Entertainment book hotel program findings

I just completed a side by side evaluation of the Entertainment book hotel discount program by comparing prices on the Entertainment as well as 3 popular web based hotel booking engines. Search parameters was three specific downtown Chicago 4 star hotels arriving on Thursday June 18th 2009 and departing Sunday Jun 21st 2009 requesting 1 room for 1 person.

Rates were requested rates in all discount categories that applied to my personal situation. These were AAA, corporate and a booking code supplied by the Entertainment book hotel program. Rate research was conducted on hotels.com, travelocity.com, expedia.com and the Entertainment book site. I discovered that the rates were all the same for each property on each website. $189.00 a night for hotel X was offered on these 4 different websites.

So in this experiment the book’s program didn’t come up with a better rate. The book is still a great deal for dining bargains but their travel program did not save me anything on this trip. Time to go to plan B.

Clicking on hotwire.com is where I discovered some real savings. They offered a four star hotel in the downtown Loop area for $89.00 a night but I would not know the name of the property until I completed the transaction. They have fairly steep change or cancel fees so you’d better be sure that you want the reservation before clicking “book it”.

Happy travels.