On booking accommodations

Remember the times you drove into a town late evening and stopped at the first gas station to ask where to find accommodation for the night? It wasn’t that far back, when one didn’t need advanced booking for almost everywhere, was it? Twenty-something years ago, that is. Mass tourism was not the thing and accommodations were easily available at the last moment. You walk in a town, ask around and for sure someone will send you in the right direction. Or you call the chamber of commerce, give them your parameters and end up with a few phone numbers. In small towns and villages, you could just ask the grannies sitting outside their homes on a bench or the front doorstep, watching the world go by. The best ever booking sites!

As we’ve mentioned a few times, we travel on a budget, but this doesn’t mean we are budget travellers. At retirement age we need some comforts – a private loo for example.  And thus, the hostels and dorms with shared bathrooms have departed for us as has the backpacking life.

For many, accommodation is their second most expensive travel item, airfare being the first. It all depends on the length of travel however. If I look for average spend per day, accommodation for us often comes first.  And so, we try to squeeze as much as we can from the cost without compromising on our comfort.

If we stay more than two days in a place, we prefer to have our own space with kitchenette and laundry facilities. For one or two nights we usually book a hotel. Of course, if the price is good, the room is nice and breakfast is included (which is the case in most places except North America), hotels can be better even for a longer stay.

Some of the guest houses are a mixture between dorms and great hotel type rooms, as it was in Glasgow, where we had a royally spacious room and same sized bathroom in a converted townhouse. And then there are aparthotels, where one can rent an apartment, but still has the convenience of a reception desk.

Accommodation type preference is highly personal. There are some popular misconceptions though, in regards of price and convenience of accommodations booked through the variety of online sites available to us these days.

We use B&Bs, rental homes (be it apartment, studio, cottage or a house) and hotel rooms.

They can be listed on different booking web sites, such as B&B specialised sites, the country, city or county websites, and specialised businesses – Expedia, Hotels, Booking, Airbnb, etc.

Before you start looking for accommodations, be clear on the needs of your travel party.  Are you a solo traveller, a couple, a family with kids, two couples or a larger group? What is your max budget for a night? What type of accommodation and service do you prefer? What mode of transportation will you use to get to the location and to get around during your stay? These all play into your decision on:

a.       Where to book

b.       What to book

c.       Which site to use for booking

My observations and experiences are about booking for a couple; however, the same concepts apply to all. Also, I am talking about booking mainly from Canada. Different rules (for online sites) may apply in different countries.

There are two types of online sites targeting you as a potential customer that I want to touch on. They all have their marketing tactics to steer you to towards booking through their site. The business-oriented sites serving as online travel agencies such as Booking, Expedia, Hotels, and many more. And the sites of the so-called shared economy, such as Airbnb, which defines itself as an online community marketplace, Homeaway, Couchsurfing, VRBO, etc. They all have different business models. The boundaries for you as a customer, however, are blurred.

The original Airbnb concept was to provide a platform for private owners, like me and you, to list their spare room or property to make some money on the side. From there the misconception of being cheaper is derived.  On the other hand, Booking, Hotels and Expedia are presumed to be sites for business owners, such as hotels, aparthotels and B&Bs. Not really, at least as the marketplace evolves. The apartments listed on Airbnb are nowadays often also listed on Booking for example. And rooms in hotels, hostels and guest houses can be listed on Airbnb. Singapore and South Asia anyone?

For simplicity of narrative, I selected one of each type:  Booking and Airbnb. These are actually the two sites I use the most, but not exclusively.

As I previously stated, there is a popular misconception that Airbnb is cheaper. After all, cutting cost is a pillar of their marketing strategy. Not quite so, according to my experience. It may be not easy to compare price if you are comparing different types of accommodations though. My comparison here is for exactly the same accommodation.

We first ran into this situation in Bucharest, Romania. I had booked an apartment via Booking. When we arrived, the owner asked us if we had booked through Airbnb or Booking. We looked up and both logos were above the door. Did I miss this one as a cheaper option in Airbnb? We quickly checked and found the apartment on Airbnb. Slightly different name, same photos. And… higher actual price. Same service provided. Except a bonus that we knew the exact location through Booking before reserving, vs. the location being hidden within a large circle on a map until you pay on Airbnb.

Many times since then, when searching both Airbnb and Booking, I have found the same accommodation listed in both places. The relative cost on these sites pretty much depends on the city and country.

So Airbnb vs Booking for the exact same accommodation on the same date?

