10 Travel Hacks to Save Thousands on Luxury Hotels
At Petit Passeport, we are as passionate about great deals as we are about elevated family travel. Finding great values at amazing destinations allows us to take vacations more frequently, linger longer on the trips we take, and get more for less. Below, we reveal our top hacks that not only help us save thousands each time we take a family vacation, but can also include VIP privileges and once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
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Luxury Family Hotel Hack # 1
Book With Hotel Marketing Collections
If you find a hotel you want to stay at, check to see if they are affiliated with a hotel marketing collection (e.g., Relais & Chateaux Always Be Expected Program, Leading Hotels of the World Leaders Club, Preferred Hotels & Resorts iPrefer Program, Smith Hotels, Lartisien, American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts for Amex Platinum Cardmembers, etc.). You can often find these affiliate logos at the bottom of the hotel websites or by searching “book [insert property name]” on Google (which will also return Google Hotel search results, with the option to insert your dates of travel and number of travelers to compare rates directly in your Google search browser).
Booking through one of these collections can save your family hundreds of dollars per day in breakfast costs and on-property spending via property credits, and often include other value-added perks like guaranteed or availability-based room upgrades, VIP welcome amenities, and late check-out / early check-in privileges.
Note: We always recommend comparing the “all-in” rates between the hotel marketing collection website, the hotel website, and a travel booking engine (e.g., TripAdvisor, Google Hotels, Expedia, etc.). Although the hotel marketing collection website rates are typically the same as what you will get by booking direct, they can be significantly higher and may not be worth the extra cost versus booking directly.
BONUS HACK: What to do when a hotel has availability according to their website, but not according to the hotel marketing collection booking engine.
Occasionally, you will come across a hotel that lists availability for your booking dates on their website, but will show up as unavailable on the hotel marketing booking site. If this happens, contact the hotel directly to let them know and ask if they would be willing to honor the program benefits if you proceed with booking direct (specifying the benefits via email is recommended). Historically, we’ve had a roughly 70% success rate for hotels being willing to honor the program benefits by booking direct.
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Luxury Family Hotel Hack # 2
Free or Discounted 2nd Rooms for Kids
Check out hotel website special offer pages for packages that include a discounted or free 2nd room for kids. These direct booking packages also often include special additional perks like free breakfast for the whole family and family-friendly experiences, and they typically won’t show up on hotel booking engines.
Not sure exactly where you want to stay? Start with the hotel brand website and search special offers to see what’s available at what properties.
A few of the top luxury hotel brands that typically offer family packages with big discounts on 2nd rooms for kids 12 and under include Dorchester Collection, Mandarin Oriental, Peninsula Hotels, and Rocco Forte.
BONUS HACK: Even if a hotel doesn’t list family room discounts on their website, they may still be willing to provide a special rate if you ask.
If no special family package is listed on the website, contact the hotel directly or through your travel specialist to inquire about discounts available for 2nd rooms for young kids. If a local hotel / resort competitor offers a discounted 2nd room for families, you could mention that you came across their offer in your booking search and wondered if they would be willing to match it.
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Luxury Family Hotel Hack # 3
Complimentary Nights and Other Special Offers
Don’t need a 2nd room but still looking for ways to save? Check out hotel special offer pages for packages that include one or more free nights and / or other value-added benefits like free breakfast, parking, property credits, or special experiences. These direct booking packages typically won’t show up on hotel booking engines.
Example: Many of our Four Seasons hotel and resort stays over the years have been through complimentary night packages. When we stayed at Four Seasons Resort Bali at Sayan in Ubud, we booked a Family Suite with the Stay Longer Third Night Free, effectively making our stay 33% off the best available rate (plus complimentary daily breakfast for the family).
