stops, call the hotel, and reserve a room. This generally only takes a few moments on the phone and is simple and fairly self-explanatory: however, people hoping to take this route in order to speak to a person rather than a machine should note that many large hotel chains have switched to automated touch-tone or voice-activated phone systems for reservations.
Another way to make hotel reservations is to do so using a travel agent or through your place of business, depending on whether or not the trip is pleasure- or business-oriented. Either method can take a lot of the stress off of you, as another party is making the reservations for you and, ideally, finding you the best deal for your dollar. Reserving hotel rooms through travel agents or work travel programs can also involve reduced prices in hotel reservations and/or associated airplane tickets, either through travel packages or beneficial business relationships the agent has with a given hotel chain permitting them to reserve rooms for their clients at reduced prices.
If your stress level goes down with an increase of hands-on control over your own travel plans, you may want to think about making hotel reservations online. Many popular hotel chains offer this service on their company websites, and frequently offer specials, packages or deals through these sites that they do not advertise anywhere else. These web sites also frequently work in conjunction with airlines and other local businesses and attractions, making it simple to take care of all or most of your travel accommodations at a single website.
Similar convenience is available at price-hunting websites: these, too offer multiple accommodations – hotel reservations, airplane tickets, car rentals, and even cruise packages and restaurant reservations – all in one online location. The difference between these sites and those owned by the hotels themselves is choice: price-hunting sites let you see all possible hotel room rates in your desired destination at the time in which you will be arriving and departing, allowing you to pick and choose which rates and accompanying conveniences are right for you. These websites are able to do this by taking advantage of under-booked hotels and healthy competition: the hotel would rather book an occupied room at a dramatically reduced rate than have an empty room making them no money at all. Hotel chains may also provide room reservation deals to these price-hunting websites if only to foster business through the site to their hotel, rather than a competing one.
Another strategy some of these websites use is to allow you to set the maximum price you are willing to pay for a hotel room; either in the hopes that something will open up, in the interest of having competing hotel chains outbid one another for your business, or in the interest of your outbidding other travelers for cheap room reservations. It depends on the website, the technology it has at its disposal, and the relationships it has with various hotels and motels.
By Rachel Campbell