1.       Hidden costs: Airbnb has costs not listed up front in your search results. These are the fees that Airbnb cuts from both sides – you and your host, plus the cleaning fees. Add this all and you may find that the same place comes cheaper in Booking or Hotels. For our next trip I have a few of these accommodations booked through Booking, instead of Airbnb. At one place, after adding Airbnb fees and cleaning fees, I found the price difference to be as high as CAD $30 per night in favour of Booking.

2.       Mysterious location: Airbnb does not disclose the location, which can be a huge disadvantage if you are looking for a quiet street, or other specifics. The location is disclosed once you pay. I usually engage with the owner for better understanding. And if they are reluctant to provide more specifics, I just walk away. My experience shows that in such cases they have something to hide. A noisy street, a pub below, etc.

3.       Corresponding with the owners: now that is not necessarily a negative thing, especially if you are going to stay in someone’s home. I prefer to know a bit about that person(s) and provide some info about us. But it can also be time consuming, especially if you have 20 or 30 accommodations on your itinerary.

4.       Cancelation cost: In all my comparisons for accommodations I had free cancelation in Booking. Not so in Airbnb. Even if the owner allowed for free cancelation (not all do), Aribnb charges you their booking fee. This is a huge disadvantage if you are booking well in advance. Recently Airbnb has introduced 48 hours free cancelation for some places (if the owner choses to use this option of course). However, in this case they will not disclose the address until the 48 hours are gone.

Don’t get me wrong. You probably will find cheaper accommodation through Airbnb, especially if there are more than 2 of you. Often for 4 people in a hotel you’ll have to book two rooms for example. On the other hand, the cost of a two-bedroom apartment is not double the cost of one-bedroom apartment. You share kitchen and possibly bathroom. Thus, in such a case Airbnb can provide more value. Yet check for the same apartment in Booking or Hotels. You may be surprised.

I recently ran into a research done by Busbud. Although they haven’t compared apples to apples (I mean the exact same accommodation as I did) it does have interesting data. They had looked at it holistically: average price of a hotel room vs a room in an Airbnb rental (not the entire home). This could be useful for general orientation, but again do your homework carefully.

Moving away from comparing the two types of online booking services I want to add a layer of complexity by throwing the so-called aggregators in the mix. These are sites that use search engines, and claim they compare prices to provide you with the best options. Sites such as: Trivago, Kayak, HotelsCombined  etc.

I will use Trivago.ca here as an example. You will find a hotel or other accommodation with prices from different sites such as Booking, Hotels, Agoda, Expedia, etc. What are these prices actually? As far as I have found, only Booking.com’s upfront price is all-inclusive, and even then not always (Singapore, looing at you). If for example, you see a hotel room (compare exactly the same room!) listed for $100 in Booking and only $95 in Hotels, don’t rush to Hotels… go through the process until you see the final price. In this case it will be higher than in Booking, because Hotels adds taxes and fees after and Booking has it all up front. Very often though, when I compare all-in price for the same room the differential comes to about $1. This difference maybe due to the exchange rates used by the sites.

So where do you go if the price is the same? It is a matter of preference and loyalty.

Booking for example has the so called “Genius” discount – a minimum of 10%. But I was given a 27% discount for a hotel in Australia. Hotels gives you the 11th night free, if you book 10 nights through them. But we once lost our 11th night because we did not travel for over a year. In order to keep your accumulated nights, you have to make a reservation within a year. This, together with the fact that their taxes and fees are not included in the display price makes me prefer the Booking.com. On the other hand Booking annoys me with their marketing tactics…hurry up only 2 rooms left…. Search in a month you’ll find the same message (there were news articles this week that the EU has clamped down on these pressure tactics – at least from September 2019 forward – but nothing has been mentioned about this in our part of the world).

And one more thing – why I will never use Agoda, although sometimes they have cheaper listings. Well, I did try it. I booked an apartment in Adelaide, Australia (free cancelation since it was far ahead) for our next trip. The online confirmation looked fine.  When I received the e-mail confirmation however, the price was exactly doubled. I immediately canceled it and tried to contact them. I received an e-mail, not exactly very apologetic, telling me that this was an error but it is a rare one. Then we did some online research, just to find out that many others complained. The worst was asking double amount at arrival.

Don’t trust what they tell you. It is misleading. It is all marketing. Compare with:

a.      Another site

b.     Go directly to the hotel site and see if you can get it cheaper. Some places are cheaper in the booking sites that have bought a bulk block of rooms but some, especially smaller places, may give you a better discount.

The bottom line is, if you want to save some money on accommodation, you will have to do your homework. So do your research, use trusted companies and also trust your instincts. Especially with Airbnb. Read carefully all the reviews and stay away even if there is the slightest of doubts.