Hi all!
When I lived abroad it was common to find deals on hotel stays for the same day. However in Australia, even though hotels are empty the bookings don't reduce the price on the day. I used to be able to secure 40% or even 50% a couple of times, which was a good encouragement specially for locals which don't really need to stay on a place 15-20 minutes away.
Is there any site which offers such deals?
Thank you very much
The best you can probably do is call up the hotel directly and see what they can do.
hoteltonight.com is still going…
I don't see much discounted like it used to be.
If you google the hotel's name, it will tend to give a summary of prices. I looked up Great Southern Hotel in Brisbane, if you book through the hotel's website it's $149 a night. However just trawling through the results I found a booking service offering $82 a night. About 45% off the price. Although it's not because it's last minute, but it shows it's worth going through the booking sites.
Tripadvisor aggregates results from the major booking sites these days.
Also I would second the advise above, give the hotel a call and ask them if they would discount for a last minute booking. I've done this several times and been successful - never hurts to ask. They don't like to advertise these deals I guess because people might start to feel ripped off paying the normal price, or lowers the perceived standard of the hotel. Any sensible manager would realise it's a marginal cost which they should really know off the top of their head, then apply a markup rather than leaving a room empty.
No* (just check the usual ones). It's been happening worldwide due to the increased sophistication of revenue management systems that dynamically price rooms to maxmise occupancy and the dominance of the large online booking sites. Like airfares it can actually be more expensive to book last minute hotel rooms.
You can book 40-50% (or more) off at certain properties if you are patient but many hotels would prefer to have rooms empty than sell below a certain price.