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(c) Elliott Publishing.

No Hotel Deals?
Cheap Charlie · November 5, 2001

This week I've spent time surfing through several hotel reservation Web sites looking for cheap hotels in New York.

Why New York? We've all been hearing about all the deals. I wanted to find them.

I selected www.quickbook.com, Expedia, Travelocity, HotelDiscount and Lodging.com for my searches. There is no shortage of Web sites for New York City hotel reservations, but these seemed to be a good representation of what the Web offered.

I started with Quikbook since I have worked with them in the past searching for bargain hotels in New York. I then worked my way through Expedia and Travelocity and HotelDiscount.com and finally Lodging.com.

I used a common arrival date of December 6, 2001 with departure on December 9. This gave me a chance to see weeknight and weekend rates.

After dozens of clicks and screens I can tell you that the differences between the prices are fairly minimal when it comes to the bargain hotels I searched for. Surprisingly, rates offered by these Web sites seemed to be within a few dollars of each other when comparing rates for The Amsterdam Court Hotel, Ameritania, Astor on Park and the Marcel.

On Ouikbook.com the Ameritania Hotel room rates were $129 on the 6th and $190 on the weekend nights. Expedia listed the same hotel for $135 on the 6th and $195 on the weekend days. Both Travelocity HotelDiscount had rates for the Ameritania as $129.95 on the 6th and $189.95 on the two weekend nights. Lodging.com reserves rooms for the flat rate of $195 per night significantly more expensive than the others.

The biggest differences are in payment, refund and change policies. Here there is a big difference.

Quikbook and Lodging.com both serve as reservation agents and make money through commissions from the establishments. In most cases with these two sites, payment is made at the hotel upon checkout. Cancellations and changes to reservations are subject to the hotel rules. It is similar to calling the hotel directly and making a reservation, however the bargain prices normally are significantly lower.

Expedia, Travelocity and HotelDiscount all require payment for the entire stay in advance at the time of the reservation. They make millions of dollars on the "float" - holding your money from the time you make your reservation to the time you actually check out of your room.

If we are only talking about a week or so, this doesn't make much difference. When the reservation is made months in advance, paying in advance doesn't make as much sense.

Expedia, Travelocity and HotelDiscount all charge stiff cancellation fees. With Travelocity and HotelDiscount.com the cancellation fee is $50. Expedia charges $10 to cancel reservations up to 72 hours before your reservation, however, cancellations made within 72 hours of your reservation dates will be charges one night room and tax charge.

These fees are the same for changing your reservations. Ouch.

From my limited research dealing with only hotel reservations, Quikbook has the best prices most of the time; Lodging.com and Quikbook have by far the most consumer-friendly cancellation and change policies.

If you use Expedia, Travelocity or HotelDiscount make sure you read the fine print about cancellation and change charges. If you can find similar hotel rates without the restrictions make your reservations with the Web site that offers you the most consumer-friendly arrangements.

The bottom line on the New York hotel deals is that The Big Apple's bargain hotels are still costing about the same as they were pre-September 11. Some of the expensive places have trimmed back their prices however. We'll look at that in a few weeks.

All this may change when we examine air/hotel packages in the future.


Charlie Leocha is the Boston-based author of Travel Rights: Know the Rules of the Road and the Air Before You Go. Cheap Charlie appears every Monday on this site. E-mail him at leocha@aol.com or access his Web site.