I have a simple rant today. This time, the focus is on hotel rooms.
My wife and I have three kids so together we total five people. When we travel we like to stay in hotels, although we are just now exploring hotel alternatives such as private homes for rent (but more on that at another time).
Like most everyone else who reserves hotels online, I am required to reveal how many guests there will be in the room during the stay. This makes sense to me. They need to know. What comes next is the truly annoying part.
When I indicate that I have three children and try to reserve a single room, many hotel booking sites will return a message that I’ve exceeded capacity. Sometimes I won’t even get that message and instead will be told it is an ‘invalid search.’ Here are a few examples:
From one major online travel agent site: “Up to four people can stay in each room. Please select two rooms or one room with fewer guests.” (Message 1451)
From a major hotel chain site: “Sorry, no hotels were found that matched your exact search criteria. You may change your search criteria or select from the hotels listed below.”
From a large independent resort site: “2 rooms required.”
Three very different sites returned three different messages, but they all said the same thing. I don’t have many hotel options if I want to travel with all three of my kids and do so for less money. What does a family of five do? There are a few tactics I can use here: 1) indicate that less people are traveling and just put five people in the one room anyway; 2) pay for 2 connecting rooms; or 3) only stay at all-suite hotels.
I have been told that the people-per-room cap stems from fire safety rules and I respect those rules. However, I would hope travel sites/hotels recognize the challenge here and help find a solution. Maybe it’s offering a second room for a lower rate, maybe it’s offering free meals or maybe it’s just doing a better job of helping families understand exactly why you can’t fit five people into a perfectly good hotel room. I don’t know the answer, but I definitely know the problem.
Any creative ideas out there? Any other families equally frustrated? I’d love to hear your thoughts and strategies.
© Cheapflights Ltd Carl Schwartz
