Booking a Hotel in Bangkok.

[NoshowJones]

I have spent a long time trying to book a hotel in Bangkok, the normal hotels I have used have closed down due to the pandemic and never reopened.

Every single hotel I have tried to book, using mostly Agoda, give you a price, then the final price ends up a few hundred Baht more than was first stated, there have been no exceptions to this, and I am not referring to the extra 17% for tax etc.

Here's an example. Through the agent, The Nana Hotel show a price of 1,300--, then the final price is 1,700--.

I have business in Bangkok which will take less than a day, so I am just going to spend my evenings in Pattaya, then getting a bus to Bangkok and back in one day. Much cheaper for hotels and food.

Has anyone else tried to book a Bangkok hotel through an agent lately?

[Hummin]

Yep, just check your settings and you will get the correct price. 

 

Now lately found booking.com more reliable, used hotels.com and agoda before 

[Upnotover]

Yes.  I use Agoda.  I don't care what the first price is, only the final price.  If I am willing to pay that then I book, otherwise try somewhere else.

[norfolkandchance]

Why don't you contact the Hotel direct. We always do and mostly get a better rate. 

[Fat is a type of crazy]

You can check your settings as Hummin said. I note on Tripadvisor for example you can alter the left hand options to either include tax or not. Getting the best price is getting tricky. If you search by tripadvisor or google or hotelscombined and link to agoda you'll get better prices than say agoda direct. Sometimes you can go by say tripadvisor then pick the cheapest option that takes you to a second comparison site. This then links to Agoda at an even cheaper price. 

Pre covid I'd find the cheapest price on whatever site and then call hotels.com which will match the price and, on top, offer one night free for 10 nights booked. The problem is that prices vary so much now that hotels.com may not be able to find the price you found as each search, and how you do that search, seems to now have different prices. They may not simply accept your screenshot. This would be for longer stays and nice hotels otherwise not worth the bother. 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Fat is a type of crazy

[Hummin]

3 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

You can check your settings as Hummin said. I note on Tripadvisor for example you can alter the left hand options to either include tax or not. Getting the best price is getting tricky. If you search by tripadvisor or google or hotelscombined and link to agoda you'll get better prices than say agoda direct. Sometimes you can go by say tripadvisor then pick the cheapest option such as vio which then links to Agoda at an even  cheaper price. 

Pre covid I'd find the cheapest price on whatever site and then call hotels.com which will match the price and, on top, offer one night free for 10 nights booked. The problem is that prices vary so much now that hotel.com may not be able to find the price you found as each search, and how you do that search, seems to now have different prices. They may not simply accept your screenshot. This would be for longer stays and nice hotels otherwise not worth the bother. 

My experience, hotels.com have priced themselves out of marked with often double price compared to agoda. 

[Fat is a type of crazy]

Just now, Hummin said:

My experience, hotels.com have priced themselves out of marked with often double price compared to agoda. 

Exactly. It's weird how much cheaper Agoda and some other sites are now. Hotels.com will price match though and give the further discount if they can find the same price at the other site. 

[Bassosa]

45 minutes ago, norfolkandchance said:

Why don't you contact the Hotel direct. We always do and mostly get a better rate. 

As a (small) hotel owners myself I would recommend this too. At my place it will be hundreds of baht cheaper per night if you book direct and its zero hassle doing so.

[Bassosa]

7 minutes ago, Hummin said:

My experience, hotels.com have priced themselves out of marked with often double price compared to agoda. 

The hotels set the prices for the various online travel agents. One thing to keep in mind is that Booking and Agoda "borrow" each other's prices. As a hotel owner I can differentiate pricing between Agoda and Booking, the end result is that the customers always gets the lowest price of the two, no matter on which platform they book.

[Fat is a type of crazy]

4 minutes ago, Bassosa said:

As a (small) hotel owners myself I would recommend this too. At my place it will be hundreds of baht cheaper per night if you book direct and its zero hassle doing so.

Sounds good but I have had a number of occasions where say, I want to book or extend a stay, and the hotel quotes a higher price and says book on an accommodation site if you want a better price. Most hotel prices on their hotel sites are more expensive than on the sites discussed. 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Fat is a type of crazy

[Hummin]

1 minute ago, Bassosa said:

The hotels set the prices for the various online travel agents. One thing to keep in mind is that Booking and Agoda "borrow" each other's prices. As a hotel owner I can differentiate pricing between Agoda and Booking, the end result is that the customers always gets the lowest price of the two, no matter on which platform they book.

The best experiences I had with Hotels.com, they never hesitated to reimburse me if I had real claims about the places I stayed, of course backed up with the bookings, their pictures and my pictures as an example. And also quick to respond if I wanted to change hotel.

[Bassosa]

3 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

Sounds good but I have had a number of occasions where say, I want to book or extend a stay, and the hotel quotes a higher price and says book on an accommodation site if you want a better price. Most hotel prices on their hotel sites are more expensive than on the sites discussed. 

