Heads up when booking with Agoda

[watcharacters]

OK, I am not too experienced, but in three years of living in Thailand I have never booked a room in advance, including during peak periods, and have never had a problem finding a room. Arriving by public transport, I tell a taxi driver what we want. We find it, never had to go to a second hotel yet. In my car, I stop just before the destination and use Tripadvisor on my Android. Checking up in the hotel afterwards I ALWAYS find that I have a better deal than is offered by these booking.com scams. There are generally too many hotels in Thailand chasing after too few customers.

Not always cheaper doing a walk in.

We paid on a site for a room for the week once. Then we wanted to extend the stay for a few extra days only to be told the price had increased and we couldn't re book matching the online price!!

So that was it, we packed and went to a hotel up the road.

Yeah. Funny that

We once had a room in a smaller hotel in Chaing Mai where we wanted to extend several days. "Sorry, Sir, Your room type is no longer available" They put us in the next lower category which was some hundreds of baht less a night. We found the new room to actually be better than the higher category room which we also liked.

Go figure!

I tend to feel the room information is more complete with Agoda than some of the other hotel booking sites. I do spend a fair amount of time reading the customer reviews and look for patterns. I also read TripAdvisor reviews when planning hotel reservations.

[Felixthecat]

In the past i've found Agoda to be very good with their discount prices, though lately they've been on the ''ridiculous'' side with prices.

For example: This year i wanted to book August Suites Hotel (Pattaya) & Agoda advertised the price at B2250 per night....I thought that was a bit high concidering it was low season, so i rang August Suites & they quoted me B1650...Wow! a saving of B600 per night...over 11 nights stay i saved B6600!

I say no nore!

[SantiSuk]

Is it Agoda or Booking.com where you get points. I think it's Agoda and if you use them regularly you get a free night for every ten stayed (roughly speaking). It works and I appreciate the effective 10% discount. .

I do not suffer from the cr@p room syndrome reported by one other poster and I certainly do not want to spend time at my destination physically trawling round hotels to find the subsequent nights' accom!! Tip - always specify high floor as a request and you will usually avoid the noisy and restricted view rooms. If you have the time, read the reviews to spot the other obvious avoids when it comes to room choice.

Actually I don't recognise the problem in the OP either. As best I recall if you specify the number of people in your search they highlight rooms that have two people availability. They often do show similar accommodation with different prices but that's because some rooms are promotional prices and once they sell out the other rooms kick in. Maybe it is more difficult to detect if you are simply clicking on hotels without doing a specific dates search. The one thing that I have occasionally overlooked is to book a non-breakfast option when I would sometimes prefer to have a breakfast included.

[stevenl]

In the past i've found Agoda to be very good with their discount prices, though lately they've been on the ''ridiculous'' side with prices.

For example: This year i wanted to book August Suites Hotel (Pattaya) & Agoda advertised the price at B2250 per night....I thought that was a bit high concidering it was low season, so i rang August Suites & they quoted me B1650...Wow! a saving of B600 per night...over 11 nights stay i saved B6600!

I say no nore!

This means that the hotel did not inform Agoda of the lower price.

Don't blame Agoda for these things, blame the hotel.

[DogNo1]

Have you ever stayed at the Continental? If not, be advised that it is a very old hotel. The rooms haven't changed since 1968 when I stayed there. I recommend the Park Royal near the airport. Taxis are readily available to take you downtown or anywhere you want to go. Check out the Park Royal website if you want. Have a pleasant trip!

[mike324]

I've started to use booking.com more than agoda as their prices are a couple dollars lower. Both are about the same and its becoming pretty competitive where they offer last minute cancellation with most hotels. Cancelling your booking is quite easy on both websites also.

Use to have a friend at agoda who could give me additional rebates on the nights I stayed, but he left the company a while ago.

I've been checking out TripAdvisor before I book the hotels to check out real user submitted pics. TripAdvisor also compares prices for you among the different travel sites, no only that, sometimes smaller boutique hotels have vouchers on TripAdvisor where you can redeem drinks and other benefits.

[NoshowJones]

I don't use agoda much for a couple of reasons:

a. They advertise prices that exclude tax which can make for a significantly higher advertised price, and;

b. The ridiculous requirement to download a certificate and take it with you at check-in.

Agoda's prices are, IMO, not any better than any of several online booking sites.

I have been saying this for ages, best to just avoid them.

[NoshowJones]

I don't use agoda much for a couple of reasons:

a. They advertise prices that exclude tax which can make for a significantly higher advertised price, and;

b. The ridiculous requirement to download a certificate and take it with you at check-in.

Agoda's prices are, IMO, not any better than any of several online booking sites.

Agoda clearly states on the payment page the cost is minus the local taxes but does list what the tax rates are beside the base price. This is BEFORE you enter ANY payment information. If one has a problem working out 15% or 15% of the base rate and adding it on, then maybe the old fashioned way by phone is better for you. If one is unable to comprehend why the 'bargain' base price is lower than the final price once the payment is made... maybe better stay at home.

My last 5 agoda bookings, I never printed the certificate from the email but had it available to view on my clever-as-all-get-go phone. Never been denied a booked room yet.

There is no getting away from it, the reason that the print is small is because they hope you will not notice it, and I would bet that a lot of people don't.

[Gweiloman]

I've been using Agoda happily for years. The one time there was a cheaper rate on booking.com, I had the difference refunded without undue delay. I'm currently posting from a hotel in Rayong, two nights fully paid for using points I've accumulated in just this past year.