Let’s Make A Deal
The longer you spend in Asia the more you start to see opportunities to get things for less. Sure, there’s the regular street haggling that everyone is aware of, but what about haggling for accommodation? Did you know that you can get rooms for cheaper than they are offered?
Consider the following emails (read from top to bottom):
We are interested in possibly booking the Superior room for 5 nights. Can you please tell us what the rate is (with promotion) if booked in early December?
Thanks!
Dear Dave,
We would like to offer you only 30USD/room/night for your 6 nights stay in Superior room and Free airport pick up one way. Including: breakfast, tea & coffee, welcome drink, free internet, 10%VAT, 5% service charge,……Please feel free to tell us your decision then we will reserve it for you. We are looking forward to hearing from you soon. Have a nice day.
Hello,
The same room is being offered on hostelbookers for only $12 per person per night (that’s $24 versus you’re offer of $30). I imagine Hostelbookers takes a cut so if you will beat that price I will book it directly through you, if not I will consider booking it through hostelbookers.
http://www.hostelbookers.com/property/prp/49387/arr/2012-12-06/ngt/2/ppl/1/
Thanks!
Dear Dave,
If so, we would like to offer you special rate at only 23USD/room/night for Superior room. Please feel free to tell us your decision. We are looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Did you see what I did there? When you book through sites like Hostelbooker and Hostelworld there is usually a fee involved. In Hostelbookers, it’s 10% of the total cost. This is the commission that the hotel pays to Hostelbookers. Hostelbookers acts as a middleman – so why not try to cut them out and go directly to the hotel itself, offering to only receive a 5% discount instead of the 10% that they have to pay to Hostelbookers for the sale?
Naturally, Hostelbookers is aware of this and often hides critical contact information until the final sale is complete (and the fee they take is nonrefundable), but many hotels have their own websites where the contact information is available.
Now consider a different scenario.
Hello,
We are two travellers going to Hoi An tomorrow and looking for a standard room. We are currently at Tran Ly in Hue and they recommended your hotel. I know that they provide a discount if we book through them (presumably for a commission). I was wondering what you charge if we book directly through you?
Thanks
Dear Mr Dave,
Thank you very much for choosing our hotel to stay. Tomorrow 19th December we have a nice room for you and the room rate will be 22USD/1 night/2 persons inclusive of breakfast, a/c, hot water, wifi.
Best regards,
Madam An
Hello,
The hotel here has offered to book it for only $20 per night, so I think we will just book it through them, unless you can match it or better, thank you.
Dear Ms Victoria,
Thank you for your email. Tomorrow we have a room with 20USD /1 night/ 2 persons inclusive of breakfast, a/c, hot water, wifi……in the room.
Best regards,
Madam An
Often hotels in neighboring cities work together to make recommendations, so if I stay in a hotel in Hoi An, Vietnam, they probably have a hotel that they work with in Nha Trang. Once they make the recommendation I do a bit of research. The website of the Nha Trang hotel offers a standard room for $22 – $25/night (maybe depends on the season). If I book it through my hotel in Hoi An, they tell me that they’ll get it to me for somewhere between $20 and $22. Most likely it will be $22.
So now I’m going to go to the hotel in Nha Trang and tell them that the hotel in Hoi An will offer to book me a room for $20/night. They probably don’t know what the hotel here is offering anyways, as long as it isn’t absurdly low. Let’s see if they call my bluff. If they do, I always have the offer from the Hoi An hotel to fall back on.
And there you have it. While this isn’t major savings it is money back in your pocket that can be used for other things. Presumably, I’m not sleeping on the streets so this tactic can be used fairly often and, over the course of many months of travel, can add up to a nice discount.
Interesting tactic and a good tip to try the next time we are looking for accommodation. I’ve never tried haggling over rooms via email, though in Philippines, Tony and I would frequently just show up in a city and start wandering around looking at guesthouses until we found a room we liked at a price we were willing to pay. It would offer a lot more peace of mind to have something set up before we arrived, but for a cheaper price than just booking through Hostelbookers.
How are you finding the haggling in Vietnam, by the way? It’s not something I really enjoy doing at all (though we did some this morning in Singapore), and have been nervous about Vietnam because of their purported penchant for severely overcharging foreigners. Had any run ins with that thus far?
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We’ve been in Vietnam now for three weeks and I can only really recall haggling 4-5 times, mainly because I had to buy 4 pairs of sunglasses. Once for a cab the hotel told us it would be 50k (2.5 dollars) and the cab driver asked for 100k. I just walked away until he met us at 50k. Personally I really don’t think there is much overcharging here. Restaurants have menus with prices. There isn’t a TON of street food and the stands often have prices and/or charge a fair price (50 cents to a dollar). I don’t see how there is much room for overcharging if I am being charged a dollar, so I assume they are offering a fair price. Convenient stores ring things up and the price is clear, etc.
Sure if you go to the market there is a bit of haggling but even if you were to pay the price they quote at first, it is still pretty cheap. In my opinion China was much worse. Vietnam is terrific and I think they treat foreigners very well here. No need to worry.
Interesting, we’ve never prebooked, we just turned up and wandered around ’til we found a room at the right price. I remember paying $5/night in Hanoi, some places, like Hoi An were more expensive, I think we payed $15. We always haggled face to face, once we’d seen the room. I suppose in the olden days we weren’t carrying laptops ( not even invented!) and only had internet access if we visited cafes. Personally, we had no issues with people trying to rip us off, sure, you haggle for everything and get progressively better at it, but it’s not like India, say, where it can become very wearing. Technology in an amazing thing! I’m looking at booking a couple of nights in Fiji at the moment, I’ll see if I can use your trick!
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Hanoi has gone up over the years as its become more of a tourist attraction BUT we definitely splurged on our hotel room as a way for rewarding ourselves after 2 months in China. It’s funny to hear people talk about how they book accommodation as many people note simply walking in, whereas vicky and I pretty much never go anywhere without a hotel booked. It just seems like a lot of effort, but potentially the deals are much better.
These are my favorite kind of travel blog posts! i.e., where people share their strategies for doing things.
It’s funny how in some places the walk-in price is usually super high compared to the online deals, but in other places it’s possible to negotiate the best price as a walk in, and sometimes it’s the same. For Asia, if I’m going somewhere that I don’t expect to be booked up, I will usually take note of the online price and then try to negotiate a better price as a walk-in. Most times I have found I get a price the same as the online price, but occasionally I’ve gotten a MUCH cheaper price this way (less than 65% the cheapest online price).
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Glad you liked it, I have another post on street haggling that will be coming out soon you might like! I think you raise a very good point in that hotel rooms, like airline seats, are no good if they are empty – so on short notice they are willing to offer it much cheaper if no one is biting and it’s just going to sit idle.
Funny, I’ve booked directly through a hotel’s site after seeing it was a bit cheaper than another site, but it never occurred to me to email them and say hey I see it’s cheaper here, how would you like to pocket more of the money by offering that to me directly. Great advice!
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