Three leading hotel booking websites have emerged as our recommended choices for last minute hotel bookings.
Last minute hotel deals are easy to find online (sj carey via Flickr)
TravelMag.com analysed the rates offered by 12 booking websites for bookings between 1 and 3 days before your stay, conducting several hundred searches for hotels in destinations across the world. So which websites will deliver you the best last minute hotel deals?
Hotels.com for the US or Canada
Hotels.com is our favourite pick if you need a room in the United States or Canada. Part of Expedia Group, they offer by far the biggest choice of hotels in North America, and significantly better deals than their competitors if you book at late notice. You can narrow down your hotel search using filters like hotel type, neighbourhood amenities and price range, and a handy map function lets you identify available hotels in specific locations. The website allows you to pay via Credit Car or Paypal. However, please note that most of their last minute deals are non-refundable.
Booking.com, for Europe and Asia
Booking.com is Europe’s most popular hotel website, and also our favourite choice if you need a hotel room in Europe or Asia. When running searches for the main European destinations, Booking.com consistently delivered the best hotel discounts. We found their hotel filters to be highly user friendly too, even letting you narrow down your search to discount deals only. As well as Europe and Asia, we’d also recommend Booking.com for hotel rooms in Australia. If you’re travelling to South America, Hotels.com and Booking.com performed equally well when we looked at their rates offered. Please note: Booking.com only let you pay via Credit Card, with other options such as PayPal not available.
Expedia.com for hotel & flight packages
If you need a flight and hotel room, you could save up to 100% of the airline ticket by booking both as a bundle, according to Expedia.com. While the savings we calculated during our searches never quite reached those heights, often representing only a small percentage, we’d still recommend Expedia.com for vacation packages. Since you’ll find exactly the same hotel rates on Expedia than on Hotels.com, even small savings on the flight ticket make it worth your while.