Hotel booking--Which site/ app ?

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nRiTeCh

nRiTeCh

Oracle
I want to book hotel online for next month.

Its my first time to book an hotel online and want the cheapest deals possible.

Heard very weird stories like in spite of booking when you arrive at the hotel you got no rooms or no booking confirmed.

Good friend had worse experience in Delhi last month...in middle of night he roamed 5 hotels suggested by some site after apologizes. He finally got a room at 5am after roaming 12a-4.30a in chilly weather. Thanks to cab walla who stayed with him until he got room.

So don't wanna be trapped in such scenarios.

So suggest trusted names in this biz.
 
Hotel bookings are usually smooth online if you book a good hotel with lots of reviews online, research on tripadvisor and portals.
Make sure 1 - 2 days after the booking, you call up the hotel and confirm the booking. Ask the name of the person who is confirming this.

For cheapest deals, Makemytrip has good discounts thesedays. You can try ginger or Oyo rooms is a good option now.
 
I'd say try all of them. MakeMyTrip, ClearTrip, Yatra, Goibibo, Agoda. Check who's providing you the cheapest deal with and how much is the final amount with coupons.

For review refer TripAdvisors. Generally all of the above mentioned providers are reputed. As already pointed out by @puns, just confirm the booking after 1-2 days after booking online and do the same again before 1-2 night of arrival (if in any case they have cancelled the booking).
 
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Regarding OYO Rooms, I have bad experience, I had a booking which I did around 2 weeks ago before arrival. But on the check in date, I received a message from OYO regarding confirmation. But then when I called up the hotel while on way, they said, OYO sent the booking 2 days ago and they had clearly mentioned that they do not have any available rooms.

After calling OYO they simply apologized and asked me to cancel the booking and provided a fake coupon for next booking which never worked. Ohh did I said that this way I even lost my 50% off coupon on first stay too.

So, I learnt a lesson that these providers doesn't send the booking on the exact date you book. So if you are pre booking make sure the booking is sent to them on that day itself else if they send the booking information just before 1-2 days of checkin date it's of no use as good hotels will be booked by then.
 
Most of the time, I end up using goibibo as they give lowest prices. But this time Yatra given lowest price for the accommodation at Tirupati. Both provides some coupons and goibibo was giving gocash 100% Cash back, but I was not interested in the gocash.
 
krishnandu said:
I'd say try all of them. MakeMyTrip, ClearTrip, Yatra, Goibibo, Agoda. Check who's providing you the cheapest deal with and how much is the final amount with coupons.

For review refer TripAdvisors. Generally all of the above mentioned providers are reputed. As already pointed out by @puns, just confirm the booking after 1-2 days after booking online and do the same again before 1-2 night of arrival (if in any case they have cancelled the booking).
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All of this PLUS hotels.com - they usually have more lenient cancellation policies than others. If you are looking for lowest prices, MMT has quite a few of them, though on a no cancellation basis. So if you are sure you are taking that trip, such options would greatly bring down prices.
 
Normally TripAdvisor aggregates the prices from the various sites. Its easier to compare.
OYO rooms - though I don't have first hand experience, but I did heard 'not-so-good' things about them.
I had booked hotels via GoIbibo 3/4 times last year, and I am quite happy with them. They add lots of goCash as promotion and with that I got the cheapest deal there.
To be sure, just call the hotel once to confirm the booking.
 
I haven't personally stayed in a OYO, but having seen some of the locations where their hotels are, I would definitely advise caution and find out a little more about the locality and not just the interior amenities. A lot of the OYOs I have seen are not in areas I would consider very women or family friendly.
 
agantuk said:
I haven't personally stayed in a OYO, but having seen some of the locations where their hotels are, I would definitely advise caution and find out a little more about the locality and not just the interior amenities. A lot of the OYOs I have seen are not in areas I would consider very women or family friendly.
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I second that. Most of the hotels are in localities which is not at all women friendly (at least in kolkata)
 
Been using HolidayIQ for the last 7 months and the experience is awesome! Tried Oyo and stayzilla once, both were horrible.
 
Have good experience with GoIbibo (low prices usually because of some coupon or the other). I usually use price comparison sites like Trivago or even Tripadvisor itself, and then book from the site with lowest price. Do remember a few points:
1. If a site quotes a very low price, cross check if it is the same hotel. For example, you might be looking for Hotel Ashoka Empire, but the site might be showing you Hotel Empire.
2. Check the cancellation policies, and inclusions and exclusions. Some sites offer a slightly lesser price, but with no complimentary breakfast included.
3. First decide on which hotel to book after reading reviews. I go by Tripadvisor only for reviews.
4. At least a couple of hotels have in the past price-matched with booking sites like these when requested. Last year, when booking a resort, I saw sites like MMT or GoIbibo offering almost 35% lesser price than what the resort website mentioned. I emailed the reservation contact with the details, and mentioned clearly that I would prefer to book directly with them and avoid all intermediaries, if they are willing to price match with these sites. IT worked, and I got an email a day later with revised tariff details and a message asking me to transfer the amount to their bank account. :) No harm trying, especially if you are staying off season.
 
I always use MakeMyTrip for all hotel bookings.. never had a cancellation or reject in so many years now..
They usually confirm the room immediately and there is no followup needed..
Had a couple of bad experiences with Yatra , rooms getting cancelled at last minute, even though they were paid for up front.

Oyo seemed decent, though I have only used it once.
 
Use goibibo.. You can easily get someone to send you an invite to join.. So you will get some goCash.. Which can be used in hotel bookings..
 
I used OYO rooms twice this month in Bangalore and Mangalore and had a great experience. I did a lot of research about the hotels through online reviews before booking.
Both the hotels were marked as 'Premium' in OYO, which probably means they are two-star hotels.
They provide free breakfast buffet and WiFi, in addition to the usual stuff like cable TV, room service, geyser, AC and toiletries.

The best part was the price. After discount, i had to pay 2798.00 for 2N for 2 guests at the first hotel.
For the second hotel, I had to pay 1200.00 for 1 N 2 guests and there was a 500 Rs Paytm cashback. So in the second case i stayed at a two star hotel for 700.00 Rs.

So, i would suggest book one of the 'premium' room if on a budget. They also have a elite option (which is 4 star)
I also noticed the hotel reception have a tablet to verify the bookings, which i am guessing were provided by OYO - as both the hotels were carrying the same type. So errors in bookings might be less in premium rooms.
 
Booking.com
You don't need to pay upfront unlike most other sites that compel you to make make payment while booking.

Plus since Booking is used mostly by foreign people, you get to read reviews by people finicky about cleanliness and services (most of the Indians only care about low tariff even if it means settling for shit). So you can make up your mind whether you really want an el-cheapo ghetto.

And the room photos have always come out to be 100% same as what I have checked into.
 
I usually use, HolidayIQ, OYO rooms and MMT (sometimes). I use these for my business travel. I am okay with all these till now. Though I have found OYO to cut corners - e.g. in Bangalore OYO Manyata tech park did not provide me with laundry service even if it claimed so. Also it's wi-fi was not usable because of slow speed.
 
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