My wife and I were wanting to do a long weekend somewhere later this year in a city we've never been to. We both named a few cities, and one that was near the top of both of our lists was Boston. So we started doing some research and decided on that as our plan.
Obviously, to stay downtown in any major city is fairly expensive. We like to stay at fairly nice places most of the time too, and we really wanted to be downtown, so we could walk or take the train everywhere in Boston.
I was lusting after the Intercontinental, but the CHEAPEST room was over $350/night after tax, and we were wanting to stay five nights. I really didn't want to spring for an $1800 hotel bill.
So, I decided to look at some other places, and we came up with a list of places that were $175-200/night. I decided that I'd book our flights, then call each place individually to see if I could negotiate a better rate than was online. I've found in some cases that if I call the hotel directly, am booking multiple rooms or multiple nights, or offer to pay in advance, that they will cut me as much as 40-50% off of published rates. What did I have to lose, right? :shrug:
So I go to Yahoo Travel, and pick the flights. I thought I was getting a pretty good deal at $204 each, round trip.
Then, after confirming the flight info, it asked me if I wanted to package it with a hotel......................and recommended the Intercontinental.......for a price of ~$150/night!!!
Needless to say, I booked it!
Regular price, the hotel stay would've been about $1850 total. That is WITHOUT the flights. Instead, I booked the flights and the exact same hotel stay for over $500 less, and that price includes all taxes and fees.
I am so psyched.
