When you’re organising a business trip you usually have to organise two main things:
- transport ie. how to get there, be that plane, train, car or other means
- somewhere to sleep. Personally I can deal with cramped seats on planes etc., but I need to be sure that I’ve got somewhere clean to sleep
No matter how you book hotel rooms you need to be careful.
Check the booking conditions. And double-check them.
Things to watch out for:
- even with booking.com the hotel might whack your credit card for the first night as a deposit even if you aren’t staying there until 11 months later
- cancellation policies vary. While some of the bigger chains might allow cancellation within 24 hours of the stay not all do. In some cases the rate will require 72 hours or more cancellation if you want to avoid penalties
- the lowest rate is usually pre-paid. If you’re 100% sure that you will be making the trip then you can save money, but plans change so you need to balance this off
- Extras – what is actually included in the rate? Some rates will include breakfast, wifi and a few other things, while other properties will charge you for every single “extra”
- Taxes – depending on where you’re travelling to these can mount up and make a “cheap” room quite expensive
And also make sure that the hotel actually takes credit cards! While this isn’t an issue in North America or Western Europe a lot of smaller hotels in Eastern Europe will only take cash in the local currency!