Hotels and other accommodation

The best way to book accommodation

In most cases you can book your room with the hotel direct, although it is surprisingly difficult to get in touch with some - especially the smaller ones. However, we have found that although contacting the hotels direct will often get you a reasonable price, you will normally get a better deal going through one of the hotel room brokers or accommodation agencies.

One or two of the big hotel groups, such as Accor, have a 'lowest price' promise, so when you have the best price from an agency, you can get the hotel owner to match or better it if you want to.

So initially, we think you should get a price from an accommodation agency. These agencies include package holiday companies who also sell flights and accommodation separately.

Accommodation agencies

There are hundreds of accommodation or hotel agencies. Many are big name companies who advertise on the TV. Although the advertising makes these company names familiar, these familiar names do not necessarily offer the best deals.

Some people may recommend an agency if they have had a good experience with them. However, we do not think it is possible to say that a particular agency is always the one to go for.

This is because all of the accommodation agencies have their own arrangements with each hotel or hotel chain. Sometimes one agency will negotiate a better deal than another agency, but no single agency has negotiated the best deal with every hotel or hotel group, despite what they may say.

On each of the hotel review pages we list the agencies that are usually able to book rooms for you at that hotel. Those lists are in order. The agencies at the top are the ones that usually offer the best price for that hotel. The least competitive are towards the bottom. Sometimes the difference in price between the best few is very slim, and prices do vary from time to time, so it is worth checking the top two or three on the hotel review pages.

If we do not yet have a review for the hotel you are looking for, or if you do not know which hotel to choose and want to start with a list of hotels and prices, try the agencies in the right column of this page.

Again, we have tried to list them so that the ones offering the best deals are towards the top, but please remember that none of them has a contract with every hotel and none of them is best for all of the hotels they offer, so try as many as you can to make sure you get the best deal.

Don't be put off by the names of some of the agencies. For example, apartments abroad don't just list apartments but hotels as well, and despite their name hostelbookers lists more hotels than many of the better-known hotel agencies.

Hotel rooms from Package holiday companies

You can get room-only deals from some of the major package tour companies, but the names might be a bit confusing. Thomson is easy enough. It's Thomson! Hotelopia is also part of the Tui / Thomson group but they have their own web site. The Portland part of Tui does not have hotel-only bookings.

The MyTravel group, including Airtours, Panorama, Manos, Aspro and Direct Holidays are now part of Thomas Cook. Some of the Thomas Cook brands still have their own web site for packages, but hotel-only bookings for all of them are only available through Thomas Cook. Even if you go to the front page of Direct Holidays or one of the others, you will redirected to the Thomas Cook site for hotel-only bookings.

The hotels part of Cosmos used to be called Somewhere-To-Stay, but was rebranded in May 2008 and is now called Monarch Hotels. Although the Cosmos brand will continue in some travel agencies, for most purposes Cosmos is now known as Monarch Holidays.