Where and how do you look for cheap accommodation? We have put together a complete guide and tips for finding exactly the kind of place you want.
How to look for cheap accommodation: general advice
In this part we have written up 10 general pieces of advice that apply to every accommodation search engine. If you follow them, you will save a lot of money and time on accommodation.
1) Use the filters properly
Filters are something we absolutely love on booking portals. Used properly, they will save you a lot of time and you will find exactly the right accommodation tailored to you.
- Price – set your budget.
- Location – does the location matter to you? If you do not want to end up somewhere in a remote or less pleasant neighbourhood, choose a location with a rating of at least 7 or 8.
- Distance from the centre – set the maximum distance from the centre you are willing to be.
- Stars – we, for example, do not pay attention to these, because they often do not match reality at all. They only indicate that certain standards are met, and those are often not even important (a telephone in the room or a minibar, for instance).
- Free cancellation option
- Breakfast included
- 24h reception – if you are planning to arrive at night or you do not know your exact arrival time.
- Parking – at some hotels in the centre, parking can be complicated or expensive.
- Wi-Fi internet connection – it is not always a matter of course.
- A double bed
- Entertainment – a gym, massages, a sauna, bike or motorbike rental and more.
2) Trust the ratings and read the reviews
Hotel ratings are not on booking portals for nothing. On the contrary, it is a good idea to go by them. People are generally not very critical, so a rating of 7 out of 10 is already rather mediocre. A 6 is already bad. We recommend looking for accommodation with a rating of at least 7 and ideally at least 8.
Getting a rating of 10 out of 10, on the other hand, is almost impossible, and anything rated 9 or more is excellent.
The number of ratings matters too. If a hotel only has, say, 5 ratings, it can be very misleading.
The comments attached to the ratings will also tell you a lot. Especially the comments on the worse ratings. That way you will find out why that particular user rated their stay negatively and what to watch out for. And sometimes you will discover the opposite – that people give low ratings for small details you do not care about (such as towels that are too small).
3) Avoid public holidays and popular dates
On popular dates (Easter, Christmas or New Year’s Eve, for example) accommodation tends to be more expensive and is sold out long in advance. So try to avoid those dates. It is also a good idea to find out when the public holidays and school holidays are in the country you are going to, and to avoid those dates as well.
Accommodation also tends to be more expensive at weekends.
4) Make use of the lowest price guarantee
Both the Booking.com and Agoda search engines offer a lowest price guarantee. So if you have already booked accommodation through Booking, for example, and you have found a lower price for the same dates on Agoda, Booking will pay you the difference. The same applies the other way round.
Download the Chrome extension Gopher, which will automatically search other web portals for you and find better offers.
5) Look for cheap accommodation using the map
If you do not look at the map and you book a cheap hotel that turns out to be far away, you may end up spending a lot of money and losing a lot of time just getting into the city centre.
All the bigger accommodation search engines allow you to search effectively using a map. First filter your main requirements and then use the map to pick a good compromise between price and distance.
6) Make use of loyalty clubs
Most accommodation search engines have their own loyalty club that rewards registered customers.
- Booking.com has what is known as Genius status, which you get as soon as you have stayed twice in the last two years. Among other things, it gets you a 10% discount at selected hotels. Read more here.
- On Agoda you just need to register for free in the members’ club and you will start getting various discounts.
- With Couchsurfing it may be worth paying for verified membership. It gets you the option of sending unlimited requests and also more credibility.
7) Watch out for extra fees
Always check what is included in the price and what is not. Air conditioning or heating, for example, is often not included. If you arrive and find that it is extremely hot in the room, or on the contrary that you are freezing, and you want to pay extra for air conditioning or heating, it will probably work out more expensive in total than staying at a better hotel where everything is already included in the price.
Another common extra charge is the city tax, for example. Some hotels charge extra for things like Wi-Fi internet, parking, the gym and more.
8) Make use of the free cancellation option
Some hotels allow free cancellation. In that case you can book the hotel and then keep an eye on last-minute offers, and if something cheaper/better turns up, you can cancel the original accommodation and book the new one.
Does that seem immoral to you? Believe us, a lot of people do it and hotels count on it.
9) Stay for more than one night
A lot of hotels offer a discount if you stay for several nights. You can often find offers such as 4 nights for the price of 3 and similar deals.
10) Book cheap accommodation at the last minute
Hotels try to sell their unfilled rooms at the last minute. If you book accommodation somewhere between 4 pm and 8 pm for that same evening, you will often find discounts of 20% to 70%. That way you can afford a far more luxurious hotel for the price of a cheap hostel.
