Hotel News Now published a story on “10 hotel booking trends” from a presentation at the inaugural Hotel Data Conference by Brian Ferguson, Expedia VP of Lodging Demand and Analysis. Hotel News Now is the newsletter publication of Smith Travel Research, a leader in hotel rate data and research for the hotel industry.

The consumer trend of the past year has been a swing in hotel bookings made through online third-party hotel reservation sites like Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz. The viewpoint of Expedia, expressed by Ferguson, is the increased volume in bookings does not directly increase profits for third party online travel agencies due to the lower revenue generated as a portion of lower room rates across all hotel market segments.

What I want to share is the “10 Booking Trends” discussed by Expedia’s Lodging Demand and Analysis VP. I am just a hotel consumer who tries to figure out how to get great value from hotel rates. Reading what the industry experts have to say helps me focus my Loyalty Traveler work on a targeted audience who will benefit from my reporting on hotel rate trends as a frequent guest.

1.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Exchange rates are shifting travel patterns.

Hotel rates in UK have dropped primarily due to the better exchange rate for Americans. Combine the exchange rate with promotions and the UK is a bargain.

Loyalty Traveler: I totally agree, but the window appears to be closing on the exchange rate issue. Winter 2009 offered some of the best deals in years for UK and Europe due to the combination of a much better exchange rate for the US Dollar and hotel loyalty program promotions. The dollar has been losing ground as the stock market goes up. Anyone thinking Wall Street inflation?

2 nights for the price of 1 has been an ongoing deal for the past couple of years to entice travelers to the major chain hotels in Europe and Asia.

2.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Consumers are looking for a deal. Bookings made with promotions are increasing as a share of total hotel reservations.

Loyalty Traveler: I’ll take some credit for this one. I take the time to analyze hotel promotions for readers. Loyalty Traveler rarely books a room without a promotion offer. “Hotel value for the frequent guest” is the Loyalty Traveler motto. 10,000+ unique visitors a month are reading Loyalty Traveler to learn more about hotel loyalty program promotions.

3.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Promotions matter more than ever.

 

Loyalty Traveler: I get a chuckle out of all the news articles showing how to get better value from your spending in all segments of consumer purchases from groceries to hair cuts to travel.

I had an oil change yesterday for 25% off. The coupon took two minutes to locate on the internet. All the other people at Jiffy Lube paid full price.

Friends have commented I am a cheap ass when I pull out a 2-for-1 dining coupon. I rarely eat out for more than half-price.

 

I frequently stay in hotels for less than half-price. Promotions matter if you want more money for life’s other necessities and pleasures.

 

4.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Promotions are getting more creative. It used to be about cutting rates and now hotels add free nights and value-added incentives.

 

Loyalty Traveler: Promotions are more creative and take more time to analyze for this Loyalty Traveler. I’m looking for the deal whether it is a bargain rate now (free parking, free breakfast) or will result in a bargain hotel rate in the future (free hotel night).

 

5.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Customers who book online are trading up. Four and five star hotels are getting more affordable.

Loyalty Traveler: I have stayed in some of San Francisco’s finest hotels this year and only once paid over $125. And I received a $500 per night suite for that stay. 2009 is a leisure traveler’s hotel dream.

6.       Expedia VP Ferguson: There are massive swings in online market share.

Loyalty Traveler: No real comment to make here. I haven’t tried the phone call reservation this year. I’ve read articles on Hotel Chatter and Budget Travel about people getting a much better deal through the phone. I’ve been an online customer for 10 years and my experience has rarely been to find a better deal over the phone. I do recall my mother getting good phone rates when my mom and the hotel reservationist could not locate the online promotion I was telling her to book.

7.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Booking compression. People are waiting closer to stay date to book.

Loyalty Traveler: I reported in several posts that my rate analysis of San Francisco hotels revealed the lowest rates typically are found between 7 and 14 days before the stay date. Smart shoppers wait (or at least go with a rate allowing cancellation in case a better rate appears).

8.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Leisure rates went down first and are going down more.

Loyalty Traveler: My hotel rate focus is geared for the leisure traveler. I don’t stay in San Francisco on paid rates when a convention is in town and the hotels go up to $300+ per night. The same hotel room is around $100 per night, a 50% decrease from average leisure rates a year ago, during weeks when business travel is light. And getting an upgrade is much easier when there are not corporate executives buying up the suites.

