Shopping for Hotels

Searching for a hotel in a city away from home is no easy task.  Not even for the Shopping Maven.  Not even if it's a city I know and even used to live in.  Things change so fast.  Having just shopped for some hotels in the San Francisco Bay area--a place close to my former home of 17 years--I thought I'd share some of the experience with you in the hopes of making this task a bit easier for others.

A few tips when you're trying to find a good hotel at a good price:

1. Google Maps has a nice feature where you can easily and quickly bring up a bunch of hotels on a map. This way you can see exactly where the hotels are located. Just search on hotels near San Francisco, for example. Added bonus: Although perhaps not entirely accurate Google even provides the rate for dates you specify for a potential stay.
2. Check at different times in advance of your departure date to try to get the best rates.  Usually you want to consider booking at least a month or more before your travel dates to get a good rate.   Prices change--sometimes frequently, sometimes not so frequently.  Sometimes you'll just strike it right and find a great price at the right time.  Sometimes not.
3. Try checking a number of travel or hotel search sites, like travelocity.com, hotels.com, bookit.com, etc., to determine the best price for a stay. Generally the prices will be the same or within a few dollars but it's a good idea to check the rates and rules posted on different sites. Sometimes a site will offer a special rate.
4. Sometimes the hotel site itself will offer the best price. However, this is not always true. Sometimes the prices on the hotel's own web site are actually higher than those found elsewhere.

So to sum it all up...
You need to be thorough in your search.  As noted here, prices fluctuate. Also there is not one sure way to where to find the best price.  You really have to shop around.  Hopefully, this will give you some ideas on how to do that and when.

On another note:

Looking for hotels in Israel, I found this interesting description for a hotel in the Tel Aviv area (Click here if you want to see where this text actually occurs):

Located in the heart of Tel Aviv, steps from the beach, the Sun City Hotel offers cosy value-for-money accommodation in a lively district, ideal base both for holidaymakers and shop-alcoholics willing to roam the boutique on Sheinkin Street, Nahalat Binyamin Arts and Crafts Market or Bezalel Market. The Sun City Hotel, Tel Aviv , features 24 elegant guestrooms with free wireless Internet access and air-conditioning, for a pleasant stay in Israel, even during the hot summer days. The friendly staff will provide tailored service, warm hospitality and all the tourist information you might need, for an unforgettable stay in the vibrant ...

So I guess this is a hotel for people who love to buy booze. Okay, so maybe I wouldn't exactly know how to translate my blog to Hebrew either.  

Happy traveling!