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- Booking your hotel stay directly on the property's website should be cheaper than using a third-party booking website. But this isn't always the case - often, it's much more expensive.
- We compared several leading hotel booking engines and found price differences of up to R3 000, as well as one solution that could save you thousands - with a catch.
- Here's how Booking.com, SA-Venues, Lekkeslaap, Hotels.com, and SafariNow compare to booking directly.
- For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page.
There are generally two ways to book accommodation online - directly on the property website or using a third-party aggregator like Lekkeslaap or Booking.com.
But, for the most part, there's little to differentiate between making direct bookings or using accommodation aggregator websites in South Africa. Often, it may be cheaper to avoid direct booking routes, especially those using third-party plugins.
The accommodation booking landscape
Global giants like Booking.com and Hotels.com rule the world of international accommodation bookings. They also have a strong presence in South Africa.
However, several local businesses, like SA-Venues, Lekkeslaap, and SafariNow, have fought hard for many years for their slice of the holiday accommodation pie. Although not directly comparable to the global hotel booking giants, many overlaps exist.
There's also a third, quieter hotel booking engine called Nightsbridge that has gained significant market traction. Nightsbridge doesn't solicit bookings from the public but instead sells its software to properties in South Africa and Namibia. It charges property owners a flat fee, which varies according to the number of rooms, to offer online bookings.
Finding the cheapest accommodation
To check which option is the best for thrifty travellers in South Africa, we compared rates offered by six accommodation search engines at seven randomly selected properties in South Africa.
We then compared these to rates offered by hotels directly, most of whom use the Nightsbridge platform.
To level the playing fields, we compared prices for the same two nights in early March 2024. For the sake of this comparison, we picked the cheapest room option for two people. We did not include loyalty programme discounts offered by some, but did include all fees and taxes where indicated.
Plenty of anomalies
Comparing hotel booking sites is seldom straightforward, as many work hard to offer points of differentiation.
For example, some hotel booking sites provide options to include or exclude breakfasts. Some also offer lower rates for bookings that are locked in and can't be changed, and higher rates for bookings you can later cancel or change.
Most global booking websites offer lots of misdirection and wild claims about how much you'll save if you book timeously. For the most part, you can ignore these as mischievous tricks to stop you from comparing rates on competing websites.
These days, most accommodation websites work hard to get you to commit to a specific rate by making an instant purchase, but some local websites still require users to request "quotes" from the properties. This means real-time pricing isn't always available, and actual prices may vary.
And some booking sites have limited or different stock on their website than others. For example, one booking engine might sell an entry-level room at a good rate not available on other websites. Similarly, some websites might indicate a room type is sold out - only for it to be available elsewhere online.
Where some local booking engines haven't secured stock for their own platform, some seem to connect to stock and prices offered by global providers.
The cheapest accommodation booking engine doesn't exist
No individual booking engine came out overall cheapest in our limited study, and the results were fairly evenly spread. Some anomalies did, however, mean that trusting just one booking website can lead to being significantly overcharged.
Booking.com, SA-Venues, and Hotels.com each had two options that were the cheapest across the board. Lekkeslaap and SafariNow were tied as the cheapest on just one property.
Of the seven properties checked, only two had cheaper direct rates than one of the booking engines.
Some of the differences were also marked. A room booked at The Bay Hotel on Booking.com was R3 607 cheaper than the cheapest room on Lekkeslaap - and even the hotel's website.
Although skewed by South African resident rates, the Oyster Box Hotel had the best direct rate compared to other engines - their option was R4 419 cheaper than the most expensive options of Hotels.com and SafariNow.
How to find the cheapest accommodation
Ultimately, we could not find a winner among local and foreign specialist accommodation booking sites. And to be sure, it's worth shopping around on a few platforms.
But those desperate for a cheap escape may be better off skipping the brand loyalty of a single accommodation website and instead turning to an aggregator.
In our study, Google Hotels, which scours more booking websites than we'd be able to, managed to undercut most deals we tracked manually.
But these rates come with one significant caveat - the deals that Google finds often lead you down a rabbit hole of popups and shouty websites. Worse still, they often charge in US dollars and find ways to tack on fees at the last hurdle - which may even be when you come to check out thinking you've already settled your bill.
If you're the kind who's prepared to read through the fine print to save a few rands, then this is an option that may bring you some joy.
Here's how accommodation booking engines compare
