If you are looking for a cheap hotel, there’s a very good chance that you sort your search results from the hotel booking sites by “lowest price”. Have you ever wondered how the big hotel booking sites compare to one another when you sort by lowest price? That’s what I decided to find out in a case study.
Here’s how this experiment was conducted: From each of the big hotel booking sites (Hotels.com, Travelocity.com, Priceline.com, Orbitz.com), a list of 10 hotels was obtained with the following search parameters used on each site: a stay for 2 adults for 1 room from May 27, 2009 to May 29, 2009, with search results sorted by lowest price. I then found out the lowest price of each hotel from the following sources…
1) the original site from which the list was obtained
2) the remaining 3 hotel booking sites
3) the website of the hotel itself
4) a call to the hotel
To make an apples to apples comparison one room type was used in determinng the price for each room. In all cases, this same room type was also the lowest priced room type from each of the booking sites as well as the individal hotel sites.
How did the prices listed on each of the hotel booking sites compare to the competition? (to see the full results, check the bottom of the page)
Hotels.com: Had the lowest price for 4 out of the 10 hotels from its list
The hotel’s own sites had the lowest price on hotels.com’s “lowest priced” 10 hotels, 5 out of the 10 times. Orbitz.com beat out hotels.com for one of the hotels from hotels.com’s list.
Orbitz.com: Had the lowest price for 2 out of the 10 hotels from its list.
The hotel’s own sites had the lowest price on Orbitz’s “lowest priced” 10 hotels, 6 out of the 10 times. Hotels.com beat out Orbitz for 2 of the hotels from Orbitz’s list.
Priceline.com: Had the lowest price for 1 out of the 10 hotels on its list.
The hotel’s own sites had the lowest price on Priceline’s “lowest priced” 10 hotels, 4 out of the 10 times. Hotels.com beat out Priceline for 2 of the hotels from Priceline’s list, as did Orbitz. Also, Hotels.com and Orbitz had the same exact lowest price for one of Priceline’s hotels.
Travelocity.com: Had the lowest price for 1 out of the 10 hotels on its list.
The hotel’s own sites had the lowest price on Travelocity’s “lowest priced” 10 hotels, 5 out of the 10 times. Orbitz.com beat out Travelocity for one of its hotels. Hotels.com beat out Travelocity for 2 of its hotels. Hotels.com and Orbitz.com had the same lowest price to beat one of Travelocity’s hotels.
The findings are not very impressive from the hotel booking sites’ point of view. Does this mean that the hotel booking sites have bad prices all the time? No, most of the hotels from the lists of each of the 4 booking sites were linked to Choice Hotels, which, at the time, this article was written, was having a 15% off sale. In my Omaha Hotels Case Study, Orbitz and Hotels.com dominated in terms of pricing.
If we only look at pricing, for most of the results for the Colorado Springs area, Hotels.com, Orbitz.com, and the hotel websites differed in pricing within a $1 range! From what I’ve seen so far, you’d be safe booking with either Hotels.com or Orbitz.com in terms of pricing (although I’d use Cheaptickets.com over Orbitz because it has the same prices but a better price assurance policy). Travelocity.com typically has a price which is $3-$4 higher than the other 3 options. Priceline’s price’s are just way above everyone else.
But what about cancellation policies?
Although Priceline’s pricing was not impressive compared to everyone else, it should be noted that Priceline allows to you cancel your hotel without penalty for all of its listings. It allows you to cancel your stay for a full refund as long as you cancel the day before your first day in the hotel. Most of hotels.com’s, Orbitz’s, and individual hotel website’s low rates were low in the first place because they were “advance purchase rates”. Low prices have a lot to do with cancellation policies. This makes sense from the hotel industry’s point of view, they reel us in with a low price and get guaranteed money.
If you want a low price and don’t mind making a non-refundable purchase, Hotels.com, Orbitz.com, and the individual hotel websites will give you low price, non-refundable deals. If you are not firm whether you are staying at a certain place or not, I suspect that Priceline, Hotels.com, Orbitz, and the individual hotel websites will give you similar deals, although another case study has to be completed to see how similar they would be. Although Travelocity did not fare too well in this case study, it might give you lower prices for another area.
Hotels.com
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Orbitz.com
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Priceline.com
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Travelocity.com
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Friday, June 26th 2009 at 5:17 am
[...] Colorado Springs Hotels Case Study: Here, I found out that low price has a lot to do with cancellation policies. [...]