How to book cheap hotels

Although many people assert that they are some of the most organized people in the entire world, when it comes down to booking hotel rooms for vacations, they can be some of the most disoriented people, constantly getting ripped off due to their sheer neglect and procrastination.  A hotel room completes a vacation – it’s like the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae – without it, the vacation seems empty, unmemorable, and just bland.

When I ask my friends when they usually start booking their hotel rooms, they all unfailingly answer, “three or four days before”.  That, to me at least, is not enough time to come to a well-informed decision as to the most affordable and desirable hotel room to stay in.  When you attempt to book a hotel room with only three days of “buffer time”, chances are that you pick a “filler room” and end up desperately choosing a room that doesn’t appeal, but that temporarily satisfies your housing dilemma.

So when SHOULD you choose a hotel room and reserve it?

At least two to three months beforehand.  Not kidding.  The earlier you start researching potential hotel rooms and finding out the optimal time to stay, the more you can enjoy your vacation – think about it.  If you spend a good 3 months saving your money, spending time on hotel databases to research the current industry trends and room rates, and finding out what exactly you want to do in your vacation, you’ll feel relaxed, geared up, and ready to go all due to a little patience, persistence, and planning.

Imagine you’re thinking of taking an awesome vacation to Toronto.  You want to stay in a hotel room that provides you with the most picturesque view of the Toronto skyline, perfectly illuminating the CN Tower, the Rogers’ Centre, and the numerous other Torontonian buildings.  Also imagine that you started looking for Toronto hotels three days before your trip.  Now, suddenly, you switch to looking for Mississauga hotels.  Why did you do this?  Because you started too late!  In order to get a hotel in downtown Toronto, the business capital of Canada, you need a good month to two months buffer time.  Instead, you started searching 3 days before you were going to leave on the trip!  Therefore, you had to settle for a hotel all the way in Mississauga and suffer the long and laborious commute to downtown Toronto.

But don’t worry – there’s hope.  With just a little bit of research on industry trends and room rates, you can get a hotel that maximizes your personal satisfaction/utility.  All you have to do is visit a hotel resource website, which is a database of information on what I just said – trends in the hotel and hospitality industry.  By seeing these trends, you can optimize your accommodation decision and ensure that your vacation is as enjoyable as ever.

To sum up, in order to fully enjoy your vacation, start booking rooms early, do so with the goal of maximizing affordability and desirability, and make sure you do your homework.