9.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Increased use of rate fences in packages.

Loyalty Traveler: I am not a marketing person and I need to study this concept since I have been seeing it more frequently lately. Basically it seems the concept is to hide the room rate in a package of bundled services such as airfare, rental car, or hotel amenities like champagne and spa treatments.

I generally find these to be a poor value for a hotel when the components are broken down. Packages are convenient and there are some great deals if you need the car or the airfare. I think this is generally a better strategy for reducing high-cost airfare rather than getting a better value on a hotel room.

10.   Expedia VP Ferguson: Opaque channels are growing faster than non-opaque channels.

Loyalty Traveler: Opaque channels are hotel reservation sites like Priceline and Hotwire where you get a really low rate for an unspecified hotel. Opaque channels are the way to go when hotels are priced at high nightly rates. I opt for Priceline when the alternative is a $200+ night room.

My basic loyalty traveler argument is over the course of the year when traveling and staying 20 to 50 nights in hotels, the hotel loyalty program strategy can be used as effectively as Priceline to pay for rooms when they are relatively low priced and redeem points for high priced rooms.

I have saved a couple thousand dollars in past years using Priceline for trips when the chain hotels were high priced.

2009 has seen incredible promotions from hotel loyalty programs. My Starwood Hotels stays in May averaged less than $60 per room night at upscale hotels, frequently in suites, while allowing me to book $500 per night rooms with the free nights I earned.

Try doing that with Priceline.

 

 

TripAdvisor.com is growing at an incredible rate.  I primarily use the site for hotel reviews.  There are also travel forums for discussion, restaurant reviews and recommendations, and destination guides.

In July when I was “mile-high” in Denver I wrote a post, Online Hotel Reviews, comparing TripAdvisor.com to other hotel review sites and its dominance for online hotel reviews.  Looking at the post again today I noticed it was littered with inaccurate assumptions which led to incorrect mathematical analysis of the data.  I had made the assumption that the 1% of site visitors making consumer-generated comments were all hotel reviews when they actually include all types of comments from bulletin board forums to restaurant and sight-seeing recommendations.  I’ll blame my inaccurate analysis on oxygen-deprivation for this California coastal kid writing on the high plains of Colorado.    

The main point I made then and now is TripAdvisor.com is way ahead of the pack for sheer numbers of consumer-generated online hotel reviews. 

TripAdvisor’s media network includes www.Airfarewatchdog.com,  www.BookingBuddy.com,  www.CruiseCritic.com, www.holidaywatchdog.com, www.theindependenttraveler.com, www.seatguru.com, www.smartertravel.com,  www.travel-library.com,  www.travelpod.com,  and www.tripadvisor.com.  Expedia.com is the parent corporate entity of this online travel site empire.

And with the financial backing of Expedia, TripAdvisor’s parent company, the social media website acquisitions of TripAdvisor makes this travel conglomerate the Bank of America of online travel research and search sites.  24 million unique monthly visitors and over 6 million registered members is an incredible database for the TripAdvisor-branded websites.

Tripadvisor fact sheet 

TripAdvisor does not actually sell hotel rooms.  Revenue is generated from pay-per-click sponsored ads on the webpage.  For example, looking at the Omni San Francisco Hotel webpage on TripAdvisor, there were 12 sponsored links for booking the Omni San Francisco Hotel through 8 different websites:  hotels.com (an Expedia family website), Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, Omni Hotels, HotelClub.com (Orbitz owned), CheapTickets.com (Orbitz owned), Priceline.com, and Otel.com.

From the top of the page the first booking option for the Omni Hotel is a toll-free telephone ad for hotels.com (Expedia owned).  The box below that has four sponsored links: Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, Omni Hotels, and Hotels.com.  Two of these links are Expedia booking sites.

Further down the page were four more sponsored links: HotelClub.com (Orbitz owned); CheapTickets.com (Orbitz owned); Priceline.com, and Otel.com.  The bottom of the webpage showed the same sponsored links as the top box.