I've noticed this too and can't understand why. My only explanation is that taking a direct booking is more complicated and (junior) staff may not be able to handle your request. Or may not be allowed to.

There's also a chance that Agoda et al may undercut hotel direct rates, for instance by offering an "Agoda sponsored" discount but I haven't quite figured it out how this works. OTA's are very sneaky and its all smoke and mirrors tbh. For my property I've set the goal to be completely independent of Agoda, Booking etc because I simply don't like them and their cut-throat way of doing business.

Luckily Airbnb is increasingly working with hotels. Lower fees and overall they really respect us hotel owners, whereas for Booking/Agoda/Tripadvisor you're just a cash cow.

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Bassosa

[NanLaew]

Note that agoda.com and booking.com are owned by the same company but hotel availability/cost isn't exactly the same across both websites. The booking website shows the final price on the 'front page' so to speak whereas a few extra clicks are needed to get the final price on agoda. Some prefer that. Some prefer to think they are being scammed by agoda.

 

I haven't seen any significant differences on the final costs for the same room in the same hotel between these two websites beyond a few cents/pennies. There's absolutely no truth in the claim by some that the price they get charged by agoda is higher than the price they are presented with on the FINAL booking confirmation page and agreed to pay.

[Fat is a type of crazy]

17 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

Note that agoda.com and booking.com are owned by the same company but hotel availability/cost isn't exactly the same across both websites. The booking website shows the final price on the 'front page' so to speak whereas a few extra clicks are needed to get the final price on agoda. Some prefer that. Some prefer to think they are being scammed by agoda.

 

I haven't seen any significant differences on the final costs for the same room in the same hotel between these two websites beyond a few cents/pennies. There's absolutely no truth in the claim by some that the price they get charged by agoda is higher than the price they are presented with on the FINAL booking confirmation page and agreed to pay.

For what it's worth I would disagree a bit in that sometimes there are substantial differences between Booking.com and Agoda despite having the same owners. I find most of the sites owned by Expedia Inc such as expedia, hotels.com, wotif, and tripadvisor itself tend to have the same prices but hotels.com differentiates itself by its 10 night 1 free policy.

I am not sure why people are seeing different prices at different stages on Agoda because I don't. 

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Fat is a type of crazy

[Yellowtail]

I generally book directly with the hotels and almost never see any significant savings over using the agents.  I sometimes see that booking with the hotel is cheaper, and occasionally significantly cheaper.  

[phetphet]

On 3/4/2023 at 2:51 PM, Fat is a type of crazy said:

Exactly. It's weird how much cheaper Agoda and some other sites are now. Hotels.com will price match though and give the further discount if they can find the same price at the other site. 

They are all owned by the same company, and they all get a commission.

 

I tried reserving a room on booking.com last week, but they wanted me to pay upfront. I didn't have a card with me so called the owner direct.

 

When I paid, it was much cheaper than the price booking.com quoted me.

Edited March 5, 2023 by phetphet

[Fat is a type of crazy]

6 hours ago, phetphet said:

They are all owned by the same company, and they all get a commission.

 

I tried reserving a room on booking.com last week, but they wanted me to pay upfront. I didn't have a card with me so called the owner direct.

 

When I paid, it was much cheaper than the price booking.com quoted me.

Possibly I should call hotels direct more often. As I noted above I normally don't find that's the case though.

I am a tourist who tends to stay at big hotels so maybe smaller hotels are more nimble and are happy to avoid the fees. As noted above too there are 2 big hotel booking entities rather than one - and some other smaller independent ones. Booking.com and Agoda owned by the same but definitely different pricing. I have assumed the basis is that booking.com has better customer service so charges a bit more but I am not sure that is the case now as Agoda is not too bad to contact too. 

[jerrymahoney]

7 hours ago, phetphet said:

They are all owned by the same company, and they all get a commission.

 

I tried reserving a room on booking.com last week, but they wanted me to pay upfront. I didn't have a card with me so called the owner direct.

 

When I paid, it was much cheaper than the price booking.com quoted me.

The real benefit for me using Booking.com is when I want to change the booked dates or cancel the reservation outright. Then the hotel's own website can be difficult or require a phone call or multiple phone calls.

[Yellowtail]

5 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

Possibly I should call hotels direct more often. As I noted above I normally don't find that's the case though.

I am a tourist who tends to stay at big hotels so maybe smaller hotels are more nimble and are happy to avoid the fees. As noted above too there are 2 big hotel booking entities rather than one - and some other smaller independent ones. Booking.com and Agoda owned by the same but definitely different pricing. I have assumed the basis is that booking.com has better customer service so charges a bit more but I am not sure that is the case now as Agoda is not too bad to contact too. 

I booked a couple rooms at Novotel Impact for the upcoming auto-show and it was cheaper using the Accor site than Agota.