5 tips for how not to chase a deal

Hotel and airline “deals” are a big part my long-term travel strategy. My husband and I are constantly chasing promotions if we think they’ll help us gain another day, week, or month on the road. In fact, quite often we find ourselves making our travel plans based on the deals we find.

We’ve learned a lot about living out of hotels. You can read about our general tips for living out of hotels here. But in the process of cultivating that list of tips, we’ve made definitely had some flops.

For instance last summer we found a list of hotels throughout Germany that had been mistakenly priced at around $20 for a week’s stay. In our circles this is called a “mistake-fare.” It’s always up to the hotel as to whether or not they’ll actually honor this kind of accidental rate or not but in the case of these Germany hotels, they approved. The first hotel booked under this mistake-fare rate, a hotel not far from downtown Berlin, was great. The second one on the other hand was in the middle of an industrial park far from any of the beautiful sites Hamburg had to offer.

While the comforts we agree to give up for a good deal may vary from person to person, there are a few general “do’s” and “don’t’s” that may be helpful across the gamut.

As someone who has chased a lot of deals…and made lots of mistakes as well, I’ve created a list of general rules for how not to chase a deal.

How not to chase a deal.

1.) While it’s ok to go somewhere you know nothing about specifically for a deal, don’t go somewhere you aren’t interested in for a deal, and don’t be afraid to ditch the deal and leave if you find that’s the case when you arrive.

If you are a person who works online as you go, it’s not always important to be in a place that stimulates your curiosity if you’re in a place that instead stimulates your work stamina! However, being a place you hate is not likely to be a place that stimulates anything but negativity. A deal isn’t worth that.

2.) Don’t forget to factor in what your price-cut is going to cost you.

In other words, sometimes you get what you pay for. In the example I gave above the awesome price cost us a good location. There was not even a cheap restaurant in walking distance let alone a place to get internet or laundry or any of the other needs that come up. So staying at our “good deal” hotel probably would have doubled our food budget, taxi budget, and internet budget as we usually choose hotels with internet included.

3.) Not all that glitters is gold…and not all hotel points and airline miles are useful.

Loyalty programs are becoming really popular so every hotel and airline seems to have one. But some of them are more “fluffy” than others and you may find yourself feeling fairly disappointed when you’ve made a few hotel stays for the sake of a promotion only to find the hotel chain is a regional hotel with very few locations you’ll be able to use. Or only to find that the points expire in a short amount of time.

4.) Don’t let luxury convince you a deal is better than it is.

This really comes down to letting math guide you out of the enticing siren-song of luxury. Fifty-percent off of something twice as much as your normal budget brings you back down to your normal budget. That’s not really a good deal, it’s just a special treat. It doesn’t necessarily help you stretch your budget even if it does give you a good experience. Maybe you’ll decide it’s worth it and that’ s totally fine. But don’t get into the habit of going for “deals” on luxury that trick you into spending a little bit more than your ordinary budget. (At least, not without simultaneously earning enough points to make up for it later as discussed in my previous post about how luxury hotels can save us money).

5.) Don’t sample a really great deal when you could go big.

We’ve done some wacky things for really good deals. One time Club Carlson was offering a brief promotion of 50,000 points (enough for up to ten free nights) per stay. This means that every time you make a stay, regardless of how many nights your stay included, you’d earn 50,000 points. Even though we felt funny about it, the hotel had plenty of unsold rooms so we each got a room for the night despite being a married couple. We didn’t even use the second room but we paid for it knowing we could get more than our money’s worth out of it in free stays with the points we’d be earning.

If the hotel had been close to full occupancy I would have felt too guilty about occupying more space than we needed, but as it was, the hotel certainly didn’t mind us paying for a second room that would have otherwise gone unsold. And we certainly didn’t mind paying for a room that would earn us 10 free nights.

Even with our 100,000 point earnings, we quickly regretted only making two stays during that promotion.

Conclusion

Ultimately every traveler has their own lists of what works, what doesn’t work, and what they’ll try to do differently next time. What are some of your rules? What will you and won’t you do for a deal?