Tarntawan Hotel milestone

[vinapu]

don't underestimate Thais.

Few years ago I reported here in the forum  visiting future site of My Hero at old Hero place two days before advertising re-opening. It looked like construction site , not almost finished venue  and yet 2 days later as scheduled place was opened and staffed, only thing I recall missing were no hooks to hang my clothes and towel in a massage room but floor was clean and door knob handy

[ggobkk]

Interesting...the hotel's website now shows a discount for Thais...  For those who are not Thai the prices are slightly higher than before the renovation.  BUT on Agoda they appear to be the same as before - within a few baht of The Raya.  I'm planning a November visit and will soon start being serious about what hotel to choose as my base camp.

 

[manuelmendez]

or ill just try another hotel. which nearby and can allow bring my men in. 

[Guest]

On 7/27/2019 at 12:53 AM, ggobkk said:

Interesting...the hotel's website now shows a discount for Thais...  For those who are not Thai the prices are slightly higher than before the renovation. 

Those who are not Thai should understand they are unfavoured & less worthy customers, so time to find another hotel ?

[reader]

Many--if not most--Bangkok hotels will offer discounts to locals although not many publicize it.  Thais know it can be commonly obtained by simply asking.

I don't think it has anything to do with worthiness and I don't begrudge those who receive it.

[paulsf]

I live in Florida.  Florida residents get discounts at many of the states tourist attractions that non residents don’t get.   So I don’t see an issue with Thais getting discounts over us.  

[Londoner]

The Agoda prices for Tarntawan are very low- about 60% of what they were when I was there in May.  Or they were when I booked a few weeks back. I can't see them going much lower for Thai nationals. Perhaps it's an introductory offer owing to the change of management.

An odd thing about Agoda (and perhaps other agencies) in Thailand. Sometimes, the prices undercut rack-prices by a huge amount; in other cases, the hotel offers better prices for direct booking. Jomtien's (excellent) Agate is in this second category.

[reader]

The oddity can be explained by the use of "yield management" (aka: yield control), a practice that has been in universal use in the hotel and airline industries for decades.

The objective is to fill all seats on an a flight and all rooms in a hotel by attracting buyers at different price points.The discretionary buyer (most of us) can purchase tickets or reserve  rooms well in advance so we get a good price. It solves the seller's need for cash flow and our need for a what we perceive as a bargain.

But hotels in particular need to reach the widest audience and they are willing to pay third-party brokers (i.e., Agoda, Expedia) to list their availability. The brokers realize a commission (up to 20%) for finding  buyers and handling the transaction.

The price for the room or the airline ticket will fluctuate daily, even hourly as the management software attempts to keep attracting buyers.

In addition, hotels grant certain categories of buyers (i.e., seniors, auto club members, locals) discounts off the rack rate.

In addition to these practices, both hotels and airlines use consolidators who sell more deeply discounted rooms and seats without disclosing the name of the hotel or airline until the purchase is made.

This article from Wikipedia sums it up fairly well:

Yield management is a variable pricing strategy, based on understanding, anticipating and influencing consumer behavior in order to maximize revenue or profits from a fixed, time-limited resource (such as airline seats or hotel room reservations or advertising inventory). As a specific, inventory-focused branch of revenue management, yield management involves strategic control of inventory to sell the right product to the right customer at the right time for the right price. This process can result in price discrimination, in which customers consuming identical goods or services are charged different prices. Yield management is a large revenue generator for several major industries; Robert Crandall, former Chairman and CEO of American Airlines, gave yield management its name and has called it "the single most important technical development in transportation management since we entered deregulation.

[ggobkk]

One limit to Yield Management is the authority granted to front line staff to adjust things.  

Not too far back in time, I was at The Raya. I decided to extend my stay.  I checked the pricing  for two nights on Agoda.  I then went to the Reception desk and asked about extending.  I was the only non-staff person there.  The rate I was quoted was significantly higher than on Agoda.  I mentioned this and asked if the rate could be matched.the “ no”was polite.

So,I went back to my room and booked the additional nights on Agoda at the lower rate.

[BL8gPt]

I had a similar experience a few years ago.

I was staying at LCR but had problems there so I went across the road to Ambiace and asked if I can book a room. The girl at the reception told me straight away that I will get a better rate if I book through Agoda, which is what I did.

