A cheap hotel need not be a nasty hotel, though some of them are.  One expects clean bed linen and a well presented room as the very minimum.  This is not always the case, though.  Pictures on the internet for hotels, hostels and guesthouses can often be dated or even deliberately misleading.

This photo of Generator Hostel London is courtesy of TripAdvisor

An experience I would not want to repeat, that I had at a hostel in London, will help us to illustrate the pitfalls.  To be honest, in retrospect there were clues available.  The Generator hostel’s web site has only one picture.  It appeared to have been taken at night.  Also the cheap plastic garden-furniture should probably have been a warning to us.

Advertising photos of accommodation that are taken at night (even if there is fancy neon lighting) can mean that the area is dodgy or that there are things you would see in harsh light of day that might otherwise put you off.

My sister and I arrived just before 8pm to find that our beds had been given away.  (Reports at Tripadvisor indicate that this was not an isolated instance.)  While we arrived later than planned because of a delayed connection, that is not what one expects from an establishment that claims to be a 24 hour operation.

The lighting was poor at night, though security was tight for getting into the hostel.  On arrival we had to present our booking confirmation to the doorman before we could enter.  However, the impact of this was spoiled by the very unconvincing-looking appearance of the doorman.

After they found other beds for us, we discovered that we were now in a mixed dormitory and not ‘all females’ as had been strictly specified on the booking.  There was a very strange smell in the corridors and people walking around in various states of undress between the bathrooms and dormitories.

Our booking included a free cocktail.  That turned out to be a either a fruit juice with vodka or a Coke with vodka.  Apparently, if you put vodka in it, anything can become a cocktail.

Breakfast was what one could expect for the bargain price (currently starting at £15 a night): bread that had to be toasted before it was palatable, orange-flavoured mixer drink and watered-down, seemingly World War II army-surplus coffee.

The beds aren’t made up daily, only once the guest checks out.  If you have a long stay there then the linen is changed once a week.

The undoubted low point was having a young Australian backpacker who overdosed after having her drink spiked, allegedly (according to her companions) in the hostel’s own bar.  The drama and commotion surrounding this, which happened at 2 in the morning, was enough to traumatise the most hardened intrepid traveller.  It need hardly be stated that it was also not good for one’s beauty-sleep.  Fortunately, she survived, which wasn’t a certain thing until the medics arrived and pumped her stomach – right there in the room.

This photo of Generator Hostel London is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Lessons

When you find a hostel or budget hotel for a really good rate, be sure to do extra homework and check out the area, reviews of the property and area.

Use the Streetview facility in Google Earth to look at the building and the neighbourhood.  (It is not available for all countries.)

If you are prepared to do the homework, then that is great, go ahead and book.  The main thing to remember is that there are risks to booking the cheapest hotel you can find.

Use www.tripadvisor.com to check out the accommodation.  While it is known that unscrupulous proprietors “stuff” Tripadvisor with good reviews, either by entering them themselves, or by bribing guests to do so, negative reviews are more often genuine.  We suggest that you do not just look at how many “excellent” or “very good” ratings there are.  If there is any significant number of “poor” or “terrible” reviews for a property then this is a strong indication that you do not want to stay there.

As an example, the Mount Nelson (“The Nellie”) in Cape Town, South Africa, has  200 Excellent reviews at Tripadvisor, 31 visitors rated it as Very good, but only 4 each for Poor and Terrible.  From our experience it is a very fine hotel.

Of the 556 reviews of the Generator, fully 289, over half, are Average, Poor or Terrible.  That sounds about right.  Cheap hotels can bite.

[This is a real booking.com search box, not just an image]

Direct website

It is often hard to find the hotel’s own home page on the web.  Many sites include the names of hotels in their pages and this results in them being ranked higher in the search engine than the hotel’s actual site.

You may need to hunt through the search results a bit in order to get the direct link.  Once you have the right page, check to see if they have the option to book online and check out the rates for the dates that you want.  Be sure to read the terms and conditions of the rates you are looking at, as cheaper rates almost always mean additional restrictions.

It is important to look for any specials on the site and note what dates they can be booked on.  Sometimes if you change your intended date by just a day you can save money.

Online hotel booking sites

Sites such as booking.com offer good rates and hotels give them better rates on occasion than you can get directly, due to their huge buying power.

Price comparison sites such as skyscanner will give you the best price from a wide range of hotel sites.

Sites like hotwire specialise in “last minute booking” specials.  You can get up to 50% off the price of bookings made at the eleventh hour.  The risk is that they may not have a room available at the specific hotel you prefer on the day/s that you require it.  You may therefore need to be a bit flexible in your arrangements.

Phone in

Phone the hotel directly and ask for reservations.  Request “the best rate that they can offer”.  While you may expect that they would give you the best rate automatically, that is not the case.  They usually have various different rates on any given day and they may offer you the “rack rate” (the standard price to the public), but not mention any specials that they are running.

Senior citizen discounts

If you’re from about 55 or over, ask if they have a senior citizen rate.  The age at which this discount is offered varies between hotels, and some do not offer a senior’s discount at all.  But there is no harm at all in asking!  Be aware that if a hotel is running a special, they won’t allow you to stack one discount on top of another, so select whichever is the cheapest.

Children

Children under 12 stay free in the same room as their parents in many hotels around the world.  In some places, this age is extended to 16 or even 18.  If you don’t mind having your children on a sleeper couch in your room and are keen to save a buck, be sure to ask what their policy is for children.

Meal costs

While checking the different rates, be sure to make meal comparisons.  It often works out cheaper to take a rate that includes breakfast than to take a lower rate that is room-only and then paying for breakfast, unless you are planning to have breakfast at a café down the road.  From our experience, when travelling overseas, try to get meals included in the up-front price.  It saves money for souvenirs and for fun activities that will make your journey memorable.

In some tourist destinations, for instance on the Indian Ocean island paradise of Mauritius, one can get half-board, which includes breakfast and dinner.  Since the hotels are designed as full-service destinations that frequently include all the entertainments you may desire, this is often the cheapest option.  If you intend seeing the sights during the day you may only need to find lunch on the road, or you can return to the hotel in the afternoon and have a drink and a Club Sandwich to tide you through to dinner.

Some resort destinations, where there is little other than the resort itself will offer full board (including lunch) but since this usually means they have an effective monopoly, they often just have a flat rate that includes all meals.  Cruise ships use a similar principle.