While there were 12 sponsored links and one telephone toll-free number for actually booking the hotel from the main TripAdvisor webpage for the Omni San Francisco, the fact of the matter is five of these options are Expedia-owned websites and four are Orbitz-owned websites.  Omni Hotels has its own sponsored link appearing twice.  The other two sponsored link options were Priceline.com and Otel.com.

This analysis doesn’t help the consumer in determining which website link will have the lowest room price.  I am just looking at the webpage options provided to the consumer for this hotel property and the fact that most links from TripAdvisor go to Expedia or Orbitz companies.

Share of Online Travel Agency referrals from TripAdvisor for April 2008

Compete.com is a website analytics company that analyzes consumer behavior.  A Compete.com travel research report from July looked at the actual percentage of TripAdvisor referrals going to the different online travel agencies for the month of April 2008.

·         Expedia 48%

·         Travelocity 19%

·         Orbitz 16%

·         Hotels.com 11%  (Expedia)

·         Priceline 5%

·         Cheaptickets 1% (Orbitz)

·         Hotwire <1%  (Expedia)

Source: http://www.competeinc.com/research/newsletters/july-2008-travel-research/

 

The interesting aspect of this data is the large percentage of referrals going to Travelocity.com who had no sponsored links on the TripAdvisor webpage I studied for the Omni San Francisco hotel and few sponsored links on several other TripAdvisor hotel review pages I searched.  A few years ago (2005?) there was a Cornell Center for Hospitality Research report showing Travelocity.com most frequently had the lowest hotel rates of the Online Travel Agencies.  I have no idea if that would have any validity now in 2008.  I always book through the hotel owned websites for the best deal or seek the Best Rate Guarantee from the hotel company when I occasionally find a better rate with an online travel agency.

Compete.com had another interesting report posted September 11, 2008 analyzing the search traffic share for seven major online travel agencies.  The data reflects all travel search, not just hotels.  Expedia is the online search leader.

Online Travel Agency search share for July 07-July 08  (Expedia at 26% is referenced in the article and the other numbers are my estimates based on the Compete.com chart shown here)

·         Expedia 26%

·         Travelocity 17%

·         Orbitz 16%

·         Hotels.com 10%

·         Priceline 13%

·         Cheaptickets 10%

·         Hotwire 7%

Another chart in this report shows the percentage of paid search traffic to Online Travel Agencies (OTA).  36% of all search traffic comes through sponsored links.  The discussion at the beginning of this post regarding sponsored links on the hotel review webpages of TripAdvisor.com seems to correlate somewhat with this data.  Hotels.com has the highest percentage of visitors accessing the site through sponsored links (44%) and Hotels.com is also the most prominent OTA present on TripAdvisor webpages.

Travelocity is the second highest in percentage of paid search referrals (about 40%) and this may account for the high proportion of referrals from TripAdvisor although I did not see many Travelocity sponsored links on the TripAdvisor hotel review pages I checked.

Orbitz and its other company, CheapTickets.com, show about 35% of traffic is from paid search referrals. Their sponsored links are highly visible on TripAdvisor.  Expedia and Hotwire are around 34% paid search traffic.

Interestingly, Priceline.com has the lowest percentage of paid search traffic (about 27%), yet Priceline is showing strong growth in market share.  And I would expect them to gain even more market share in these tough economic times.

 

TripAdvisor.com “Take this job and shove it”

A former TripAdvisor web content editor, Diedre Kiely, filed a complaint in July claiming TripAdvisor violated Massachusetts law by classifying her and other content editors as independent contractors.  The suit is pending class-action certification in the U.S. District Court of Boston.  The independent contractors edit reviews of hotels and restaurants according to the complaint. 

The experience of unequal pay for the same work as a “permatemp” led me to say “screw corporate greed” and venture out on my own as Loyalty Traveler.  I still have no benefits and no paid vacation, but at least I have the opportunity to provide value-added content to other hard-working consumers and I can travel when I want.  

Posted from BlogWorld 2008, Las Vegas.  A big thank you to Randy Petersen and BoardingArea.com for sponsoring my trip here.

 

Online Hotel Reviews

Travelers place a lot of faith in consumer-generated hotel reviews. I trust FlyerTalk.com content because there is a large community of travelers who provide opinions and feedback on each other’s comments. Most major upscale hotels around the world have user comments and reviews from the 100,000+ members of the FlyerTalk.com community.

