Got some paid time off coming but not really sure how to use it? Hotels.commay be for you. More than any of the other frontrunners, ourTopTenREVIEWS Silver Award winner is organized to highlight last minute hotel deals and packages. It also does a great job of the things we expected from all hotel booking sites in our lineup, though it lacks an easy way to compare its rates with other sites, and we would have appreciated a price-setting feature.
Special packages and other hotel deals are always on the front page in big, bold letters, and there were some pretty awesome deals on the days we looked. The hotel deals were listed alphabetically so it is easy to find what you are looking for. The winter getaway to Cancun for $72 a night sounded pretty awesome. There was also a 4-star Vegas Strip hotel on special for $55 per night. That’s a pretty sweet bargain.
If you can tear yourself away from the great last-minute hotel deals on Hotels.com, you will realize it is well-suited to more traditional hotel booking services as well. For instance, there is a very long list of ways to narrow your search for the perfect hotel near Grandmother’s house. Once you shave off the hotel deals that are not in your price range, you can get down to the specifics by filtering for guest ratings, star ratings, accessibility and more.
This hotel booking service offers methods of narrowing your search in uncommon ways. Most hotel booking services offer a filter for specific guest and star ratings, but this one offers both of those in a really smart format. Instead of selecting just one rating, you can select an acceptable range. That’s a nice way to do it. If you know the range of guest and star ratings you are willing to accept, this will broaden your search slightly without zeroing in on hotels you would never use. The price filter is set up that way too. As you fine tune these filters, you narrow your search for hotel deals but still end up with a nice variety.
The creators of this hotel booking website really thought of everything in terms of finding specific features. Hotels.com allows you to narrow search results to certain neighborhoods, by distance from landmarks and by hotel amenities. You can specify not only the type of hotel – whether resort, bed and breakfast or condo – but the theme of a hotel as well – whether airport, family-friendly, golf, self-catering, ski or spa. If you know exactly the hotel you want for your next vacation, contact the hotel directly. If you are pretty picky and know the exact type of hotel you want, with a long list of desired features, we suggest Hotels.com. This hotel booking website can find the perfect hotel deals for you.
Hotels.com offers a really respectable amount of hotel information. Aiding in the removal of the surprise factor is a long and detailed webpage that outlines each hotel’s features, including a helpful overview, bulleted lists for finding desired features in a hurry and very detailed descriptions of nearby dining and other attractions.
We really like how all hotel information is on the one page, even specifics about each type of room offered in the hotel. The fine print about the cancellation policy and terms and conditions is all in the same place too. With other hotel booking services, you have to go through a couple of clicks to get to everything. With Hotels.com you just have to scroll a bit.
Information about guest ratings is listed right at the top of each hotel's page. We like that because those ratings are one of the first things many people will look for when booking. A Google map is located pretty close to the top as well. That will be of interest to the out-of-town crowd as well as locals.
The only information we looked for but did not find was a listing for similar lodging. That was not something we found on every site, but we thought it was a helpful addition when we did.
The hotel deals we got back from Hotels.com for our test journeys were pretty good – not amazing – but pretty good. This hotel booking site found us a 4-star hotel on the Las Vegas Strip for $100 a night and a 4-star hotel in downtown Chicago for $217 a night.
For a subsequent hotel deals comparison we looked at a weekend in New York at a 3-star hotel and Hotels.com found us something for $169, about average compared to the hotel deals other sites found. It did find the very best price on one of our comparisons – a 3-star hotel in Chicago around Christmastime for $86 a night.
We like the loyalty program. It’s very simple and useful. When you accumulate 10 nights booked through this hotel booking service, you get an 11th night free.
There was no price-setting option on this site. That's not a fatal flaw but we like being able to put in our price parameters and let the site do the work, when that was an option.
We found this hotel booking service to be pretty solid in the customer support department. They answer their phones quickly, and knowledgeable people are at the ready to help you with your reservation. Hotels.com does not charge change or cancellation fees in case your vacation plans fall through, although individual hotels reserve the right to charge them.
Their price matching guarantee is also rock solid. If you see the same hotel deals for less, they will match the price and refund you the difference.
The best-price guarantee plus all the wonderful filtering options makes Hotels.com a great choice for your next hotel deals search. There are a few fairly minor things that we wish Hotels.com would offer – including site-to-site comparisons and price-setting features – but this website is an excellent option overall for finding great hotel deals.