Example: When we stayed at L'Assiette Champenoise near Reims, France, there was a Krug package on offer that allowed us to add to our existing Terrace Suite booking a private visit, tour, and tasting experience at Champagne Krug (which is virtually impossible to access unless you are an industry insider), tasting menu dinner with Krug pairings at the hotel’s Michelin 3-star restaurant, free breakfasts, and a half-bottle of Krug Grande Cuvée Champagne in our suite on arrival. If you plan to book the suite and the tasting menu dinner with champagne pairings, the Krug visit (priceless, and one of the most memorable experiences in all our travels) and the half-bottle of Krug (which retails for around $100) are essentially included at no additional cost. Prefer Dom to Krug? They also offer this exclusive package for tours and tastings of Champagne Dom Perignon.
Hotel special offers can typically be found on the hotel’s website, though signing up for hotel mailing lists may get you early or exclusive access to select special offers. A few of the top luxury hotel brands that typically publish special offers with free nights include Aman (“Extend Your Journey” - search by individual property), Auberge Resorts, Four Seasons (“Stay Longer” - search by individual property), Mandarin Oriental, One&Only (select properties), Ritz-Carlton, and Rosewood.
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Luxury Family Hotel Hack # 4
Low-Season and Shoulder Season Stays
You will rarely — if ever — find us traveling to a destination during its local high season. Not only are hotel prices sky high then, but the airline prices often follow suit, and the crowds, lines, and traffic can further detract from the experience. Luckily, every destination has different high and low seasons and, sometimes, the difference between traveling one week versus the next can save you thousands in hotel costs alone.
If your kids are not yet school-aged, take advantage of great travel deals at many global destinations during February, May, September, November and the first few weeks of December. If school calendars restrict your family travel timeframes, using travel search tools like Google Hotels can help you quickly look up destinations and timeframes to see when is the best (and worst) time to travel to certain destinations (see screenshot below), and identify alternative destinations that may offer the same experience without the high prices and intense crowds.
Example - Screenshot below: Say you really want to go somewhere with a beach for a short stay over Thanksgiving break and had Los Cabos in mind.
Using Google Hotels, you can see that staying as a family in Los Cabos from November 21-25 is very busy and expensive then ($1,500+/night for family rooms at 5* hotels with 4.5*+ guest ratings), but that February looks like a great time to travel there. You note that for later and move on to explore other options for your November dates.
Next, you broaden your search to “Mexico resorts” with the same search parameters — still very busy and very expensive.
Then, you search “Caribbean resorts” for the same dates and — bingo — Park Hyatt St. Kitts Christophe Harbour has family rooms available starting at $702/night (or 25,000 Hyatt points/night) by booking direct and being a Hyatt rewards program member.
But you still want to see what other options are available, so you search “beach resorts in USA” and find that the Royal Hawaiian, a Luxury Collection Resort, in Waikiki has family rooms available on your desired travel dates for $444/night booking direct (or 61,250 Bonvoy points/night), and The Ritz-Carlton, Fort Lauderdale, has family rooms available starting at $599/night booking direct (or 74,875 Bonvoy points/night).
The best part? This entire search process took less than 5 minutes.
Now, you can move on to searching airfares on Google Flights to compare total flight and hotel costs for these destinations.
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Luxury Family Hotel Hack # 5
Flexible Date Searches
If your dates are flexible, contact the hotel or your travel specialist to inquire about the best available rate for your travel parameters (for example, a 4-night stay between X and Y dates). You can also do this yourself on Google Hotels or by looking at the booking engines for hotel brands like Rosewood and Mandarin Oriental that display transparent nightly rate calendars when booking.
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Luxury Family Hotel Hack # 6
Search Accommodations for 1 Child, Not 2
The floor price for rooms that can accommodate 2 adults and 2 kids often jumps drastically compared rooms that can accommodate 2 adults and 1 kid.
If you are traveling with two kids under age 12, search for hotels that can accommodate 2 adults and 1 child. Many hotel booking engines show a maximum capacity of 3 people for rooms that can comfortably accommodate 2 adults and 2 young children. If you find a great room at your preferred property that lists a maximum capacity of 3 people (or 2 adults and 1 child), contact the hotel directly or through your travel specialist to inquire whether the room can actually accommodate 2 young children.