I believe the self-monitoring independent community of FlyerTalk.com provides more accurate hotel reviews than what is typically found on TripAdvisor.com, particularly when it comes to the experience for elite frequent guests in the major hotel loyalty programs.

Social Media Co-Opted by Corporate Media

The best social media websites with consumer generated comments and hotel reviews have been co-opted by corporate media. Social media websites where users generate the content for free has been a successful marketing partnership for major travel industry players. What in many cases started out as independent, organically developed networks of people creating content for free to help other travelers has developed into the current condition of the major global travel reservations corporations like Expedia.com and Travelocity.com owning social network sites like TripAdvisor.com and IgoUgo.com as corporate subsidiaries.

Meta-search engines like Kayak.com who own TravelPost.com, and bulletin boards like FlyerTalk.com and Cruisecritic.com are not sellers of travel, but make money on an advertising model based on travelers frequently interacting as a community creating new content.

Major Online Hotel Reviews and Their Parent Corporations

IgoUgo.com hotel reviews and hotel rate meta-search engine = Travelocity.com (Parent Company)

TripAdvisor.com for hotel reviews and hotel rate meta-search = Expedia.com (Parent company)

Hotels.com has a large database for hotel reviews. Hotels.com is also an Expedia company. Hotel guests must have booked stay with Hotels.com to post a review and most of the reviews do not have any written comments. A point scale survey on Hotel Service, Hotel Condition, Room Comfort, and Room Cleanliness are used to give the hotel a rating on a 5 point scale. This website offers a quick snapshot of customer satisfaction for hotel.

TravelPost.com for hotel reviews and Kayak is a meta-search = Kayak.com (Parent Company)

Orbitz.com generates its own database of user-generated hotel reviews based on hotel guests booking through Orbitz.com and responding via e-mail to a post-stay request for a hotel review.

Yahoo! Travel uses a couple of different hotel review databases. When conducting hotel searches through the Yahoo Travel homepage the results use Travelocity and the hotel reviews are the same as Travelocity. When using Yahoo Travel Guides or FareChase for hotel searches the hotel reviews are a different set.

“I Want to Believe” TripAdvisor

A recent article TripAdvisor Staying Ahead of the Pack from Compete.com, the web traffic analysis site, and a blog post by the same writer Ryan Carrigg “TripAdvisor Poised for Success”, shows the dominance of TripAdvisor.com for user-generated content in the online travel research sector. The article states “TripAdvisor.com averaged over 6 million US unique visitors” per month for the year from May 2007 to May 2008. The traffic on TripAdvisor.com has seen 34% growth from May 2007. A finding in this report states that 1.08% of users of TripAdvisor.com had posted content over the past year.  TripAdvisor has hotel reviews, restaurant comments, and general travel forums for destinations.

This TripAdvisor data had me wondering about the hotel review content on other popular websites. I have made a simple analysis of online hotel reviews from several common websites by counting the actual number of hotel reviews for a small sample of hotels in San Francisco.

TripAdvisor Hotel Reviews – What Percentage of Guests Write TripAdvisor Reviews?

(There are a number of unknown variables which makes this analysis a very rough estimate at best.) 

Le Meridien San Francisco TripAdvisor popularity index #14/238 hotels;

197 total hotel reviews; 38 reviews from 2008; 79 reviews in past 12 months;
oldest review from April 26, 2002 when hotel was a Park Hyatt.

360 rooms at Le Meridien San Francisco
Assume a rather low 50% average nightly occupancy or 180 rooms booked per night.
180 rooms x 365 nights = 65,700 room-nights.

65,700 room-nights / 79 hotel reviews = 832 room-nights per hotel review.
1 hotel review for every 832 room-nights could be as few as 1 hotel review per 832 hotel guests (if each guest only stayed 1 night) at Le Meridien Hotel San Francisco.  Assume, on average each guest stays 2 nights and the ratio would increase to 1 hotel review per 416 guests. 

If hotel occupancy averaged 65% for the year, then the proportion of guests writing a review decreases. If more than one guest is in the room, then the proportion of hotel guests writing a review decreases.  There are lots of variables.

It seems to me that the actual range of guest hotel reviews on TripAdvisor.com is probably about 1 out of every 1,000 to 2,000 guests posts a hotel review for most major hotels.

