U so did not book with them nor expedia before you email to the hotel ?

And they still responded back and offer u better rate than expedia ?

Wao , good idea, should try this next time.... but how long is the hotel able to response back ? It will really be time consuming, coz instead of direct booking, now going through their customer service , is like double and triple work.....

Yeah that's why you can do it only when you not rushing. Must be a bit thick face for some hotel. But I don't care

Most 5 star hotel will get you back in 24 hours. Others not sure maybe can call them. Like Istana, just need to screenshot and email them the url. Quite simple. No need to buy from expedia, just show them they are making offers better than hotel.

If let say they only can price match, you can suggest giving you in-dining credit to make up or lunch buffet. This is advice I get on travel website. All of these is of course only if you really want that bang for buck. No need to do if it's a cheap hotel.

Just to share, i book direct to hotel in a cheap hotel near KL Sentral. I able to get RM20 off as Agoda actually take the deposit with them. I got that deposit back when I check out using own hotel booking website.

Most of the listed price exclude GST, right?

From what I can gather, the booking sites have some sort of quota allocated to each site for the same hotel.

Therefore, you can find one site sold out, and the others would still have rooms for the SAME hotel.

Which also affects the price, meaning some sites can be sometimes higher and sometimes lower than other sites, depending on the quota they have left.

I have found Booking.com to be quite competitive previously, but a recent booking (3 weeks ago) booking.com was 30% higher than Agoda which had a special going on.

So, the moral of the story is - shop around several sites.

This post has been edited by howszat: Jul 2 2017, 05:46 PM

how about UK? use priceline also?

my agoda points all missing. argh!

i usually compare agoda,booking,expedia. what i realized

a) Agoda, quite a sneaky website. need to be smart to navigate around. There's a slight price difference using app vs website (app cheaper). And sometimes,if there's member only price through email link, it will be cheaper VS not clicking the link. Sometimes, they also have promo code. You CAN only apply the code through the link given, and not manually going into agoda site itself(promo code tab is not available ). And again, there is price difference between them. . And remember to check for non refundable / free cancellation

b) booking, used to be quite competitive, but recently i found their rates ain't better than agoda.

c) expedia, i find their hotel selection a little limited. Not all listings are there compared to agoda/booking.

generally, i will compare the prices on agoda and booking. both of them give wider choice of hotel. Sometimes, direct hotel website could be even cheaper eg; ACCOR group (IBIS/Novotel/Mercure etc) early bird, 50% off, free breakfast etc.

use cashback/shopback for additional rebate. Shopback (max 9% booking) , milkadeal (max 4% agoda)

This post has been edited by kucingfight: Jul 2 2017, 06:25 PM

It's very variable....prices can be cheapest on any site or direct, at different times....

Both Agoda and booking, although same group, do have price match policy, and I have used that before....

Like everybody says, always check different sites....

Booking.com for me since their will not charge cc and paid at property

95% of the time i will use the hotel's own website especially when it's an international chain hotels because
- loyalty points!
- potential upgrade or preferred room...not stuck in the worst room in the house, the front desk wont pandang serong to 3rd party bookings.
- can use my corporate rate
- can 'runding' directly to the hotel when things goes wrong or to request something special when staying for a special occasion (got a massive twin tower view suite at Grand Hyatt KL last year..yay! Booked the room with cash+points rate)
- some chain hotels has shopback - Hilton & Accor

I only use 3rd party for independent non branded hotels...usually Agoda.

Oic never done that

When just use Google for popular hotel, it will show all the rates, so one glance know which site is cheaper, right?

No it doesn't, if you use Trivago.com it will compare agoda, booking.com etc etc. But still you have to go to specific booking website to search correct rates. But it is still good as you can make comparison. But I prefer to loyal to specific website for reward purposes especially doing company room booking.