Hotels.com reveals it pays to shop around as top end hotels cut prices

Hotels.com, the leading accommodation site, has encouraged travellers to shop around when booking their Christmas city breaks to secure a top end hotel for a mid end price.

Top-end hotels (particularly those in the four-star category) have cut their prices harder than other categories, which means that the price difference between a three-star hotel and a four-star is less than it has been for years.  The average cost of upgrading from a mid-range to a top class hotel is as low as £2 per night in Oslo, just £7 in Barcelona and
£9 in Madrid and Mexico City.

The cost of a shift to a four-star hotel can bring huge benefits, with better facilities, often more central locations, great restaurants (for that all important holiday breakfast) and bigger rooms.

However, four-star hotels have struggled particularly in the downturn as travellers have continued to take their main holidays but have made other breaks a discretionary purchase and have trimmed costs - preserving their break but spending less on hotels.  The response from many hotels in the four-star category has been to cut rates back harder than those in the three-star category, bringing the cost of upgrade down substantially.

Alison Couper, director of communications at Hotels.com says: “While many still want to head off on breaks over the autumn and winter, there is a sense that money should be saved wherever possible.

“However, we would counsel travellers to shop around and not to think that, just because a hotel has three stars over the door, they will save money - in many cases four-star rooms can be cheaper than three-star hotels, and the cost of an upgrade might be much lower than travellers think.”