Finding Discount Hotel Rooms & Cheap Auto Rentals

By Author: Steve Robinson
Total Articles: 467
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Cheap travel deals, be they discount hotel rooms, cheap vacation packages, and cheap auto rentals can be found by knowledgeable travelers.

Airlines often enjoy seat fill rates of 80 percent and more during good years. U.S. hotels however have never seen more than a 65 percent fill rate. The result is that large numbers of hotel rooms are regularly sitting empty.

Car rental companies and airlines are in much better positions to react to poor economic times by simply taking cars and planes out of service. Hotels do not enjoy similar flexibility. This in turn means that hotels have a strong incentive to discount rooms at the last minute before their hotel rooms are left empty.

Estimates of the variable cost of a hotel renting a room (such factors as the cost of cleaning the room and washing linens) typically run less than $10 a night. That means that hotels make more money renting rooms for prices above $10 a night than they do letting rooms sit empty.

During busy seasons for hotels, sales typically occur about a month in advance. Hotel rates do not fluctuate nearly as much as air, so usually ...
... there is no benefit to booking 60 or more days in advance. However, experts recommend booking at least 30 days prior to your arrival date, particularly during busy times of the year.

Still it is smart to continue to check the prices being quoted on your hotel up until your departure date. So long as you did not pay for your room in advance, you can always rebook at the last minute if a lower price becomes available.

Rental car prices change even less than prices for flights and hotels. Nevertheless, the last thing you want to do is simply show up at an airport rental counter and request a car. Car companies view walk up customers as having few choices and prices are often much higher when booked in person.

Once a traveler knows he will need a car, it is often wise to book it at the same time as a hotel, flight or both. Travel packages are often priced considerably lower than their components purchased separately because packages allow companies to offer rates below those published since consumers and competitors do not know the component prices when they are obscured in a package.

Travel packages can save consumers up to 40 percent in comparison to booking services individually. Major Internet travel sites such as Cheapfares, Expedia, and Orbitz are excellent places to find outstanding travel package pricing.
www.cheapfares.com