Book a hotel for stays between 01 Jan 2013 and 28 Feb 2013 by 11:59pm (AEST) 02 Dec 2012 via RatesToGo and instantly receive 20% off your total booking.
Limit one discount per hotel room and one promotion code per purchase. APPLIES TO PURCHASES IN AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS ONLY.
I've stayed about 75 nights in hotels this year, and I quite throughly searched out the cheapest (or best value) rate for each of those nights — RatesToGo with their X% off codes was probably my most used third-party booking site, being the best option for about a third of those bookings. I'd still recommend doing your research, because hotel rates can vary quite a bit across booking sites.
Other sites I used:
- Hotels.com with 10% off code and additional 7% cashback with StartHere
- Agoda with 7% discount for Citibank cardholders
- booking.com (some of their special offers made certain hotels cheaper than anywhere else)
- priceline.com, using their Name Your Own Price system (check out the betterbidding.com forum, with bidding tips and to get info on which hotels you might be bidding on)
- expedia.com with 10% off code (I have "Elite Plus" status with expedia, which gives me free upgrades at certain hotels)
- clubcarlson.com (special corporate rate code I have)
- hilton.com (generally need to book direct to get HHonors Diamond benefits — free upgrades, free breakfast, free internet etc.)
- marriott.com using their Look No Further best rate guarantee (price match + an additional 25% off)
- accorhotels.com (50% flash sale for Le Club Accorhotels members)
- booking direct with some smaller independent boutique hotels, which offered better rates on their own site
Excellent post. A few questions though-
How does that work as when checking out the total isnt less 7%? Does Citibank rebate it to your CC? Even the T&Cs don't state how the 7% is given.
The Starthere 7% cashback for Hotels.com? I thought Founder status only gave 6%?
With Hilton, I got Gold, thanks to your tip from last time but how did you get Diamond? (Did you stay 60 nights with them in a calander year?)
The Starthere 7% cashback for Hotels.com? I thought Founder status only gave 6%?
Yup, it's 6% not 7% — I was posting from memory and made a mistake. :)
How does that work as when checking out the total isnt less 7%? Does Citibank rebate it to your CC?
The discount is subtracted at checkout — the discount appears immediately after you enter a valid Citibank CC when you visit Agoda using the link at the Citibank site: http://www.citibank.com.au/aus/credit_cards/cards_rewards_cw…
With Hilton, I got Gold, thanks to your tip from last time but how did you get Diamond? (Did you stay 60 nights with them in a calander year?)
Virgin Australia were matching status last year for frequent flyers in other competitor programs. Since I'm Qantas FF Platinum they gave me Virgin Velocity Platinum, and one of the benefits of Velocity Platinum is top status with either Hilton (Diamond) or IHG Priority Club (Platinum). I wouldn't go out of my way to earn Diamond the normal way — free Gold is good enough. ;)
The discount is subtracted at checkout — the discount appears immediately after you enter a valid Citibank CC when you visit Agoda using the link at the Citibank site
Thanks for that. Already had the link being a Citi member just couldn't work out how to make the discount appear. +1 for your post :)
And now that I do it's more expensive than via another method so here is a tip for you for the help you have given me and others :) Going through Wego & HotelsCombined will give you a cheaper price for an Agoda booking, than directly with the site or via Citi eg. for a sample overseas Hotel Booking-
So it seems for me Citi 7% discount is not as good as the rates that are given for the Hotel Comparison sites.
(As an aside does Citi give Bonus points for Agoda ie. 4.25 Citipoints per $ (are they a Bonus Partner or just classified as a special offer)?
Virgin Australia were matching status last year for frequent flyers in other competitor programs. Since I'm Qantas FF Platinum they gave me Virgin Velocity Platinum, and one of the benefits of Velocity Platinum is top status with either Hilton (Diamond) or IHG Priority Club (Platinum). I wouldn't go out of my way to earn Diamond the normal way — free Gold is good enough. ;)
Thought as much with the Virgin/Hilton matching. Here is another tip for you. Being a Qantas FF member (not required) you can get some Hotels cheaper via Qantas themselves-
http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/hotels/global/en
Or even if they are the same price, you can get added perks such as Free Breakfast, Late Checkouts, etc in a base rate so worth adding that to your list. The same with BA.com in regards to free Room Upgrades, Cheaper pricing.
I agree!
I missed out on the last 20% off for 2 night bookings deal and settled for 15% deal only to find this deal come back again except with no minimum days booking requirement.
Luckily they had free cancellation on the previous booking and i was able to further save more $$$ :)
Are you sure it's free cancellation? I remember rreading in the terms and conditions that they take an admin fee for all cancellations even if the hotel doesn't charge.
And I've now just checked into a hotel in KL thanks to their last Take20off deal. Excellent value I got but still compare to wego and h/combined. Whooosh!!!
all the hotels I've checked in Melbourne are atleast 50% dearer on rates to go, even after 20% is still more expensive than booking direct with some hotels.
Seriously, the cheapest deal you will get for non-chain hotels, provided you can find your hotel still available. After hours of searching in kayak,hipmunk,wego,hotelscombined etc nothing could beat ratestogo with their regular xx% off hotels codes. Better value than the stay 10 nights get one free deals or the member rewards discount offered by others.