hola, isabel

Thanks for all the birthday wishes yesterday. You guys rock. And no matter what The King says, you can never tire of people telling you you’re awesome.

Okay, so remember how The King, Babboo and I are going to Europe in September? Remember how I told you how we used frequent flier miles to get us all FREE plane tickets? In the weeks after I posted that, I assume you all switched over to a credit card that offers you FF miles, right? (I hope you did!) (If you haven’t yet, what are you waiting for?)

The King and I are trying to get as much of this trip paid for before we actually take the trip. We figure it will be easier to swallow this bill if he slowly pay a little of it every month. This means trying to book and pay for our hotel rooms each a little every month. This is hard to do since we’re still trying to plan our complete itinerary. What we do know is that we’re starting out in Berlin and ending up in London. We’re prepared to get those hotel rooms now.

And so the hunt for our perfect hotels has begun.

We all have our own personal levels of comfort when staying in hotels. Some people demand a turn-down service and mints on their pillows. Some people only demand clean sheets and a door that locks. And others are only looking for a roof over their head and maybe indoor plumbing. Before shopping for a hotel you must come to terms with what you are personally comfortable with.

The King and I have different comfort levels based on whether or not we’re staying in a hotel in America. While vacationing in the U.S. of A, we like to stay at your typical old run of the mill hotel with a clean bathroom.

This picture was taken at a hotel we stayed at in Washington DC last summer. I’d say that the average we’re comfortable spending on a hotel room in America is about $100.

Of course that’s just an average of what we “like to” spend. When we stayed in NYC, also last summer, we paid about double our “like to” price for a hotel with a shared bathroom. New York city is an expensive place. We had to adjust our hotel comfort level to accommodate our location and the cost of hotels there.

While our hotel in NYC wasn’t ideal (as is apparent from this picture), it was cheap enough (and clean enough) to make their rate what we were most comfortable with.

While we’re on the subject, let’s quickly discuss this whole shared bathroom trend. I admit that before I actually tried staying in a hotel with a shared bathroom, I was skeptical. Here’s the thing, every single hotel I’ve ever stayed at with a shared bathroom has been no big deal. Really. Sharing a bathroom in a hotel is like when you go to visit your aunt and you stay in her guest room in the basement. You have to share the bathroom at your aunt’s house with your teenage cousin that you don’t really know. You see remnants that prove your cousin is also using the bathroom, but you never see your cousin actually using the bathroom.

It’s like that when you share a bathroom in a hotel.

I swear to you, I have never seen another person using the bathroom while I’m also using it. Never, ever, ever. It’s really no big deal. Plus, the hotels with shared bathrooms are extra good about housekeeping keeping the bathroom tidied throughout the day. They are extra clean. At least the ones we’ve stayed at are.
The only hotels I’ve ever seen shared bathrooms offered in America is in New York City. I think it’s pretty common there. And while the hotels with shared bathrooms we’ve stayed in NYC aren’t as clean as the ones we’ve stayed in in Europe, they are sufficient for our needs and fit into our price range.

What I’m saying is that don’t pass up a hotel with a shared bathroom, if the price is right. You might be surprised. And save a few dollars at the same time.

Okay, so once you’ve figured out what your hotel comfort level is, you can start looking for a hotel. Hotel shopping, for us, typically starts at the top with your typical travel sites like travelocity, orbitz, hotels, and expedia. This is a good place to start. This way you can look around and see what hotels are offered in your area and how much they are going for. It’s good to familiarize yourself with what your options are going to be. A website that we’ve had good luck with for hotels in Europe is venere.

Yes, there is some leg work in finding your hotel. But the right hotel is a top priority in helping to make your vacation memorable. In a good way.

Usually, when looking for hotels in out-of-the-way locations (like some of the places we’ll be visiting on our upcoming trip), we just google “hotels in name of town” and see what comes up. This is a good way to find locally owned beach front houses, or weekly vacation rentals, and not just chain hotels. You can usually contact the owners directly, via e-mail or phone, and ask questions and maybe even do a little bartering.

After we find a few hotel options online, The King and I will both scour the interweb for reviews on the hotels we’re interested in. The King usually reads the reviews on the individual travel websites while I’m a fan of the reviews over at tripadvisor. I typically read all the reviews and try to weigh the good and the bad ones. My personal thought is that someone who has stayed in a hotel and been completely satisfied won’t typically come home and get online to write a review about their hotel stay. I think only those with either super bad or super good experiences will take the time to post their reviews. So, I read all of the reviews, but take them with a grain of salt.

(We stayed at a hotel years ago in NYC where one tripadvisor review mentioned HUGE RATS in their room. We took a chance and stayed there and loved the place. No rats anywhere. See, grain of salt.)

A few years ago I found a website called BiddingForTravel. Basically it’s a message board for people using the NameYourOwnPrice option over at priceline. If you aren’t familiar with how this works, basically priceline let’s you bid on a hotel (or plane tickets, or a car rental) without knowing what hotel you’re going to get. You can put restrictions on your bid, like you want a 4* hotel in a certain neighborhood for a certain (lower) price. And then you just hope and pray you get a hotel you want. Once you win your bid, there is no turning back. You’ve paid for your hotel.

Using Priceline is a gamble and had always made me nervous in the past. That is until I found BiddingForTravel.

The beauty of BiddingForTravel is that the people on the message boards are keeping track of how much people are getting hotels for using Priceline. They also teach you how to use Priceline to the best advantage. They teach you about “free rebids” and how to work the system.

Be assured, it’s all legal. And it rocks.

The King and I have successfully used BiddingForTravel to get awesome (super awesome!) hotel deals in Vancouver, Canada. I’m talking $300 a night 4* hotels for $60 a night. Dude, you can’t beat that.

Okay, to use BiddingForTravel, you do need to do a little footwork to get help with your Priceline bids. You must first post a “Bidding Assistance Request” form on the message board. They want to know where you’re traveling to, how long you’re planning on staying, how much you’re willing to pay for your hotel room, what the hotels in that area are going for online, and where your “free rebid” areas are, etc.

The King and I used BiddingForTravel last month to get our hotel in London. We were able to bid and win a hotel for $70 a night. That specific hotel was going for $200 a night on the hotel’s website. Do the math. We saved $130. That’s a huge deal to travelers on a budget. Which is what we are.

We are now trying to get our hotel for Berlin booked. Last week I posted on BiddingForTravel for assistance on bidding for our hotel. I’m hoping to win a hotel for no more then $90 a night. The hotels in Berlin are going for over $200. We can’t afford that.

So, the people on BiddingForTravel suggested I start my bids at $70 and work my way up from there. Not going over $80. On Priceline you can only bid every 24 hours. And so, that’s what I’m doing. I’m bidding everyday, just hoping and praying that at some point I’ll actually win a bid.

While I haven’t had a successful bid yet for Berlin, I’m not nervous. We still have a few months left before we board the plane. Plus, we have a back up plan on a hotel we’ve stayed at in the past. Our backup plan isn’t as cheap as it has been in the past, but we’ve stayed there and know what we’d be getting ourselves into with it.

I’m in charge of working on getting us our Berlin hotel and The King is in charge of setting us up with a sweet (and by “sweet” I mean “inexpensive AND awesome”) hotel for the week we’ll be touring around the Balearic Islands in Spain. He’s deep in the middle of e-mail negotiations with the English owners of a beach front rental that we’re dying to stay at.

I’ll keep you posted.

Until then, tell me, what are your secrets to finding a good deal on a hotel room? I’m very curious to hear some more secrets. So, please share.