It takes time to save money, but these lesser known websites can save you both when you are looking for an affordable hotel.
Tingo: This is a new resource from the people at TripAdvisor and AirfareWatchdog. Book your hotel on Tingo and if the price drops, you’ll be notified and get money back.
Yapta: Another site that will alert you if the rate you booked drops, for a refund or credit.
Hostel Bookers: The name sounds like this site offers the kind of accommodations we used as frugal college students backpacking our way through our twenties. But this is a true budget hotel website, with more than 20,000 comfortable – even luxurious – accommodations from Paris to Beijing. There are no chains; offerings are mostly small, family-owned boutique hotels.
Bidding for Travel: This is really a message board that shows you what other travelers paid for a hotel or rental car. It’s a good idea to check this site before you confirm a reservation to avoid booking at an inflated price.
Hotel Tonight: As its name implies, this website will help you find a place to sleep if your flight is cancelled and you find yourself needing a room tonight. The website lists only hotels with unsold, available rooms for that night, so you can’t use it to book ahead. However, I have used it to check a hotel’s best available rate, since last-minute rooms are often as much as 70 percent off. HotelTonight also is available as a free smartphone app for both Apple and Android devices.
Florida Vacation Auction: This site is the official partner of Visit Florida, the state’s official tourism board, and there is no fee to use the site to make a reservation for accommodations or attractions. There are two ways to book a hotel, resort or tickets to attractions. You can bid for a particular date and location in the hopes of getting 40 percent to 60 percent off. That’s the auction part of the name. If you don’t like the auction process, you can get a standard 20 percent to 30 percent off regular rates without bidding.
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Evelyn Kanter
Evelyn Kanter is an award-winning journalist who has been reporting on good deals, and warning about bad ones, for longer than she cares to admit publicly. A native and lifelong New Yorker, she helped launch the “Sales and Bargains” column in New York Magazine, and was the first consumer reporter for CBS News and for WABC TV “Eyewitness News”. She’s the author or editor of more than a dozen travel guidebooks and apps, including Peaceful Places New York City, and owns and operates NYC On The Cheap and EcoXplorer. A long-time tree-hugger, Evelyn also writes about green travel, green cars and saving the green in your wallet, for national and regional magazines and newspapers, including a column syndicated by Motor Matters.
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