Looking up some hotel costs for future travel we’re planning. On every site (Travelocity, Orbitz, etc.) in the descriptions I’m getting codes I’ve never seen before. Here are some cut and pasted examples:
1 King bed non-smoking room with sofa bed, microwave, fridge, --ndk191-- free wifi and breakfast
2 Double beds smoking room with sofa bed, microwave, fridge, free wifi --sdd2-- and breakfast
1 King bed smoking room with sofa bed, microwave, fridge, free --sdk191-- wifi and breakfast
Huh. Whatta you know. I went back and looked at all the hotels that had those codes and they were in fact all affiliated to Wyndham. Just odd that they would put that in the description as though the customer knows what it means.
I knew my Hotel knowledge would come in handy some how on SD someday:p
OK, the codes are internal short hand for the type of room…
ndk= non smoking king… the 191 looks to be coding about either the set up in the room…( ref, sofa, etc…)
or maybe it is the identifier for sale statistics tracking by the Revenue Manager.
sdd2 means smoking room with two double beds…
PS…you should call the Hotel that you want to stay at; and ask them what their best rate for the date(s) you are planning to stay. If you get a desk clerk that has a brain… and is not swamped with a billion other things ( don’t call and harass the front desk between 3pm and 10pm, cause they are busy checking people in and don’t have the time to “chat " with you about rates…) they will possibly " negotiate” a better rate than the ones online… Just remember to talk nice and be polite:D:D; don’t be all hyper like the ShammWow guy and DON"T DEMAND a discount:mad:. that’s the quickest way to get the $h!ttyest room in the hotel…or told go and book on line…
The reason why you should make the effort to call is that; what you paid Expedia, Orbitz, et,al is not what the hotel is being paid. IE you pay $99.00 a night on line, the hotel is getting between $49.00-74.00… SABER aka (Expedia, orbitz, and hot wire…) is getting the other 50-25 bucks, not such a good deal huh?:dubious: Now you know why sometimes you get treated like crap at some hotels when you use these sites. Especially if the hotel is sold out and if they have contract rooms group rooms; guess what you are the first one to get “walked”… Hotel rooms are sold just like airline seats… And one last thing don’t yell and scream a desk clerk, if something is wrong with the reservation… it’s not their fault and frankly they don’t get paid enough to listen to you kvetch… That’s what GMs are for.:)
I’ve been getting some insane rates through Southwest on hotels. The differences between them and everyone else at certain hotels in certain locations has been as much as $20 a night. That’s crazy! And that isn’t a package deal including a flight or anything. That’s just stand alone for a room.
Well the short answer to that is: it’s all about a thing called yield management;).
I will talk about my hotel: In very simple terms.
We only allot to each of the GDS a certain amount of rooms at a certain rate spread.
For example I tell SABER ( Expedia, orbits, hotels.com ) I have 20 rooms and the rate spread is $119.00 to $79.00 a night. the system is set up to start at 79, and for every 3 rooms sold the rate goes up $5.00… ( like auto bid on EBAY, only inverterted sort of… you start at $70 and every time some one else bids higher, EBAY bids “automatically” higher for you up to a max amount…) in our case every time 3 rooms sell my rates on the GDS site jump $5.00. To complicate things each individual business unit of SABER has its own pricing matrix. hence your 20 rate difference. so orbitz will quote $45, Expedia will show $47.00 and hotels.com shows 89.00 for the same dates and hotel. and don’t even get me started about Group-on and that משוגנה (meshugana) mess…:p:p
In closing GDS is a blessing and a headache for hotels.
