Musings

A Reminder to Turn Over Every Stone When Booking Your Hotels

Blackbeard

Dec 26, 2024 • 3 min read Comments

Pan for gold in your hotel search - Source: visit-eldorado.com

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tl;dr - Nothing earth-shattering here - just a friendly reminder that when conducting your hotel search, remember to use all the online travel agency platforms, especially bank portals, to unearth properties that punch above their weight. Once you discover a property, you may find that booking directly through the hotel's website will be the best overall deal.

Recently, I wrote about my stay at The Residence in Johannesburg, South Africa, a hotel I booked through Chase's Travel Portal. I encourage you to read the review to learn more about my wonderful experience at the property. Still, I wanted to call out the value that can be unearthed from other booking channels, particularly when there aren't great points options around.

Photo of table on outdoor patio of presidential suite — Dine outdoors on your presidential suite patio - Source: You Are Travel

I first came across The Residence through Chase's travel portal. The hotel is one of two properties belonging to an upstart lodging group, The Residence Portfolio, with the other being the intriguing Mukwa River Lodge in Zambia. I booked a massive penthouse suite on the 3rd floor of the hotel, with views over Houghton and Rosebank, equipped with a jacuzzi, fireplace, outdoor shower, outdoor spa bath, and large relaxation area. As mentioned in this piece about the opening of the Park Hyatt Johannesburg, for a city of its size, the largest in South Africa, Johannesburg needs more true luxury hotel options. Thus, finding this option was quite a gem.

Be sure to (Window) Shop Around

And that brings me to my point. Conducting your search on as many platforms as possible can help you discover great hotels that traditional metasearch platforms might bury. Smaller, often newer, independent hotels that aren't established enough for marketing organizations like the Leading Hotels of the World, Small Luxury Hotels of the World, Mr. & Ms. Smith, etc, rely on the distribution channels of bank travel portals, and online travel agencies (OTAs), like Hotels.com, Booking.com, Expedia, etc. to help them fill beds. Taking advantage of these platforms' search algorithms and filters can help you mine for some of these smaller shops. When you find a property of interest, you should 1) cross-check its reviews on a traditional search engine (Google, Bing, whatever you use) and 2) check out the hotel's website to see if there can be a better deal by booking directly.

In my example of booking The Residence above, it turns out that by booking through Chase (as opposed to directly with the hotel), I would receive complimentary breakfast and the same room type for the same price as just the room (and no breakfast) if I booked directly through the hotel's website. So, in this scenario, it made sense to book through the Chase Travel Portal. That said, had it not been for diligently searching on all platforms, I would have never even known about this hotel.

Photo of breakfast dish — Complimentary breakfast at The Residence - Source: You Are Travel

Conclusion

If you're headed to a destination where you don't have a specific brand in mind, and you're not finding great options with your traditional points hotels, be sure to fire up all search platforms to help you find options that a regular Google search may not deliver.