360 rooms x .65 occupancy = 234 rooms/night are occupied.
234 rooms/night x 365 nights = 85,410 room-nights (some rooms will have more than one guest and some guests will stay more than one night)
85,410 room-nights/ 79 hotel reviews = 1,081 guest occupied rooms for every hotel review posted on TripAdvisor.com

1 hotel review is posted for every 1,081 guests at Le Meridien Hotel San Francisco if the hotel averaged 65% occupancy over past year.

Hyatt Regency San Francisco is a larger hotel with 805 rooms. Assume 50% occupancy for past year.

TripAdvisor has 37 reviews in 2008 and 66 reviews from past year.

Several floors of this hotel were remodeled in past six months and a newly remodeled Regency Club lounge opened in March.

805 rooms x .50 occupancy = 403 rooms/night occupied.
403 rooms/night x 365 nights = 147,095 room nights (guests) in past year.
147,095 / 66 hotel reviews = 2,229 guests at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco for every 1 review posted on TripAdvisor.com.

Hotel reviews are one strategy for choosing a hotel. I typically look at TripAdvisor to get opinions when I have a couple of hotels to choose from in the same price range. Unfortunately, my elementary analysis of the data indicates that even with the high number of hotel reviews on
TripAdvisor.com there is still only about 1 guest review for every 1,000 guests in the good cases and may be as few as 1 review for every 2,000 guests for other hotels.

When I read a review I wonder what the other 1,999 guests thought of their hotel stay experience for that same property? This is why a site like FlyerTalk.com with the ability to respond to other people’s hotel comments or ask questions provides more consumer-user-friendly content than many of the reviews on the major sites like TripAdvisor.com. Hotel corporate representatives even respond at times on FlyerTalk.com threads about hotels.

Online Hotel Reviews By the Numbers

The data below shows TripAdvisor rules the online hotel review sites for the depth of consumer-generated hotel reviews.

Methodology:
Hotel Reviews for 8 hotels in San Francisco were searched on 6 leading websites including Expedia.com, Kayak.com, Orbitz.com, Travelocity.com, Hotels.com, and Yahoo!Travel .com

1. The total number of hotel reviews for a hotel is given on each of the hotel review sites.

2. I counted the number of reviews posted in 2008 since recent reviews are generally most valid for a reader. For example, Travelpost.com listed the Crowne Plaza Union Square San Francisco as one of their top 5 hotels. The Crowne Plaza changed to Hotel 480 six months ago and is no longer part of the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) hotel brands.

3. The number of reviews posted since July 1, 2007 was counted. This also shows the number of reviews older than one year. A popular site for submitting hotel reviews several years ago may have a high number of total hotel reviews, but a low number of recent reviews for hotel stays in the past year. This observation can be seen with Yahoo Travel Guides.

Consumer Written Hotel Reviews on Popular Websites
for a Selection of San Francisco Hotels

Le Meridien San Francisco, 360 rooms

TripAdvisor (Expedia)
2008 = 38
Past year = 79
Total = 197

IgoUgo(Travelocity)
2008 = 2
Past year = 5
Total = 9

TravelPost(Kayak.com)
2008 = 0
Past year = 1
Total = 18

Orbitz.com
2008 = 6
Past year = 8
Total = 11

Yahoo Travel Guides
2008 = 1
Past year = 4
Total = 12

Hotels.com
2008=122
Past Year = 191
Total = 223

Palace Hotel – The Luxury Collection (Starwood Hotels), 552 rooms

TripAdvisor (Expedia)

 

 

 

2008 = 47
Past year = 83
Total = 211

Hotels .com (Expedia)

2008 = 85; 127 reviews in past year; 161 total reviews;

94% recommend; 4.5 average rating

IgoUgo(Travelocity)

2008 = 4
Past year = 9
Total = 17

TravelPost(Kayak.com)

2008 = 0
Past year = 0
Total = 13

Orbitz.com

2008 = 4
Past year = 4
Total = 4

Yahoo Travel Guides

2008 = 2
Past year = 3
Total = 33

 

Westin St. Francis; 1,195 rooms

TripAdvisor (Expedia)
2008 = 67
Past year = 128
Total = 463

IgoUgo(Travelocity)

