Travel Deal of the Day (July 8, 2008)

Thinking about taking a trip involving a hotel stay – if you are visiting a major city, you may want to ensure that your trip involves a weekend.

The Deal:
When you are staying in a city hotel, you will quite often save money by planning your trip over a weekend. Weekday rates in city hotels are normally higher as the rates are generally aimed at corporations – these weekday, corporate rates are much higher than leisure-oriented weekend rates. If you are staying, for instance, from Wednesday to Friday, you may “transform” your midweek stay into a weekend stay by staying until the end of the weekend. (Most hotels will charge you midweek rates for a stay from Wednesday to Friday, but many hotels will alter your rates to “weekend rates” if your stay includes the weekend; some hotels will even make the entire stay a “weekend” stay even if you only stay until Saturday). You can save even more money if you also search airport hotel locations – since many airport hotels are empty on weekends, you are likely to really save money with weekend rates at airport hotels.

OK – so your next question is: what do I do if I must stay midweek and the city hotel rates are outrageous? My advice is to try suburban locations or locations near tourist attractions. Many business travelers prefer to be in the middle of the city and avoid the hotel located right next to a theme park or other tourist attraction. These leisure oriented hotels thrive on the weekend stays and may be empty midweek – accordingly, you may save money (if you must travel midweek) by staying at these kind of hotels.

The Inside Scoop:
The above advice does not negate the value of prepaid services like Priceline and Hotwire. The rates that you can obtain through these services can be extraordinary. You may find that the rates are even more extraordinary if you use the above rules to determine when and where to “bid” for a hotel.