Hotel Bookings

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Trongpai
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Re: Hotel Bookings

Post by Trongpai »

fountainhall wrote:I was about to reply to a post from Trongpai - but it disappeared! It basically referred to hotel discounts offered at the Travel Fair in Bangkok at the end of February. I hope he'll repost. ....
http://thaiteawthaiplaza.com/

Here it is, Feb 28 (Thursday) to March 3 (Sunday) at Queen Sirikit National Convention Center. MRT stop Queen Sirkit and exit right into the center.

It's on the event schedule for Queen Sirikit but only in Thai and the above link also only in Thai. It will get a lot of advertising in the Thai news papers/Thai TV and not in the English language papers. I knew it was marketed for Bangkok middle and upper(ish) classes but generally there's some English in some of the adds. The signage at the fair will be in mostly Thai too. All that being said, you will not be turned away at the door, some of the workers can speak good English and they will be happy to take your money or CC. I've seen the odd farang here and they're generally in tow with a Thai GF.

I use a smart phone to check the lowest internet rates for a given property and then compare what's on off at the booth. Typically you get 10% to 30% less than the lowest internet offer. Conditions like day of the week or minimum number of nights apply. The more you buy the lower the price.

There's generally lots of Pattaya hotels. Mostly mid and upper priced hotels but not exclusively. Last fair I bought a few vouchers for At Mind Exclusive, a new Pattaya hotel for a 50% discount on internet rates. The place was great and I'm kicking myself for not buying more. Oh, and yes, no problem with "guests". In fact you don't even go through the lobby to get to the rooms with your smart key.

I always try to go to the travel fair on Thursday as the weekend draws huge crowds.

http://www.qsncc.com/en/visitor.html
fountainhall

Re: Hotel Bookings

Post by fountainhall »

Are there two Fairs I wonder? This link seems to imply it starts on Thursday. I must be missing something.

https://10times.com/titf
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Trongpai
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Re: Hotel Bookings

Post by Trongpai »

That's the International Travel fair. There's a lot of international travel packages but not so good on hotel discounts. I don't know about international air fare offers.

The larger very popular domestic travel fair is 28 Feb March 3. Thai Teaw Thai: ไทยเที่ยวไทย

Though it's not exclusively domestic travel. I was amused last year with posters for SE Asian countries: "Escape Songkran"
fountainhall

Re: Hotel Bookings

Post by fountainhall »

Thanks for clearing that up.
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Re: Hotel Bookings

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An important factor I take into account when booking a hotel is that they do not cater to Chinese Tour groups. If there's tour groups at the hotel someone on the customer reviews of Agoda generally will mention it.

I recently spend one night at the Zing in the Jomtiem Complex. I was surprised to see 30-40 package Chinese tourists being flag marched into the lobby.
Every one was talking all at the same time. One guy had a key and walked out to a room off the pool, a suit room, and they all followed, all going in the same room! The Chinese speaking handler who had been occupied at the desk showed up with a lot of keys and had to herd them out of the pool room to separate rooms on several floors. All 40 tried to get in the elevator at one time. As they occupied various rooms on several floors many took to the balcony to shout to one another. Several were on my floor and got up at 6am with a lot of noise. Eric the cook told me they all had a buffet breakfast, every morsel of food was consumed and he thinks some of them ate the plates.
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Re: Hotel Bookings

Post by atri1666 »

I get many corporate benefits in my Company. I use mostly Accor or Hilton or Expedia. I book always long time ahead. Hotels.com or booking.com i use rarely. Mostly i take the same Locations since years. Chiang Mai Mercure Hotel and Bangkok Panthip Suites and in Phuket Adonis Guesthouse. Bali Island i book always Ginger Suites. Kuala Lumpur stay always in Novotel. Only in Pattaya or Singapore or Hongkong i change very often.
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Re: Hotel Bookings

Post by Gaybutton »

atri1666 wrote:Only in Pattaya or Singapore or Hongkong i change very often.
Why?
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Re: Hotel Bookings

Post by atri1666 »

Pattaya i wanted always to explore all areas since i started in LOS. I never found the right place. When i thought now i have it bars are closing or the area is going downhill. I always wanted to stay near the gay places in Singapore but it is difficult. Hongkong i stayed 6 times in 6 different Hotels mostly because of the high prices always.
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Re: Hotel Bookings

Post by Undaunted »

I use booking.com as most of the time you need not pay until checkin.
"In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king"
Jun

Re: Hotel Bookings

Post by Jun »

In most cases, I prefer to pay at the hotel, so booking.com gets most of the business.
Particularly for bookings far in the future.

However, for imminent bookings, if Hotels.com is cheaper or matches Booking.com, then with the free night scheme, I tend to go with Hotels.com, simply because same price & one free night in 10 is equivalent to 10% cheaper.

Also, if I go somewhere like Laos, using the ATMs is expensive and I don't have a local bank account. So in this case, prepaying for hotels with credit card is a good thing. Hotels.com bill you in dollars, at a mid-market exchange rate (currently).
Also, Booking.com has this terrible habit of quoting Laos prices in USD, when the Kip is the local currency. So you have to ensure the hotel applies a fair exchange rate when paying in Kip. If paying cash at the hotel, I want the price quoted in local currency.

Booking at short notice works perfectly well in Laos and Isan, so I can be flexible with schedules & still have a choice of hotels.

For Pattaya, even for late February, it seems necessary to book a few weeks in advance, otherwise my favoured places will be unavailable. Some care is needed to avoid places which have potential noise issues, e.g with Arabs, Chinese tour groups etc. The places in Boyztown have late availability at present, but again I think there is a noise risk due to those damn inconsiderate gay bars with loud music. My preferred options lie elsewhere (Mosaik, for example)
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