2008 = 13
Past year = 23
Total = 43

TravelPost(Kayak.com)

2008 = 0
Past year = 1
Total = 95

Orbitz.com

2008 = 18
Past year = 31
Total = 61

Yahoo Travel Guides

2008 = 2
Past year = 4
Total = 163

Hotels.com = 14 reviews in 2008; 28 reviews in past 12 months; 68 total reviews
Hilton San Francisco; 1,896 rooms

TripAdvisor (Expedia)
2008 = 48
Past year = 110
Total = 232

Hotels.com (Expedia)

85 reviews in 2008; 200 reviews in past 12 months; 373 total reviews; 86% recommend; 4.2 average rating

IgoUgo(Travelocity)

2008 = 11
Past year = 41
Total = 75

TravelPost(Kayak.com)

2008 = 1
Past year = 1
Total = 82

Orbitz.com

2008 = 7
Past year = 18
Total = 39

Yahoo Travel Guides

2008 = 2
Past year = 4
Total = 93

 

 

Hyatt Regency San Francisco; 805 rooms

TripAdvisor (Expedia)
2008 = 37
Past year = 66
Total = 203

Hotels.com (Expedia)

39 reviews in 2008; 63 reviews in past 12 months; 91 total reviews;

93% recommend hotel; 4.3 average rating out of 5

IgoUgo(Travelocity)

2008 = 2
Past year = 6
Total = 11

TravelPost(Kayak.com)

2008 = 0
Past year = 1
Total = 93

Orbitz.com

2008 = 0
Past year = 8
Total = 20

Yahoo Travel Guides

2008 = 4
Past year = 7
Total = 63

 

Grand Hyatt San Francisco, 685 rooms

TripAdvisor (Expedia)
2008 = 44
Past year = 82
Total = 238

Hotels.com (Expedia)

26 reviews 2008; 54 reviews in past 12 months; 120 total reviews; 84% recommend, 4.2 average rating

IgoUgo(Travelocity)

2008 = 3
Past year = 18
Total = 45

TravelPost(Kayak.com)

2008 = 2
Past year = 2
Total = 17

Orbitz.com

2008 = 4
Past year = 21
Total = 44

Yahoo Travel Guides

2008 = 2
Past year = 3
Total = 15
J.W. Marriott San Francisco, 337 rooms

TripAdvisor (Expedia)
2008 = 19
Past year = 44
Total = 214
IgoUgo(Travelocity)
2008 = 3
Past year = 10
Total = 16

TravelPost(Kayak.com)

2008 = 1
Past year = 2
Total = 24

Orbitz.com

2008 = 2
Past year = 2
Total = 2

Yahoo Travel Guides

2008 = 0
Past year = 1
Total = 44

Hotels.com

5 reviews in 2008; 12 reviews in past year; 78 total reviews; 88% recommend; 4.2 average rating

Marriott San Francisco; 1,498 rooms

TripAdvisor (Expedia)
2008 = 34
Past year = 75
Total = 206

IgoUgo(Travelocity)

2008 = 2
Past year = 13
Total = 30

TravelPost(Kayak.com)

2008 = 0
Past year = 0
Total = 10

Orbitz.com

2008 = 5
Past year = 6
Total = 17

Yahoo Travel Guides

2008 = 0
Past year = 2
Total = 36

Hotels.com (Expedia)

50 reviews in 2008; 97 reviews in past year; 138 total reviews; 90% recommend; 4.4 average rating
 

The advantage of Hotels.com is the large number of recent reviews and the display provides a quick snapshot of guest satisfaction.

Expedia is definitely the leader in the hotel review market as owner of the two largest databases in Tripadvisor.com and Hotels.com.

[Loyalty Traveler note: The text of this post was edited September 19, 2008 when I reviewed the piece for a new article about TripAdvisor.com and I realized I had incorrectly interpreted the data from Ryan Carrigg's post with respect to the number of hotel reviews posted to TripAdvisor.  I originally wrote that I estimated TripAdvisor had about 90,000 new hotel reviews in May 2008.  The 90,000 figure actually reflects any user-generated content posted to TripAdvisor.com for May 2008 and only a fraction of this content are hotel comments.  There were also errors in the assumptions used to estimate the proportion of hotel guests who post TripAdvisor reviews. 