Sometimes hotel room capacity is regulated by local ordinance and cannot be changed, but many hotels can be flexible with room capacity for families with young children, potentially saving you hundreds or even thousands per night.
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Luxury Family Hotel Hack # 7
Sign Up for Hotel Loyalty Programs
Hotel loyalty programs are typically free, allow guests to earn rewards based on stays, and some provide special booking rates for members. Plus, when you sign up for the loyalty program, you may receive exclusive members-only / members-first offers not available to the general public.
Examples of global luxury hotel brands with free loyalty programs include:
Accor Hotels ALL Program - Banyan Tree, Faena, Fairmont, Raffles, Sofitel
Anantara Discovery - Anantara Hotels
Hilton Honors Program - Conrad, Waldorf Astoria
World of Hyatt - Alila, Andaz, Park Hyatt
Marriott Bonvoy - Luxury Collection, Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis
Fans of M.O. - Mandarin Oriental
Oberoi One - Oberoi Hotels
Shangri-La Circle - Shangri-La Hotels
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Luxury Family Hotel Hack # 8
Take Advantage of Travel Benefits You Didn’t Know You Had
Credit cards, automotive clubs, cell phone plans, even employer-provided travel discounts can be great ways to save big on hotels. While many major credit cards offer redemption options for travel and online travel booking sites with preferred rates, premium travel reward credit cards can provide some of the best savings on hotels, especially in the luxury category (see hack #10).
Memberships in automotive clubs like AAA and working for employers that have negotiated preferred rate perks for associates at hotels beyond business travel can also be a great way to access exclusive hotel discounts.
And if you are a T-Mobile customer, they recently launched T-Travel, a travel booking partnership with Priceline to provide T-Mobile customers with preferred hotel rates up to 40% off (along with discounted car rental and airfare).
Example: A recent T-Travel hotel booking search returned prices at 5-star hotels in New York City anywhere from 8-40% off the best available price found elsewhere. Below, you can see the rate for a family of four to stay at the Conrad New York was $376 / night in August, 40% off the best available rate found elsewhere through other travel booking engines. Searching these same dates in a few other destinations, we found rates 40% off at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, 40% off Soneva Jani and the St. Regis Vommuli Resort in Maldives, 29% off at the Faena in Miami, and more, though these were some of the more notable deals we found.
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Luxury Family Hotel Hack # 9
Search TripAdvisor for TripAdvisor Plus Rates
Searching on TripAdvisor for TripAdvisor Plus properties for our travel dates, we’ve found room rates at many top hotels between 40-60% off the best available price found anywhere else, including fully refundable rates (not a sponsored post). Although TripAdvisor Plus is a paid membership ($99/year), you don’t have to purchase the membership unless you proceed with booking a property.
Example: We booked two Garden Suites at Amankila in East Bali, each of which was ~50% off the lowest published rate found anywhere else (and the rate included free daily breakfasts and roundtrip airport transfers).
Another example: A recent TripAdvisor Plus search for an Ocean View Spa Casita at ultra-exclusive Esperanza Resort in Cabo San Lucas came back a whopping $1,400/night less than than the lowest published rate anywhere else available.
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Luxury Family Hotel Hack # 10
Premium Travel Credit Cards and Business Membership Cards
First, we want to acknowledge that there are many travel websites and influencers out there that make it seem like you can travel anywhere and everywhere for practically free if you play the credit card game right. However, the sign-up or spending activity required to travel free on points — especially premium flights or hotels when traveling as a family — is not realistic for most travelers (us included).
We take financial decisions and credit scores seriously and would never recommend people continuously sign up for credit cards to keep getting sign-up bonuses.
All that said, for some travelers, having one or a few credit cards that provide rewards aligned with your lifestyle preferences, spending habits, and financial situation can offer great benefits. Not only can rewards can be earned and redeemed for travel through spending and sign-up bonuses, cardmembers often get access to exclusive discounted rates, travel statement credits and bonuses through membership offers, and VIP travel perks through cardmember booking programs.
Have a favorite money-saving hotel hack that you don’t see here? We’d love to hear from you! Contact us and let us know.
