Booking-sites for SMALL Thai towns, upcountry?

[henrik2000]

Hello, do you have favourite web-sites to book small or mid-range hotels in SMALL towns? Say, in Phichit or even Taphan Hin. I have difficulties getting a decent selection or even 1 usefull offer for my preferred dates. I am NOT asking for the best booking-site for Chiang Mai or Surat Thani.

In upcountry small towns, there are some hotels marked on Google Maps, but mostly they are not available on booking sites. They also don't seem to have their own booking website.

So often i use, but sometimes am not happy with the up-country selection on

• Agoda
• Booking.com
• Expedia
• AirBnb

I saw recommendations for, but want to ask your opinion about selection and seriousness of

• Laterooms.com
• Hotels.com
• Trip.com
• Traveloka (used that in Indonesia)
• Choowap.com/en/

Or any other recommendation for a tried and tested site?

Thanks!

---

PS. Of course if a hotel isn't bookable online, I could

• call them (speak barely enough Thai for that)
• contact them by e-mail, Line or Facebook (abhor FB)
• simply walk-in and try my luck.

I did all that successfully in earlier decades.But I don't have those nerves and that trust anymore. I always worry something goes wrong.

These days I want a reliable readable booking agreement beforehand, even if I/they pay 7% commission to a booking-site. I am happy to pre-pay if that guarantees my room. I have 99,9 % good experiences with booking.com and 99,5 with Agoda.

Edited July 22, 2023 by henrik2000

[bignok]

Lots of these companies are owned by the same large group.

[Gottfrid]

Just book a room man. Where is the problem. No luxury enough?

[phetphet]

13 minutes ago, henrik2000 said:

Hello, do you have favourite web-sites to book small or mid-range hotels in SMALL towns? Say, in Phichit or even Taphan Hin. I have difficulties getting a decent selection or even 1 usefull offer for my preferred dates. I am NOT asking for the best booking-site for Chiang Mai or Surat Thani.

In upcountry small towns, there are some hotels marked on Google Maps, but mostly they are not available on booking sites. They also don't seem to have their own booking website.

So often i use, but sometimes am not happy with the up-country selection on

• Agoda
• Booking.com
• Expedia
• AirBnb

I saw recommendations for, but want to ask your opinion about selection and seriousness of

• Laterooms.com
• Hotels.com
• Trip.com
• Traveloka (used that in Indonesia)
• Choowap.com/en/

Or any other recommendation for a tried and tested site?

Thanks!

---

PS. Of course if a hotel isn't bookable online, I could

• call them (speak barely enough Thai for that)
• contact them by e-mail, Line or Facebook (abhor FB)
• simply walk-in and try my luck.

I did all that successfully in earlier decades.But I don't have those nerves and that trust anymore. I always worry something goes wrong.

These days I want a reliable readable booking agreement beforehand, even if I/they pay 7% commission to a booking-site. I am happy to pre-pay if that guarantees my room. I have 99,9 % good experiences with booking.com and 99,5 with Agoda.

Have you tried googling "accommodation in "name of town"?

 

Many smaller places might often have a small website where you can book direct. 

[bignok]

9 minutes ago, Gottfrid said:

Just book a room man. Where is the problem. No luxury enough?

I would go central and see whats there. Near night market and 7/11.

 

Always something ok.

[novacova]

If it’s not listed on any of the sites, then look for a room when you roll in the area and pay cash. Do it all the time, very easy. A lot of rural hotels don’t like messing with reporting to immigration.

[alien365]

If I find a local place on Google maps with no further details, I copy and paste the Thai name into Facebook and usually they are there. Alternatively use street view and look if there's a telephone number in front of the place. I really struggle understanding Thai over the phone though so require help from a friend at that point. 

[henrik2000]

22 hours ago, bignok said:

Lots of these companies are owned by the same large group.

Yes, still they offer differing hotels and booking procedures.

[bignok]

Just now, henrik2000 said:

Yes, still they offer differing hotels and booking procedures.

What i do is use google maps then click on hotels to see what deals are there

[henrik2000]

Just now, bignok said:

What i do is use google maps then click on hotels to see what deals are there

Only that in small towns there are the hotels, but no deals. That's why i ask here.

[bignok]

Price indicates a deal

[henrik2000]

Hi all, thanks for your input so far!

 

Does anybody have any experience with the (Thai?) booking site Choowap.com?

 

They offer substantially more small town accommodations online than the biggies and would be good in my case (if they are honest). They can be switched to a number of languages. They are much less convenient than the biggies. I don't see any interesting comment on Choowap's reliability or if it is a fake shop anyway.

 

Back in the day, for small places, i used res24 and asiarooms. They seem to have been gobbled up.

 

As said above, i prefer not to rely on walk-in, phone-calling or e-mailing, if possible somehow. Especially walk-in and phone-calling i will avoid. YMMV.

Edited July 23, 2023 by henrik2000

[rwill]

A lot of the small places don't list on the big sites because it costs them money.

 

I stayed at one resort by Sam Phan Bok.  They were listed on booking.com, etc. but I got a better price when I called them.  The major chain hotels seem to be the ones that you get a better rate online compared to going direct with them.

[Andycoops]

Many of those hotel's up here in Isaan only cater to the Thai domestic audience and therefore their online presence is in the Thai language.

And even in larger towns there are some marketing in Thai only.

 

Unless there is a major holiday virtually all of them will have a room available by just walking in.

[GreasyFingers]

1 hour ago, Andycoops said:

Many of those hotel's up here in Isaan only cater to the Thai domestic audience and therefore their online presence is in the Thai language.

And even in larger towns there are some marketing in Thai only.

 

Unless there is a major holiday virtually all of them will have a room available by just walking in.

And many of them are just "short time" hotels.

[wwest5829]

If I were interested in this, I would ask my Thai wife as she reads Thai. I am stopped by my lack of Thai language reading ability. The sites you listed, I think, are mostly used by non-Thais.

[Sigma6]

I search on google maps then call directly.

 

I find with the smaller places, the call-in price is often better than the booking site's rate.

[henrik2000]

On 7/23/2023 at 1:46 PM, bignok said:

Price indicates a deal

Yes, for that one hotel. But that town has a few others that for personal reasons i'd prefer. And they are not bookable through one of the big sites, but maybe only by e-mail or phone call or by aforementioned, but seemingly unknown here Choowap.com (in my limited search i didn't see a local hotel with their own web-site that allowed online booking; if they had a website, it showed the rooms and said "call us"; i opened some Thai language hotel websites in Google Translate).

[henrik2000]

10 hours ago, rwill said:

They were listed on booking.com, etc. but I got a better price when I called them.

Yes, sure. But i appreciate the (feeling of) safety when i go through a big site. More so if i don't know the hotel and maybe not so much of the lingo.

Booking by phone call or message, i had several bad mishaps, when 2 different people did reservation duty without synchronizing their bookings.

[henrik2000]

8 hours ago, Andycoops said:

Unless there is a major holiday virtually all of them will have a room available by just walking in.

Yes - and still, i want more safety.

[henrik2000]

3 hours ago, wwest5829 said:

If I were interested in this, I would ask my Thai wife as she reads Thai. I am stopped by my lack of Thai language reading ability.

I do speak enough tourist Thai to book a room on the phone, and i did it long time ago. But these days i want it more "safely" going through a booking site (can be the hotel's own one, if available).

[henrik2000]

2 hours ago, Sigma6 said:

with the smaller places, the call-in price is often better than the booking site's rate.

With the booking sites, i happily pay 7 % more for my peace of mind.