Careful! Only if there are plenty of accommodation offers in the area and it is not a popular date. It could also happen that everything is sold out and you end up paying significantly more instead.
Commercial accommodation
The easiest way to find a place to stay. You do not have to deal with any requests, you have no obligations and you know what you are getting into. Let’s take a look at the best accommodation search engines around the world:
Booking.com – cheap accommodation around the world
In most parts of the world you will find the cheapest offers for hotels and hostels on the Booking.com portal. We book most of our own accommodation through Booking and we have nothing but good experiences.
Use this link and get a 10% discount on your first stay (if you do not have an account yet, you will need to create one).
Make use of the date recommendation feature – Booking.com can show you a price comparison for the surrounding days and recommend the cheapest dates.
Read also 13 smart tips on how to find the best accommodation on Booking.com
Agoda – cheap accommodation in Asia
If you are looking for cheap accommodation in Asia, you will often find the cheapest offers on the Agoda.com portal. We have booked a lot of accommodation through Agoda as well and we can warmly recommend it.
It pays to use it together with Booking.com. Sometimes the better offer is on Agoda and sometimes on Booking. Some hotels are also not listed at all on one search engine or the other.
Agoda also keeps offering various discounts for individual destinations – you will find them here.
Airbnb – cheap accommodation in rented apartments
Another good option for accommodation is the Airbnb portal. You can often find a cosy apartment there for the price of cheap hostel accommodation. We have stayed through Airbnb many times too and we have only had great experiences.
If you do not have an Airbnb account yet, use this link and get a discount of CZK 997 on your first stay.
Read also 13 smart tips on how to find the best accommodation on Airbnb
Hotwire – cheap last minute accommodation
On the Hotwire.com website you can find great last minute offers (last-minute bookings).
Besides the usual offers for specific hotels, you will also find anonymous offers there, where you do not know in advance which hotel you will be staying at. You choose the location and the quality of the hotel (the number of stars) and the site then assigns you a hotel at the last minute that meets your conditions.
Other options for finding commercial accommodation
If you are travelling around the Czech Republic or neighbouring Slovakia, we definitely recommend also trying the Hauzi.cz portal, where you will find every type of accommodation, from cottages to guesthouses. The advantage is that through the site you contact the host directly, which guarantees you the lowest possible price.
You can also try other accommodation search portals. Now and then you may find a cheaper offer for the same hotel.
Mutual accommodation
Mutual accommodation is a way of finding a place to stay for free and experiencing a bit of a cultural exchange along the way. People all over the world offer accommodation in their homes. It does not mean that you have to host them in return. There are people who only travel, and also people who only host (they enjoy it and they get to meet new people).
Couchsurfing
If you want a cultural experience along with your accommodation, you can try Couchsurfing. Hosts there offer free accommodation in their homes.
But it is a good idea not to take it just as free accommodation and to add something extra from your side as well. For example, bring your host a gift from the Czech Republic or cook them dinner. It is also customary to sit down together in the evening and chat.
Personal experiences
We have used accommodation through Couchsurfing several times in various countries and so far we have not had a single bad experience. The hosts were kind every time, many of them put on a proper feast for us, showed us around the city or gave us great tips on what to see. In half of the cases they left us the keys to their whole flat.
How to go about Couchsurfing?
First you need to register on the Couchsurfing.com portal. It is important to fill in your profile carefully, upload a photo and ideally ask your friends who are already on Couchsurfing to write you a reference. It is a good idea to add your friends on this network too. Your profile then looks more trustworthy.
Now it is time to approach hosts in your destination. In the basic version of Couchsurfing you can send out 10 requests a week. It is possible to buy verified membership, with which you can send an almost unlimited number of requests. This membership is permanent (you only pay once).
It is a good idea to choose your hosts carefully, ideally ones with similar interests and a good response rate to messages. Once you have made your choice, write to them about why they caught your attention, what you have in common and why you would like to stay with them in particular. You can send out several requests; it commonly happens that some hosts cannot host at the moment. After that it is just a matter of agreeing on the details. And do not forget a little something for your host!
Read our detailed article about Couchsurfing:
Other options for mutual accommodation
- BeWelcome.org – a service very similar to Couchsurfing. A good alternative in big cities, where Couchsurfing is harder to get.
- Warmshowers.org – this portal is for mutual accommodation between cyclists. It works on the same principle as Couchsurfing.
