| Eden Roc | Tortuga Bay | Zoetry Agua | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expedia.com | $880 Ex 10% service Ex 18% tax | $775 (oceanview) Ex 10% service Ex 18% tax | $279 (garden view king) Ex 10% service Ex 18% tax |
| Tablethotels.com | $880 Ex 10% service Ex 18% tax | $620 (oceanview) Ex 10% service Ex 18% tax | $465 (garden view king) Inc 10% service Ex 18% tax |
| Jetsetter.com | $880 Ex taxes and fees of 24.5% | $895 (oceanfront) Ex taxes and fees of 25.8% | Not listed. |
| Splendia.com | $589 Ex 10% service Ex 18% tax | $620 (oceanview) Ex 10% service Ex 18% tax | $635 (garden view king) Inc 10% service Inc 18% tax |
My step-cousin is getting married in the Dominican Republic in 2015. I am pretty excited about this because I know I will be ready for a beachy holiday soon. I have always said I am not a beach person, but after falling in love with the Bahamas these last few years, I am a convert. I love love love (love) turquoise water. Instantly calming. I don’t need to lie on the beach. I just need to look at it.
We had to book the hotel for the wedding way, way, way in advance. My family is flying in from New York and Florida and my original idea was to fly to either JFK or PBI or FLL (we try to avoid MIA) and meet them there and then fly onwards to the DR with everyone. I didn’t really like this idea though because I knew I would be a jetleggad mess for the entire trip and it would probably mean a lot of waiting around in airports. BUT THEN…I discovered that British Airways flies direct to the Dominican Republic from London! Score. Done. So I’m flying in a few days before everyone to relax and become a normal, non-jetlagged person. I could stay at the hotel for the wedding…but I get bored after more than a few days in one hotel.
So I decided I needed a hotel for a solo stay where I could rest my weary, jet-lagged head before the party began. The tricky thing about a lot of hotels in these sorts of places is that they are really geared towards honeymooning couples, so you need to stay away from the Sandals of the world. I started working on a spreadsheet of all my hotel choices. I love making spreadsheets. Long-term readers know I love math and I love data. I love to make tables to compare things.
Important criteria in selecting my hotel? You will laugh but they were “Design-ness,” “nice beach,” and “nice pool.” I was slightly price agnostic because I wanted a treat. I’m also not a huge fan of all-inclusive (lots and lots of mediocre food), so that wasn’t important either.
I started searching, using the site with the broadest range of hotels: TripAdvisor. Originally, I had 11 hotels on the list. 11! I will spare you the gory details. For the purposes of this piece — to show you the pretty large price differential between booking sites — let’s say my three top choices for a two night stay from May 4th through May 6th are…
- Eden Roc at Cap Cana
- Tortuga Bay Hotel Punta Cana
- Zoetry Agua Punta Cana
In looking at these three properties on different booking sites, I was pretty surprised by what I found.
Firstly, taxes and fees are tricky. You REALLY have to read the fine print to see what’s included. It’s not consistent within a site or across properties. Jetsetter was even more strange because they never clearly write out what the tax rate is and what the service charge is. They just give you a “taxes and fees” line item to look it and I just deduced the overall percentage from there.
So I found myself making two tables. The first included the list price per night along with whether taxes or fees were included. Then I created a new second table. This table included the full price (with taxes and fees) along with any other details I could glean from the site about what was included in the rate.
Also hard…making sure you are comparing the same room type. For example, if you look at the column for the Tortuga Bay hotel, Jetsetter only offered the high-priced ocean-front room, not the cheaper ocean-view room. Sometimes, like with Zoetry Agua, the price gap between booking sites was so huge, I had to assume I was missing something regarding the room type I was comparing.
Not included in my analysis…whether or not the rate was a non-refundable rate, which generally gets you a discount. I am going to the DR come hell or high water, so I didn’t care too much about whether a rate was non-refundable or not. I just looked for the cheapest rate overall. That’s what’s included in my table above.
Extra amenities were hard to discern on each site. For example, I really had to look hard to determine whether or not breakfast and airport transfers were included . To make this sort of comparison — along with the comparison of the “all in” price I mention above — here is the second table I created.
| Eden Roc | Tortuga Bay | Zoetry Agua | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expedia.com | $1126.40 Breakfast included. | $992 (oceanview) Breakfast included. | $357.12 (garden view king) All inclusive. |
| Tablethotels.com | $1126.40 Breakfast included. Round-trip transfer included. Golf-cart included. | $793.60 (oceanview) Breakfast included. Round-trip transfer included. Golf-cart included. | $548.70 (garden view king) All inclusive. |
| Jetsetter.com | $1095.60 Breakfast included. Round-trip transfers included. | $1125.91 (oceanfront) Breakfast included. | Not listed. |
| Splendia.com | $753.92 Breakfast included. | $793.60 (oceanview) Breakfast included. | $635 (garden view king) All inclusive. |
Expedia made very little mention of any extras — if they did include round-trip transfers, for example, I couldn’t find mention of them in the fine print. And why did some hotels seem to include golf carts in their rates on some sites but not others? I was confused.
In the end though, what I enjoyed about my analysis is that for each hotel, there was definitely value to my comparison shopping and comparison analysis. If I had booked, for example, Zoetry Agua on Splendia’s site and seen the Expedia rate later, I would have been really ANGRY. Likewise, if I had booked Eden Roc on Expedia and then seen Splendia’s rate, I also would have been angry. A very interesting exercise all around. You’ll have to wait a few months to see if I ended up at any of these properties. But my point is…SHOP AROUND.
Other things that I didn’t do but I should have:
- Gone direct to the properties and checked their prices.
- Looked at each site’s price guarantee and contacted the site if it made sense. For example, Tablethotels.com says that they will match lower prices on the same room/deal on other sites.
- Checked all the prices for each hotel listed on TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor has that neat feature where it will show you which sites offer the hotel and what the rate is.
Any other thoughts? What are your favorite booking sites? Travel agents? Tips for getting the best rate?
Important caveat about everything I wrote above: Hotel prices change regularly. I ran my searches the morning of December 21st, US time. If you try to reproduce my results, you may be unsuccessful. Also, although I tried to be really organized in my data collection, it did get a bit confusing at times. If you think I’ve made an error, let me know and I will review.
