Hyatt Regency in Downtown Tampa Bay

It was a complete accident that I found myself spending a night at the Hyatt Regency in Tampa Bay, Florida.

I was planning to spend a day at Busch Gardens and was hoping to find a hotel nearby.  Unfortunately, Busch Gardens isn’t surrounded on four sides by hotels eager to take advantage of amusement park business, unlike the amusement parks in Orlando.  I began to investigate my options on Priceline and figured “something cheap in the downtown area” would do.  I named my own price and ended up with a confirmation number for the Hyatt Regency.

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Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, TripAdvisor, T+L and many others all have lists of their best hotels for 2010, and we’ve been quite happy to blog about it whenever someone comes out with a new list.

The Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota

But there’s no reason why you should have to look around for these lists individually, when you can have access to the bestest of the best. Here’s a list of the top 5 such ‘best hotel’ lists, with the top 5 hotels from each list listed alongside.

Expedia Insiders’ Select – Expedia reviewed more than 114,000 hotels and resorts worldwide, giving each one a numerical score. Only the best ones made it into the list.

Among US hotels, the top 5 in Expedia’s Insiders’ Select 2010 list are the Drury Inn Indianapolis, Staybridge Suites Minneapolis-Bloomington, Epic Hotel Miami, The Wort Hotel Jackson Hole, and The Ritz-Carlton Sarasota.

Orbitz Best in Stay Awards – This list is based on reviews from customers who actually booked a stay at the property in question. The Best in Stay winners are those who earned top scores on a scale of 1 to 5 for service, amenities, comfort, location and value.

The top 5 US hotels that won Orbitz’s Best in Stay 2010 awards are the Royal Palms Resort and Spa in Phoenix, Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles, The Island Hotel Newport Beach, Pacific Terrace Hotel in San Diego, and the Omni San Francisco.

Eliot Hotel, Boston

Priceline – Priceline has a list of the best hotels for every city, based on 2.5 million reviews from Priceline hotel guests.

While the entire list has not been published, they did list the top Priceline hotel for each of 10 US cities, out of which these are the first 5 – The Ritz-Carlton New York Battery Park, Palazzo in Las Vegas, The Eliot Suite Hotel Boston, Conrad Chicago, and Le Meridien San Francisco.

TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice - Lists the top hotels worldwide for 2010, as per TripAdvisor users. Here’s the top 5 out of the top 25 US hotels - Inn New York City, Elan Hotel in Los Angeles, The Talbott Hotel in Chicago, Four Seasons Philadelphia and the Grand Hyatt DFW. 

Halekulani , Waikiki Beach

Travel + Leisure 500 - Lists the top 500 hotels in the world for 2010, based on votes cast by T+L readers. For US listings, they only have the top few hotels in each state listed, but not the overall winners for the US.

Thankfully, each hotel has been assigned a rating, so it was easy to go through the list and find the top 5 US hotels – Inn at Palmetto Bluff in Bluffton, Eliot Hotel in Boston, Watermark Hotel & Spa in San Antonio, London West Hollywood, and Halekulani in Honolulu.

One last thing – there’s only one hotel which appears in the top 5 in more than one list - The Eliot in Boston. 

Photos: Ritz – hyku; Halekulani – Alan Light; Eliot – Eliot Hotel

The June issue of Consumer Reports magazine has the results of a survey of hotel guests. They surveyed 27,506 subscribers who spent a collective 124,000 nights at 48 chains from Jan 2008 to April 2009. 

ConsumerReports Hotel Survey

The survey lists the best hotel chains in five different categories, and also offers useful hotel booking tips to help you save money and find decent but cheap hotels.

Out of the 48 chains in five categories (Fanciest, Luxury, Upscale, Moderate and Budget), the following were listed as the best – The Ritz-Carlton, Homewood Suites, Renaissance, Drury Inn & Suites, and Microtel Inn & Suites.

And here’s the highlights of the hotel booking tips offered by survey respondents:-

Don’t forget to haggle - Turns out most people don’t haggle (only 35% tried to talk their way into a better deal), but out of those who did haggle, 80% managed to get a lower rate or a room upgrade.

Suites - All-suite hotels offer suites at prices comparable to regular rooms at other hotels.

Booking method - Do you wonder which is the best way to book a hotel? Should you call the hotel, book through the hotel’s website, through an online travel agency, or just walk-in?

For starters, survey respondents say the method of booking does not affect how satisfied you’ll end up with your stay and the deal. You should also know, though, that respondents who walked into a hotel without an advance reservation paid $20 less per night on average than those who had reservations. 

Respondents also cited social networking sites twitter and facebook as good places to get lower rates not available elsewhere. 

The best way and most sure-fire way to get lower rates, said respondents, is through Priceline or Hotwire. While survey respondents who booked via these sites paid an average daily rate of $80, those who phoned the hotel or booked online by other means paid $120 for a comparable room.

Full survey results here – ConsumerReports.org

Related posts:-
How To Name Your Own Price for Hotels on Priceline
Tips for Cheaper Hotel Stays from Budget Travel Magazine
Sleuthing Out Desired Hotels on Priceline and Hotwire

Hello, Cheap.

I have two passions in life.

Writing and traveling.

Unfortunately, Passion A has yet to produce the funds required to do Passion B in the manner to which I would like to become accustom.

Translation: I am too broke to travel the way I’d like to, but too stubborn to just stay my butt home.

As a result, I have had to learn how to travel on the cheap.  I firmly believe that money should not keep you from your passions.  Where there is a will, there is a way, and all that.

7 Ways To Save Money On A Hotel

1. Share a room. The easiest way to save money on a hotel is to split the bill.  Of course, this doesn’t work if you’re sharing a room with your spouse – so I highly recommend you convince them that traveling is stupid.  For your budget’s sake.

2.  The more, the merrier. The more people you shove in a room, the smaller your chunk of a bill is.  Don’t be afraid to cozy up to a girlfriend in a double bed.  Just be sure everyone brings pajamas.  See also: “you’re not too good to spend a night on the floor” and “that pull out couch represents one more person who can pay a share”.

3.  Name your own price on Priceline. I’ve saved hundreds of dollars by using the “name your own price” tool on Priceline.  Here’s an article on how to name your own price on Priceline without getting ripped off or sleeping in the slums.

4.  Eat the continental breakfast. Technically, this won’t save you money on your hotel bill, but it will take away from your overall travel expense.  And if you bring back a muffin for a midday snack, you receive the Official Cheap Traveler Ninja Gold Star.

5.  Book a hotel away from the tourist attractions, but on a bus line. If you’re staying in a city with great public transportation (like New York City), you can take advantage of drastically lower hotel rates by staying farther out from the “hot spots”.  Just make sure you’re saving more on your hotel than what you’ll pay for a subway pass or bus ticket.  Obviously.

6.  Get a credit card with hotel reward points. Visa and American Express (and others, I’m sure) offer membership rewards programs that allow you to use your points towards free hotel stays.  Now, I’m not suggesting you rack up credit card debt.  But if you have the financial discipline to do so, get a credit card that you use to pay bills, buy groceries, get gas, and pay it off in full each month – and save up for free travel bonuses.

7.  Join hotel rewards programs. Hotel rewards programs will also offer perks like free upgrades, reduced rates and, in some cases, free stays.  You’ll build up these points faster if you find a family of hotels that you like and stick with booking within that chain.

Do you find creative ways to stretch your travel budget?  What’s your top secret tip for saving money on a hotel?

Photo by psd on Flickr.