How to choose a hotel, a B&B or other accommodation
How to choose a hotel – Whether you prefer adventurous or cultural travel, whether you are looking for a five-star luxury hotel or are willing to sleep on the floor, it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t even count if you’ve been traveling for years or want to start on Monday (like the diet). Whether you do it for pleasure or for work, in this article you will find ideas to improve your organizational skills, and you will learn, or refine, your strategy in this regard. And all this always with an eye on your wallet. For a perfect trip, wherever you go, you will need to carefully choose your accommodation for the night… unless you have taken advantage of the secret to traveling for free in a camper!
How to find low cost flights (1)
It goes without saying that the choice of the type of accommodation depends on your tastes and how you want to experience your holiday. In order not to make too convoluted discussions, however, I will provide you with advice and general guidelines that are valid regardless of the type of accommodation chosen (hotel, holiday home, bed and breakfast and so on).
If you do not already have direct contacts, you will obviously have to use the appropriate sites. There is now a jungle of them also because, fortunately, tourism is always on the rise. But pay attention to the “web”: you know, right, what it means in English? “Spiderweb”. There’s the spider, which uses it to move in all directions, and there are tons of bugs that just get trapped in it. Who would you like to be? You must know how to use the “web“, or you will be the fly. And do you know where it often lands…
My reference site is undoubtedly tripadvisor.com. I know, there are those who love it but also those who hate it, above all because it allows you to be able to review without any proof of having visited the attraction or structure. Furthermore, although it was born “pure”, with income based on harmless banners and affiliations, it has now also become a sales portal and therefore risks leading you towards a controlled and not necessarily better choice.
However, whether you like it or not, it is the number one tourism site in the world with almost one million visitors a day, around 35 million reviews, 200,000 hotels and 30,000 destinations.
Usage is simple. Just set the various parameters (also via map) and start searching.
It is very important, unfortunately sometimes long, to read the reviews to evaluate if any negative element constitutes a reason for you to discard the hypothesis. For example, if everyone says it’s a perfect structure, nice and clean but very noisy, but you and those traveling with you sleep like logs and are heavy sleepers, it may not matter to you, and vice versa. For example, it happens to me to stay in places that have some negative reviews because they are out of the way but, above all because I am often in the car, it is not something I mind, quite the contrary.
However, on how to interpret all the various opinions, as well as the responses of the structures, we could write a book, and we would need Freud’s help. However, my advice is to read the negative ones well because this prevents problems.
In general, grumpy or even scathing replies from managers are an indication of a receptive structure to be avoided absolutely, if only because it does not guarantee you the right attitude on their part in case of any problem that may arise.
Attention, attention (it is not a mistake, I wrote it twice on purpose): on many sites anyone can write a review, therefore also the managers of the structures themselves. If you think this is easily identifiable by the number of overall reviews, know that there are companies that offer fake comments to the various establishments. Another important thing you must bear in mind is that in the case of B&Bs (at least at the time I am writing, because these things change too), the review on some sites can be distorted by the fact that the owners have to accept it based on the name of who wrote it. It is therefore probable that if they have had some disagreement or perceived disagreements, they will not let it be published. On these portals, in fact, you will see that on average B&Bs lack irreverent opinions.
One thing that can protect you is to evaluate the reviews on sites that allow them only to those who have actually stayed in the structure. For hotels, I use booking.com, because it’s a real giant and has an interface that I think is excellent (especially for filters and reviews).
In general, however, don’t let yourself be influenced by some brokers who are very good at making you anxious with a whole series of inputs, more or less subtle, which lead you to think that everyone is booking exactly what you want at that moment and therefore you must hurry.
Then consider that all sites are nothing more than sellers and certainly do not want to denigrate their “products”. Some, for example, when sorting reviews from lowest to highest score (which I highly recommend), still put the good ones, maybe first. Others, when after a stay they ask for your personal opinion, offer you an interface designed by marketing experts to bring you to enhance the positive sides. Even in the context of “holiday homes” and B&Bs this principle applies, and in fact often finding a negative review on this type of accommodation is more difficult than finding an honest politician.
For non-hotel activities I use airbnb.com, undoubtedly among the best for searching for Bed and Breakfasts and guest houses, or the homeaway.com group (with Homelidays, etc.) with few rivals for holiday home rentals abroad .
How to choose a hotel1-min
How to choose a hotel, a B&B or other accommodation DIRECTLY
Alternatively, you can also select the structures that interest you and try direct contact by sending them an email to ask for a kind offer. If you write in a blog or simply participate in forums or review sites, gently let it show. Perhaps it will be enough to ask for clarification on something you have read in a review to make them understand, at least, that you are attentive tourists.
At this point, politely ask for a nice discount, possibly pointing out that you are aware of the fact that by booking through other channels, the latter would ask them for a commission (sometimes huge). For this reason, many large chains offer the “best price guarantee” on their website, which you can invoke. Conversely, for small businesses, propose it yourself.
It is good that you are aware that by making this choice you will be giving up the guarantees that large brokerage sites such as those mentioned in the previous paragraph usually offer.
In the case of airbnb.com, for example, it is possible to leave the structure after the first day If this does not correspond to what is described in the advertisement. Booking.com and Hotels.com offer the guarantee of rebooking you in a similar or better structure in the event of overbooking or in any case of the impossibility of providing you with the room (they then claiming themselves directly from the structure for the payment of any price difference) .
In any case, asking the structures directly will not be a big effort because once you have identified a group of accommodations in the same place and for the same period, it will basically be enough to do a “copy and paste”.
This trick works very well. In the worst case scenario, the facilities that have special contracts and cannot offer a lower price than the online one will give you a room upgrade or vouchers for parking, meals, and so on. By establishing a cordial relationship with the hosts, I have often obtained benefits. Once, for example, in a B&B in Corpus Christi – Texas they took us for a ride on their personal sailboat, in defiance of all the other guests.