[floridarob]

Those are signs of poor management, ESPECIALLY at these small properties. My "claim to fame" as a hotel GM was raising guest satisfaction scores and  REVPAR (revenue per available room)...whereas many managers concentrate on ADR (average daily rate). Also because of my management style, reduced employee turnover...happy employees = happy guests (normally)

Many employees are lazy and find it easier to say, book on Agoda, Expedia, etc... than to do the actual work or look for a manager to approve the lower rate.

On average is a 20 % commision and waiting 45-60 days to get paid, front line employees don't care, however, a manager should.....I sake my head when a manager declines to honor the lower rate and says book online, smh

[khaolakguy]

On 7/30/2019 at 1:26 AM, paulsf said:

I live in Florida.  Florida residents get discounts at many of the states tourist attractions that non residents don’t get.   So I don’t see an issue with Thais getting discounts over us.  

When in Thailand I remember in the Bangkok Post Travel supplements often seeing special discounted local hotel rates that are only available to local residents, which would be Thai and Farang I assumed.

[gerefan]

Floridarob

I was always led to believe that pricing a room below the rate advertised by Agoda/hotels.com etc. was a big NoNo. 

Is that true? How much can you reduce the rack rate without getting problems from the consolidators?

 

[Boy69]

Sometimes booking directly through the Hotel website can get you better rates or / and special previligges it worth to compare the rates there against the consolidators before booking.

[a447a]

I just booked a hotel in Lisbon through booking.com and was surprised to see that they had made the reservation through Agoda. 

• This reservation was made with our partner, Agoda

I've always been suspicious of hotel booking sites and believe they all belong to the same parent company. 

[traveller123]

50 minutes ago, a447a said:

I just booked a hotel in Lisbon through booking.com and was surprised to see that they had made the reservation through Agoda. 

• This reservation was made with our partner, Agoda

I've always been suspicious of hotel booking sites and believe they all belong to the same parent company. 

I believe Agoda, Booking.com and Expedia all belong to the same parent company.

A stranger one last year, I booked The Maitria Hotel in Bangkok on Booking.com and they made the reservation through CTrip which I understand is Chinese owned.

[reader]

Excerpted from Wikipedia

Booking Holdings Inc. is a company organized in Delaware and based in Norwalk, Connecticut, that owns and operates several travel fare aggregators and travel fare metasearch engines including namesake and flagship Booking.com, Priceline.com, Agoda.com, Kayak.com, Cheapflights, Rentalcars.com, Momondo, and OpenTable. It operates websites in about 40 languages and 200 countries. In 2017, 89% of its gross profit was made outside the United States – most of which used Booking.com.

Acquisitions

1	2004	Major stakes in Travelweb and Active Hotels
2	2005	Booking.com
3	2007	Agoda.com
4	2010	TravelJigsaw / Rentalcars.com
5	2013	Kayak.com
6	2014	OpenTable
7	2014	Buuteeq and Hotel Ninjas
8	2015	Rocketmiles
9	2017	Momondo and Cheapflights
10	2017	Mundi
11	2018	FareHarbor
12	2018	Minority stake in DiDi
13	2018	HotelsCombined
14	2019	Venga

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booking_Holdings#Acquisitions

=============================================================

Expedia Group is an American global travel technology company.^[3] Its websites, which are primarily travel fare aggregators and travel metasearch engines, include CarRentals.com, CheapTickets, Expedia.com, HomeAway, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Travelocity, trivago, and Venere.com.

Acquisitions

March 17, 2000	Travelscape
March 17, 2001	Vacationspot
March 11, 2002	Classic Custom Vacations
July 11, 2002	Metropolitan Travel
October 28, 2002	Newtrade Technologies
April 5, 2004	Activity World
April 12, 2004	Egencia
July 15, 2008	Venere.com
October 18, 2010	Mobiata
April 27, 2012	VIA Travel
March 12, 2013	trivago GmbH
July 6, 2014	Wotif
January 23, 2015	Travelocity
September 17, 2015	Orbitz
November 4, 2015	HomeAway
October 25, 2018	Pillow
October 25, 2018	ApartmentJet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedia_Group

[vinapu]

Agoda and Expedia may be owed by the same company but on quite a few occasions I found either price or  availability varied so I always compare both sites and find HotelsCombined very useful tool.