- GlobalFreeLoaders.com – a hospitality sharing service with the largest member base in Australia.
- Campspace.com – a service that connects people who love camping. For a small fee it lets you pitch your tent in someone’s garden.
The advantages and disadvantages of mutual accommodation
Everything has its pros and cons, so let’s sum up the most important ones:
Advantages
- You will experience more adventure and a cultural exchange.
- You will meet interesting people.
- Your costs are zero.
- You can get valuable travel advice from locals.
Disadvantages
- You have fewer options – there are significantly fewer offers than with commercial accommodation.
- Finding a host is more complicated and can take a long time.
- Less privacy, comfort and flexibility
- It can happen that you come across a host you do not get on with.
- Safety – as a general rule, people who offer shared accommodation are good people. But you do need to follow basic safety rules, read the references and not trust strange profiles.
House sitting
House sitting is another way of getting free accommodation. It works like this: people who have pets go away on holiday and need someone to look after their animals while they are gone. That way you can get accommodation in a beautiful home in exchange for taking care of the animals.
The most widely used house sitting portal in the world is TrustedHouseSitters.com. The exception is New Zealand, where most house sitting offers are on the Kiwihousesitters.co.nz. portal.
Experiences + how to go about house sitting?
We tried house sitting ourselves in New Zealand and we cannot praise it enough. It is the cheapest form of accommodation there is. The initial investment in the form of the registration fee pays for itself practically after your first house sit.
It is important to fill in your profile thoroughly, including photographs (ideally with pets). We also recommend setting up notifications for newly added house sitting offers and replying to them as soon as possible. For some homeowners a conversation over Skype or the phone is enough, others prefer to meet in person.
At the beginning it is a good idea to accept even shorter sits (a weekend, for example) so that you get a reference. Once you have your first recommendation, you will have no problem getting the next house sit.
The advantages of house sitting
- Your costs are zero.
- You can have a whole farm or a luxury villa to yourself.
The disadvantages of house sitting
- You have to take care of the animals. Sometimes it is easy and you just have to feed them twice a day, for example. But some animals take up a lot of time.
- You have fewer options – there are significantly fewer offers than with commercial accommodation.
- Finding a host is more complicated and can take a long time.
- It can be harder to get a house sit before you have your first reference.
Wwoofing – work in exchange for accommodation and food
Another option, this time for longer-term accommodation, is working on farms, in hostels, schools or animal rescue centres. As a rule it is helping work (a few hours a day) in exchange for accommodation and usually food as well.
The biggest portals for finding wwoofing are:
The advantages of wwoofing
- You will not work yourself to the bone – you only work a few hours a day.
- You will learn new things.
- You will meet interesting people.
- You will get to know the local culture.
The disadvantages of wwoofing
- You are not paid – at most you will get a little pocket money.
- It is usually only for longer-term accommodation.
Watch this great video – how to find cheap accommodation:
More tips for your travels:
We have prepared for you this comprehensive list of links, discounts, and resources for travel planning in one place. Bookmark this page and whenever you plan a vacation in the future, just open it and save yourself a lot of time.
1) Where to book accommodation?
- We prefer to find an accommodation using Booking.com.
- It's also worth it to compare with AirBnb.
- Read also our guide - How to search for the best accommodation.
2) How to find cheap flights?
- We recommend searching for flights on Skyscanner.
- Read also our complete guide - How to find cheap flights.
3) How to rent a car?
- We recommend a comparison portal RentalCars.com to compare the best offers of all available rental companies.
Save it for later and for your friends:
FAQ – frequently asked questions:
Where is the best place to look for accommodation?
In most parts of the world you will find the cheapest offers for hotels and hostels on the Booking.com.
If you are looking for cheap accommodation in Asia, you will often find the cheapest offers on the Agoda.com.
Another good option for accommodation is the Airbnb portal. You can often find a cosy apartment there for the price of cheap hostel accommodation. We have stayed through Airbnb many times too and we have only had great experiences.
How do you get a CZK 997 discount on Airbnb?
Use this link and get a CZK 997 discount on your first stay through Airbnb (if you do not have an account yet, you will need to create one). If you already have an account and have used it, you will have to create a new one in order to use the discount.
How do you get free accommodation through Couchsurfing?
Here you will find a detailed guide on how to look for free accommodation through Couchsurfing.
How do you get free accommodation through house sitting?
Here you will find a detailed guide on how to look for free accommodation through house sitting.
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