#3 Travel Hacks: How to get the Best Deals on Hotels and Resorts!

Hello, my dear explorers~

Have you ever being jealous or envy of your friends and families staying over at a luxury hotel? Wondering when will be your turn to get comfortable on a big bed, 24 hours in room service, having an unlimited skyline view from your hotel's room?

Well, if you're one of them. You got to pay attention to this because I am going to let you know that you don't need to burn a hole in your wallet to deserve that.

Get your pen and paper ready!

We all have been in a phase where we always wanted to stay in a luxury hotel at least once in our lifetime but, the prices are sky high which could easily blow up our travel budget. But, with these ways, it's definitely going to help! At least a little.

1. Signing up for a Hotel's Loyalty Programme

This might seems to be annoying for anyone who hates collecting points like programs. If this ain't your thing, maybe you should try to re-evaluate whether it's worth your time for saving your wallet being burned before booking an accommodation.

Taking big hotel group like Marriott International is a great example to encourage their customer to sign up their loyalty program. This multinational diversified hospitality company owns not just 1 hotel but thousands of hotels worldwide, which make your possibility of collecting hotel points and redemption convenient and easy.

Without you being realized that Marriott International owns more hotels with different brand names than what you can count from your fingers to your toes. For example, do you know that St.Regis, Courtyard, W hotels, Ritz-Carlton, Sheraton, Le Meridien, aloft and etc are all under the same ownership of Marriott Group? With any stays within these hotels, you are definitely able to collect the points and redeem a few days of stays at one of these hotels with absolutely free of charges. Isn't that worth all your effort of collecting?

2. Book your stays at a new property

This might not sound very convincing as you might know, sometimes, a new property might encounter breakdowns, powercut, management problem and etc..but, what you haven't considered is that there are more benefits than you think.

First of all, cleanliness! New hotels & resorts are definitely the cleanest, just like you're wearing your new shoe, it's always the cleanest. That's like a 100 plus points for me.

Second, new hotels normally are not packed, thus, there are always rooms available for impromptu upgrades for you as a surprise. Why? Upgrading you from a normal hotel room to a premium or higher grades one for better reviews on their web page, TripAdvisor and etc.. This is a very basic marketing skill circulating around for a while now in the hospitality line.

3. Coupons and referrals

Speaking of coupons, it might not be the first thing that comes to your mind. Most of the time, we are too busy searching for good deals on third-party booking websites but most of the time we have forgotten about coupons. In this situation, they definitely come in handy to save us some really big bucks, especially during the peak season.

We all know that during holiday seasons, the prices of the hotel could be spiked up crazily due to the demands, but, with enough research and preparations, paying a cheap price is no problem at all. Which then leads to my second point of referrals.

Take Airbnb as an example, referal refers a friend to stay at a hotel for the first time, they will both receive Airbnb credits for the next stays, regardless of what category of stays they are going for. Which means, the more referrals you have, the more credits you'll earn.

4. Credit Card Perks & Benefits

In some countries, credit cards are rarely being used and it's often not popular to be used due to cultural difference. Often, banks offer different perks and benefits like a free hotel stay with a certain amount spent to attract more users to their services. If we are keen on this, you might see that there's a lot of perks that you're going to be benefited.

While, if you're a spender and credit cards is your go-to tools in your bag, this is definitely your chance to maximize the benefits to the fullest. For example, credit cards that offer travel perks are like Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard, Venture from Capital One, Discover it® Miles, Hilton Honors American Express Ascend Card and etc.. Isn't this a win-win situation? Spend and earn at the same time!

5. Don't be shy to inform service desk of your "Special Occasion"

Never ever be shy to let someone know about your special occasion especially when you're abroad, staying in a hotel. Nothing compares to a surprise upgrade to make your special occasion shines even more.

Whether or not it's your anniversary, birthday celebrations or even a honeymoon abroad, hotels often will take that into considerations to make your stays more memorable. Even if it's just amenities upgrades, simply with better decorations in a room or even a piece of cake for you will definitely put a smile on your face.

The truth is, never be shy to ask or say something. You'll surprise on how a hotel will handle the situation that surprises you.

Extra Tip:

6. Check-in towards the end of the day

This is definitely an insider tip that should be taken account into considerations. The reason why checking in late will gain you more benefits than harms are because the amount of guests checking-in is already expected and hotels tend to have a clear analysis of the rooms available for you at the end of the day.

If you're lucky, hotels tend to upgrade you for a better stay.

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