[traveller123]

 

To illustrate Vinapu's comment:

A couple of days ago I booked Le Siam Hotel, in Bangkok (thanks to a recommendation on here).

Initially it was shown as unavailable on Agoda but with rooms free on Booking.com.

The next day it was shown as available on both sites with the price on Booking.com being the same as the hotels own website and a slightly lower price on Agoda.

 

[vinapu]

7 hours ago, traveller123 said:

 

 

The next day it was shown as available on both sites with the price on Booking.com being the same as the hotels own website and a slightly lower price on Agoda.

 

sometimes  that slightly lower price on another site may actually mean something - few years ago I booked room in hotel in Merida , Mexico and on the same  day friend  I was going with booked the same type of room in the same hotel on another site but did not manage to get as good price as mine was.

Upon arrival we found why - my window was facing wall of neighboring building, his room was few floors up and had a  nice view. 

[Guest]

I find most of the time, the prices on booking sites are the same.    Also some of the sites have the irritating habit of showing lower prices on a comparison via google maps, but when you click though, they add the taxes and the full price is the same. 

I do occasionally get REAL post tax price differences between Hotels.com and Booking.com.    If the prices and terms are the same, I prefer using Hotels.com, as this attracts credits for 1 free room every 10 bookings.     I have yet to discover any similar useful perk on booking.com (although this might be due to a lack of due diligence)

[vinapu]

one more thing I discovered just recently :

when looking for hotel on HotelsCombined.com sometimes price shown on that comparison site  for other site may be different than on site itself

ie. for Red Planet Bangkok price on Agoda  reached directly was  4 $ more  than when one accessed Agoda through HotelsCombined link

on another hand for PullmanG Silom on Agoda  directly was actually 3 $ less than when linked through HotelsCombined 

so few more clicks may save say 20-30 $ per week

[floridarob]

On 7/31/2019 at 10:18 PM, gerefan said:

Floridarob

I was always led to believe that pricing a room below the rate advertised by Agoda/hotels.com etc. was a big NoNo. 

Is that true? How much can you reduce the rack rate without getting problems from the consolidators?

 

The Franchised hotels have a rule that your rates must be no lower than what you are posting on their site. Opaque sites like Priceline ot Hotwire don't count since you don't know what hotel you are getting until the bid is accepted. 

[PeterRS]

On 8/2/2019 at 9:27 PM, z909 said:

I find most of the time, the prices on booking sites are the same. 

I wonder if there is a difference between prices offered in different countries or different continents. If I am travelling to the Americas or Europe, I usually find venere offers lower prices than agoda and hotels com. In Asia veneres prices are almost always higher.

I cannot now remember the site, but when I have visited New York quite frequently, the Australian site of a much larger worldwide site consistently offered lower prices than the main site. The additional reductions were too large to be a result only of currency fluctuations.

I note from Reader's useful list that travelzoo is not part of that grouping. Occasionally I have had amazing prices from that site - up to 70% once in a 5-star hotel in Japan and 60% in a similar class of hotel in Europe. Without the reductions I could never have dreamed of staying in those hotels!

Then there are the little perks offered by different sites. I am bombarded weekly by an email from agoda offering a special Bt. 150 off. Hotels.com offers one night free for every 10 booked. The nights do not have to  be earned in one stay. They are spread over all stays. In Asia I had always gone with agoda as I never really trusted that one night free slogan. Yet having analysed each possible booking, I soon found that the 1 night free actually works out cheaper for most bookings.

But if I am staying in a chain hotel, I find the lowest prices on their sites cannot be beaten by the booking engines. Same with airlines if you book reasonably far in advance. Just yesterday I checked an inter European flight on a legacy carrier for later this year. Some of the search engine sites were charging as much as 20% more than if booked directly on the airlines own site, plus they would add charges for baggage when the carrier itself has a 23kg free allowance! Caveat emptor!

[Boy69]

I noticed that on  last minute booking some hotels are extremely expensive in comparison to booking in advance but others reduce the price substantially if you booking at the last minute probably to fill empty rooms. In my upcoming trip I will book only the first days of vacation at Pattaya and will book the rest there .