Deal or no deal?

The 'best' hotel packages may not be so easy on the pocket after all. Here's how to read between the lines of offers.

I recently stumbled upon a report I dubbed "Hotel Confidential: What Innkeepers Won't Tell You About Pricing".

The report, in reality titled Hotel Revenue Management in an Economic Downturn: Results of an International Study, released recently by the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, coaches hotel owners on how to weather the recession and keep most visitors paying the highest room prices possible.

For travellers, reading it is like sneaking behind enemy lines.

A key piece of the report's advice to innkeepers: "Don't cut room rates across the board because in the long run, it hurts business. It won't fill that many more rooms and it might damage your hotel's image."

Instead, the report suggests, owners can slip discounted room rates into packages that "disguise" them. From whom? From us, of course.

"Bundling makes it difficult for customers to determine the prices of the individual components," the report says, citing examples such as "stay two nights, get another one free" and offers that combine the room with spa treatments, Wi-Fi or other services.

When such packages contain room discounts, they can save you money. But they don't always do that.

Some pitfalls to watch out for are:

Not-so-free nights

It's easy to find packages that are not what they're cracked up to be. After a few tries, checking out news releases and running Google searches under "free nights hotel", I came across this from the US Grant, a historic hotel in downtown San Diego:

Under "Free Nights: Linger Longer with Complimentary Nights", the hotel's website offered a three-night total of $478 (Dh1,756) plus taxes, based on a rate of $239 (Dh878) per night for the first two nights and a free third night, for a stay from September 18-20.

Above the total, the screen displayed "$717 (Dh2,634)" with a strike-through line, implying I would save $239 (Dh878).

But when I repeated the search on the website without the extra-night deal, I found a rate of $160.30 (Dh589) plus tax per night, or $480.90 (Dh1,766) for three nights, for the same room and dates. So actually, I would save less than $3 (Dh11) with the deal. (Both the rates were non-refundable and both had similar restrictions.)

Mathematics mystery

Savings on the offerings of some other hotels were debatable.

On its website, the Hotel Monaco Denver, for instance, pitched a "Get Your Green On" package, which included a room, overnight parking for a hybrid vehicle, reusable shopping bag, reusable water bottle, sunscreen, trail mix and a trail map.

The package cost $189 (Dh694) plus tax for September 18, when the lowest room-only rate shown was $144 (Dh529), or $45 (Dh165) less.

With parking at $28 (Dh103) per night, the package would leave me paying $17 (Dh62) extra for a passel of hard-to-price niceties.

Pelted with packages

Click on "Special Offers" or similar buttons on some hotels' websites and get ready to duck.

Besides a free-night deal or two, the website of the US Grant, for instance, spooled out suite upgrades, two types of AAA discounts, B&B packages, rooms with baseball tickets and more - about a dozen offers in all.

Checking dates and room types against the offers could take hours.

It's like shopping at mattress sales, where each store carries different models and with the same effect.

It's nearly impossible to tell if you're getting the least-expensive deal.

Best available rate (not)

Despite its name, the "best available rate", a standard offering on websites of big chain hotels, isn't always the best deal. Typically, it's just the lowest refundable room rate.

The website of the US Grant Hotel, for instance, displayed several rates that were $21-$78.70 (Dh77-Dh289) less per night than the $239 (Dh878) best available rate for the dates and room type I checked. All the lower rates were non-refundable.

The $144 (Dh529) rate I found on the Hotel Monaco Denver's website, dubbed "Stay and Save", was described as "save up to 25 per cent our Best Available Rate", shown as $169 (Dh621).

This $144 (Dh529) rate was refundable, as was an even lower rate - $128 (Dh470) - for a package that was named "Stay and Save Plus", which included a choice between a house beverage and continental breakfast.

So are "bundling" and "packaging" deceptive? I asked Sherri Kimes, the professor who wrote the Cornell University report.

"That's a difficult question to answer," she said. "I wouldn't call that a deception if the customer is still getting a deal because of the bundle."

And, in fact, I did find deals, such as a seventh night free at the Grand Wailea on Maui, that really did produce savings, in that case amounting to $369 (Dh1,355) or more. It seems you just have to dig deep to hit the pay-less dirt.