Third party hotel booking scam

No, but the first hotel I worked accepted Diner’s Club, though I was never actually presented with one.

I wanted to say it's not a scam. I wanted to say as long as it wasn't in a category of "taxes and fees", when there are no taxes and the fees aren't mandated. I changed my mind (even though I believed before it was something nobody should pay) because the website is not providing a service at all above any other site booking rooms. I don't know of any benefits they are providing for which someone would feel $20 is worthy and a fair deal. I usually get rooms last minute and usually wind up at booking.com, their prices usually seem equal with other sites and you often times don't need to provide a credit card when booking.

I haven't got around to reading any of the posts Yet. A friend was a hotel bell boy. He told me to always get the corporate rate. Is this better?

Third party sites get paid irrespective of timing or user awareness. During Dead Week TPWs have great bargains but the hotels themselves will often have better bargains, particularly once you are checking out. if you have used a tpw ths hotel's host checking you out can not undo that.

ALL rooms are sold by the hotel to the casino at the casino rate, its the casino's player development hosts that re-sell the rooms .

Quote: jjjoooggg

I haven't got around to reading any of the posts Yet. A friend was a hotel bell boy. He told me to always get the corporate rate. Is this better?

Not necessarily. In any case, if you're, "Walking-in," or calling a hotel directly, then just get the price first before mentioning any discounts. They'll either have to take something off of the first price quoted or explain why what they are offering you is already better than the discount you asked for.

When people would call me or walk in and mention having a discount before I could even get the rate I'd be quoting out of my mouth, I'd usually just give them the discounted rate (such as AAA) if the online AAA rate was more than I would have quoted them in the first place. In one of the chapters in Volume II of one of my other posts, I mentioned that the only rate better than what I was going to be quoting booking through me directly was Government/Military.

But, these are not universally true things. Hotels owned by big hotel companies (as in, franchisees or corporate owned) will pretty much have direct booking rate parody with all channels of online booking. Maybe they just don't like maximizing revenues, or more likely, the occasional complaint about a difference in the rates isn't worth the hassle to them. That happens most often when someone who booked online is in line and hears me give a walk-in a lower quote, and I just say, "Had you called me directly, that's also the rate you would have received; we're actually making more in profit on that room than on yours." Which was actually true.

ADDED: Also, some hotels require a code of sorts for a corporate rate because they'll think you work for a specific company that stays at that hotel or chain a bunch. If they ask you for this, obviously, you're not going to know one. I only know this because there was a place in our system for corporate rate codes, but we never used any actual codes...we just took the percentage off rack if someone asked for a corporate rate.

No offense to your friend, and we also did not have bell boys, but I can't think of any reason a bell boy would know this information, much less know whether or not it's true (It's not) of every hotel.

Quote: FleaStiff

Third party sites get paid irrespective of timing or user awareness. During Dead Week TPWs have great bargains but the hotels themselves will often have better bargains, particularly once you are checking out. if you have used a tpw ths hotel's host checking you out can not undo that.

ALL rooms are sold by the hotel to the casino at the casino rate, its the casino's player development hosts that re-sell the rooms .

I agree with all of this and have read several accounts of this nature online. If you book TPW and your play would have otherwise justified a comped room, or at least an after-the-fact discount; there's not always much a host can do for you and the front desk clerks generally can't do anything for you.

I don't know how the, "Casino rate," plays into things and won't claim to...but looking at the property on the whole, the only added costs to comping a room are going to essentially be the direct costs related to that room. The TPW adds a cost, because they are going to get the commissions for bringing the casino a booking whether or not the casino decides to charge the guest on the room itself. That reflects direct $$$ costs, which they may be less inclined to eat.

I don't know how many motels offer weekly rates, but the Knights Inn I stayed in last year was $79 a night or $219 a week. If you are staying more than two nights, a weekly rate worked better. As it is a Choice Hotel, this may be fairly common.

Quote: billryan

I don't know how many motels offer weekly rates, but the Knights Inn I stayed in last year was $79 a night or $219 a week. If you are staying more than two nights, a weekly rate worked better. As it is a Choice Hotel, this may be fairly common.

Wow, Knights Inn is a brand I haven't seen in probably 10 years.

Quote: billryan

I don't know how many motels offer weekly rates, but the Knights Inn I stayed in last year was $79 a night or $219 a week. If you are staying more than two nights, a weekly rate worked better. As it is a Choice Hotel, this may be fairly common.

Knights Inn is not Choice Hotels International, they've been spun off of Wyndham Worldwide into a new small(ish) player called Red Lion something. Prior to Wyndham, they were a Cendant hotel.

Wyndham was a weird fit for Knights Inn as they really didn't seem to care about the brand at all. Knights Inn is kind of an, "It is what it is," sort of place, but there wasn't a lot of consistency from one location to the other. That might have changed with Red Lion, but I must admit I know almost nothing about Red Lion or how it runs things. It wasn't even until the 2010's that Red Lion broke 100 total properties, so I just happened to never work in any area where they were ever of any relevance to me.

Anyway, that's quite correct as relates weekly rates, and that's not strictly limited to motels.

And, overall, a very good tip: If you're planning to stay somewhere 3-4 nights (particularly if those are weekend nights) then the weekly rate may well be cheaper and you just have the room sit empty for a few days after you leave.

IN VERY GENERAL TERMS:

---The first hotel that I worked, you would be better off taking the weekly rate if you were staying MORE than four nights. If it was four nights, then you would be better off with the nightly rate. This hotel also did not have different standard rates for weekends, only special events. Weekends did not make a big difference in our occupancy, in general.

---The second hotel I worked, you would only want to take the weekly rate if you were already going to be staying six nights and precisely six nights. Usually, five nights would be exactly the same and the sixth night is where the full weekly rate would become cheaper. That's if you were staying for that length and did not work for a company we had a contract with...usually contracted rates for companies they were better off with the contracted nightly rate for four nights, or less, then the weekly rate if it was more than four nights.

***So, it will just depend on the hotel and how their nightly rates relate to their weekly rates---or even if they have weekly rates, which some hotels don't for people, "Just coming in off the street," which just means you're not from a company with a contract with them. Same thing with monthly rates occasionally being cheaper than 2+ weeks, if you think you'll be in the same place for two or more weeks.

Quote: DRich

Wow, Knights Inn is a brand I haven't seen in probably 10 years.

Yeah, Wyndham didn't focus on that brand very much. Super 8's were even starting to become pretty inconsistent (when I was doing hotels), though Days Inns, Hojo's and many Travelodges are probably still worse. Some Travelodges are apparently very nice, from what I've heard...so that's weird. Not any that I have seen.

While there are almost certainly individual exceptions, (mostly owing to Knights Inn's franchise fees being absurdly cheap for the Wyndham booking channel) Knights Inn is usually what you were if you had exterior corridors and were too dumpy to be a Days Inn or Travelodge.