A few months ago, I was looking for a hotel in New York City for a short vacation stay. As the penny-pincher that I am, I searched high and low for a hotel room that would be comfortable & remotely affordable.Time & time again I would find promising rates displayed on hotel pages, only to find exorbitant hidden fees once I’d gotten most of the way through their reservation software. Unfortunately, unless I wanted to stay in an international youth hostel ran by German techno junkies & share a communal shower, nothing was within my price range.Somehow by sheer accident, I stumbled upon a hotel reservations site that offered a very intriguing deal: a room at a 3 star hotel in central Manhattan that was available at a fraction of a cost of what I was finding elsewhere. The catch? The site couldn’t tell me the hotel’s name or exact location, & would only describe some of the room’s amenities.My first thought was this deal was too good to be true. There must be something unsavory about this deal, like shared bathrooms, flea ridden beds, or haunted rooms. But after a great deal of deliberation, I decided to go through with the purchase. I took the leap of faith, & once my credit card had been processed through the reservation system, I was finally allowed to see where I’d actually be staying.
To my surprise, the hotel was everything I could have hoped for. It features an incredible location across from the Rockefeller Center, a spacious room, and all the amenities you could hope for. But by far the best surprise came after visiting the hotel’s website and seeing that my same room could be had through their own reservation system for two times the price of what I paid.This of course begs the question: why do hotels allow their reservations to be sold on other sites for a fraction of the cost? In short, because hotels want to sell the rooms that would otherwise go vacant. Hotels easily determine weeks in advance that certain dates will have many empty rooms. But how do hotels offer discounted rates without de-valuing their rooms or angering their existing reservations?This is where the beauty of the third party comes in. An outside website can display hotel rates anonymously, allowing the hotel to fill rooms while maintaining their reputation as a more luxurious hotel than cut-rate locations. It certainly is a win-win situation for everyone involved.The next time you’re booking a hotel & have some flexibility on the location, try searching anonymous hotel deals on sites like Hotwire & Expedia. You can come away with a fantastic reservation at a shockingly low rate.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6065688