The main idea to take away from this post is the dominance of TripAdvisor.com, hotels.com, and their parent company, Expedia.com, in the online hotel reviews market segment.] 

 

All the major hotel chains have a “Best Rates Guarantee” advertised on their websites. Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott, and Starwood all run ads on their websites stating the hotel guest need look no further than the corporate branded websites for the lowest online hotel rates.

And they are almost always correct in stating lower rates will not be found elsewhere (group rates like AAA, auction/bid sites and vacation packages are excluded from guarantee).

Hyatt Place Hotel, Fremont, California

Over the years I have tried to utilize the best rate guarantee with several hotel chains to no avail.

Three of the big five upscale hotel loyalty programs: Hilton, InterContinental, and Marriott have a precondition that is hard to justify for a hotel guest desiring the lowest hotel room rate.

The requirement states a reservation must be made with the hotel chain through a corporate-owned website (e.g. book a Marriott Courtyard through the Marriott Rewards website or book a Doubletree hotel on the Hilton Hotels website).

Only after you have booked your room, if you find a lower rate on a third party online travel agency site (like Expedia and Orbitz) for essentially the same room type then you can submit a request for a rate guarantee.  Special group rates like senior and AAA rates are excluded from rate guarantee claims.

Hyatt Place pool,  Fremont, California

I have tried several times over the years to get a rate guarantee and my claim has always been rejected. The room type wasn’t considered the same.   Or even more commonly I was told that I must first book the higher rate on the hotel-branded website and then I can submit a request for the best rate guarantee.

A gamble I won’t take is to pay $180 for a room and then wait to see if my rate guarantee applies when there is a $120 room on Orbitz or Expdia or Travelocity. I will just book the $120 room.

Hyatt Place HDTV image, Fremont, California

There is risk in trying to get a discount on a lower rate that you have found on an online travel agency.  There is too much risk in paying a $180 using the hotel branded website for making a reservation and then learn the competitor’s rate is considered ineligible for the Best Rates Guarantee.  This is why Starwood Preferred Guest and Hyatt Gold Passport have a competitive advantage in the hotel loyalty programs.

Hyatt and Starwood have the sensible “Best Rate Guarantee” policy of being able to submit your request to the hotel corporation prior to making your hotel booking.

Hyatt Place sign, Fremont, California

Hyatt Best Rate Guarantee Worked for a Last-Minute Rate Discount for Hyatt Place Fremont

This morning is the first time I have actually submitted a successful best rate guarantee.

FOr the past couple of weeks I have been trying to get my wife to come hang out in the Wine country and San Francisco this weekend and I waited until this morning to finalize my Hyatt “Stays Count Double” final hotel run. I checked all the rates again last night and there had been very little change in rates over the past three weeks.

Hyatt Place couch, Fremont, California

This morning I went to make my reservations and the Hyatt Place Fremont went from $89 AAA rate to $113 Hyatt.com rate as the lowest available for my dates. The best available rate had increased from $99 to $119 on the Hyatt website. I happened to look on Orbitz and Expedia and the rates were still $99 for the same room type and dates.

I called up the Hyatt Best Rate Guarantee number 1-888-964-9288 and informed them I had found a lower rate on Expedia and Orbitz. The agent placed me on hold for several minutes and then returned to state the $99 rate was also available through Hyatt and I could make the reservation with him.

Hyatt Place bed, Fremont, California

I asked the agent to hold while I rechecked and told him I still only saw the $119 rate on my computer and the $99 rate only shows as a government employee rate. He placed me back on hold for several more minutes and then came back to state I qualified for the Best Rate Guarantee and I could reserve the room at the Hyatt Place Fremont for $79.20 for my dates.

Hyatt Place minibar, Fremont, California

An email confirmation within minutes showing my reservation confirmation and the $79.20 rate and I am so pleased to have finally have a hotel chain honor the best rates guarantee BEFORE I booked the room.

Hyatt Place bath mirror, Fremont, California

Another positive note for Hyatt.

And 10 days after starting my “Stays Count Double” Hyatt elite status hotel run, my Platinum status is reflected in my profile and I have earned enough points for one free hotel night at the low end hotels.

Hotel Running is Quite a Workout !