Don’t Make These Mistakes When Booking a Hotel Room – Part 1
Though reserving a hotel room online appears to be a simple task, the wisest travelers take a bit more time before clicking the “confirm booking” button. This article will explain why you should be more thoughtful and concise when booking a hotel room, even if you’re planning on staying in Springdale at the Cliffrose or any other Zion National Park lodge. There’s more to the process than simply selecting a location, deciding on dates, typing in your card number and clicking “submit”. Be aware of some of these potential mistakes that can easily be made as well as other common items that travelers have a tendency to overlook when reserving a hotel room, whether it be a Zion National Park lodge or not.
Keep expectations realistic
What we mean by that is don’t expect that the Zion National Park lodge or other hotel has an automatic queue that ranks their available rooms and simply distributes them in order according to when guests book rooms online. If there is a particular feature that you want your room to have, such as a specific floor or location, it is recommended that you book by directly calling the front desk of the establishment. Booking online through sites like Kayak.com, Priceline.com, and Hotels.com will arbitrarily select for you one of their standard, run-of-the-mill rooms. If you want a room away from the elevator or ice machine, call the hotel itself or book directly on their website. You may have to pay a bit more by sacrificing on online discount, but if you have personal preferences when it comes to traveling to hotels, this is the way to see that most of them are met. Also, consider joining a loyalty program if you stay at a Zion National Park lodge often. They are usually free to join and provide perks like exclusive amenities, free nights, and better room placement.
Another aspect of keeping expectations realistic as a traveler is to remember that not every one of your requests will always be met. Perhaps the hotel doesn’t have any king bed rooms available or maybe all the rooms on the third floor are booked during your intended dates. Most online booking sites have comment sections where you can make requests but understand that simply typing a sentence into those boxes does not guarantee that you’ll get what you asked for. You would be wise, after you’ve already booked your room and are on your way to the hotel or Zion National Park lodge, to call the establishment to verify that your requests were seen and executed. That way, if they weren’t, you can plan accordingly.
Double check your dates
Here is an explanation of a very common mistake that Zion National Park lodge travelers make: traveler first books flight, flight departs on a particular date (say, June 5), traveler than makes hotel reservations beginning on June 5 but fails to realize that because their flight is a red-eye they won’t actually be staying there the night of June 5. Money is then wasted. If you have made this mistake before, don’t beat yourself up. It’s more common than you may think.
Always double and triple check all dates before clicking the book button. Do you’re very best to pick the most convenient flight times and match your hotel dates appropriately. Remember that if you’re traveling to a different time zone, that needs to be accounted for. Websites like Kayak.com have features that are designed to prevent these types of mistakes from happening. They allow you to book your flight and hotel (and rental car) in the same transaction and will give you error messages if times overlap or don’t coincide with each other. Also, if you have a spouse or friend with you while booking, have someone look over your results before you click submit.
This post will continue with the Zion National Park lodge article Don’t Make These Mistakes When Booking a Hotel Room – Part 2.
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