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Saw a commercial for a website called Trivago, checked it out yesterday.
Found Cocolapalm for $59 a night for a Deluxe Room for our dates in November/December with Booking.com ........ booked it. How can you beat that price???
Today I look again (I'm crazy that way) and it is $45 a night for the same room. Is this legit?
Has anyone successfully used this combination of websites before?
Now if only I could find that kind of deal on airfare .........
Wow that is a great price. I would email Coco in a few days to see if they have your reservation. If they do you know you got a great deal having been there before. Nice!!!!
That is funny that you already looked again the next day. I never look at the airfare or the room price after I book it.
I always keep looking at the prices after I make a reservation. It's a compulsion.
That site does have some nice rates, although I noted that when I went to actually make a reservation, the price increased with some of the properties.
looks like a great deal,please keep us informed. I did find a problem(not with coco but with some others)that when you selected a hotel(rockhouse and a few others)you are directed to a lesser hotel. I hope it is legit and please be sure to read and understand every part of what you are buying. good luck and enjoy your trip!
Hi Mo, I have a serious problem when it comes to checking prices, I think I may have a touch of OCD.Quote:
Originally Posted by MoFromMonroe
I noticed the price jump on a few that I checked as well, but the ones that I looked at were still great deals.Quote:
Originally Posted by jon c.
I have the same compulsion :p
I noticed that too, for example Catcha Falling Star links you to Catcha Gardens, and Rockhouse links you to Alvy(something).Quote:
Originally Posted by pwj155
I was a little skeptical about the price and conditions and I read every little bit of fine print that I could, didn't see anything sketchy.
The booking says that Coco will charge my card directly for 2 nights and then the rest is due upon arrival. I will wait a couple of days to see if anything goes through on my card and go from there.
I'll keep you posted.
Time for a new ticker :D
it will work out fine for November and December
don't name the baby Negrilla! lol
have fun . . .
I have used Booking.com before without any problems.
Just a little info for anyone wondering about booking.com... Yes, you can be redirected to other hotels, but once you're on the actual booking page, just pay attention, that IS the hotel you're booking regardless of what hotel you had been looking at up to that point. The first main concern is the taxes and check-in policies. As always, read the fine print and be sure you know what to expect (like additional taxes) when you arrive at the hotel. The other frequent problem you need to be concerned with is whether or not the hotel actually received the reservation. Different 3rd party sites (that's what hoteliers call all the dot com's selling rooms for us) have different contracts with the hotels. Some are allowed to "free sell" which means they can sell as many rooms as the want at a certain rate or within a certain range of rates. Others are given a set number of rooms to sell and once their allocation is gone, they will appear as "sold out" on that site even though the hotel itself is not likely sold out. I'm not sure how it works for hotels out of the country but I can tell you for hotels in the US, we typically receive our reservations from booking.com via fax or email. These are sent to us automatically by booking.com's system, but sometimes the emails or faxes never come - some hiccup along the way and *poof* they're lost in cyberspace. That's when you run the risk of showing up at a hotel that has sold out since you booked your room and never received your reservation leaving you without a place to stay. It happens. Expedia, Hotels.com, and Orbitz work the same way. (FYI, Expedia, Hotels.com, and Booking.com are all the same parent company - Expedia & Hotels.com even run on the exact same contract so it's unlikely you'll find different rates between the two for all you compulsive rate checkers). So, if you're going to book on a 3rd party site, do yourself a favor and call the hotel a day or two after you book (not immediately after because it takes some time for your reservation to get to the actual hotel) to confirm you got the room type you want, you understand all the fees, and that everyone is on the same page. If not, at least you have some time to fix it.
While I'm on my soapbox, let me spill some more industry secrets. Maybe I'll be banned from the US and have no choice but to stay in Negril on my next reach - haha! When you book on these third party sites, you are cutting the hotelier out of a portion of their money. Some sites get 10% commission, others take 20-25%, and others take even more. One of those evil third parties has guests paying them X amount for a room and pays the hotel less than HALF of that amount! AND the taxes they collect are actually taxes "and fees" (fine print) that the third party site keeps. So that tax is not going to the city in which you booked to support tourism and schools and infrastructure repairs and so on. It is being held by the dot com you just booked on. Yes, us hoteliers like to be able to reach folks any way we can, but we would much rather see you book direct with us. It helps us out not only with profitability but it also allows us the opportunity to ensure you get the type of room you want and aren't blindsided with other charges when you arrive. All those little "special request" boxes on the forms you fill out to book a room on the major third parties - those rarely even make it to the hotel. And for those of you bidding on priceline and hotwire... listen closely to the commercials... you are bidding on the hotel's UNSOLD rooms. Let's think about this... a hotel with 15 non smoking singles and 5 smoking singles has sold 18 rooms and is hoping dot com will sell one of those last two rooms. Now, do you think the last 2 rooms are smoking or non-smoking? You get to the hotel and find out your bid won a smoking single and you throw a fit because you put in a request for non-smoking. Guess what? No way to fulfill that request (if the hotel even gets it). Why? Because at the time you bid, the two rooms left were the rooms the hotel COULD NOT SELL - the last two smoking rooms. You demand they change you to a different room. How can they when you bid on the only rooms left on the property? Now, a lot of the time, a hotel has lots of rooms left and getting you in what you want isn't a problem. But sometimes it is. Be prepared for that and remember, "You get what you pay for." Surely you didn't think you were entitled to the best room in the hotel for $30 when the room rate is normally $100 (not saying it's impossible to get a great room, just saying that's not how it always works out.)
One last bit of information, when you book on a lot of those major third parties, the hotel only receives your name. No phone number. No address. No email. Just your name. So if they get a special request for a ground floor room but don't have any, believe me, they wish they could call you and let you know right away. No desk clerk wants to make you unhappy. But when we have no way to reach you, what can we do? Solution: if you're going to book online, ALWAYS call the hotel after and confirm everything so no one has any surprises. Better yet, do your homework online, but book with the hotel direct when you're actually ready to make reservations. The hotelier and staff need your money way worse than the third parties.
Rinakim - I'm sorry for climbing on a soapbox in the middle of your thread but my hope was to give you and others an insight into third parties so your vacation doesn't start badly with wrong (or worse yet non-existent) reservation. That being said, I saw the same amazing deal you saw on booking.com, didn't see any holes in it. I've reached out to that hotel directly twice now to see if they would honor the same rate if I book directly with them (so they don't have to give booking.com a 10-20% commission) and they haven't replied to me. This doesn't help the above argument at all but I can tell you every hotelier in the states that I know would GLADLY match a rate online to have you book direct and in many cases would even beat it. Guess they have to answer the phones and emails first to do that though. ;) Looks like I'll be booking that deal online with you.
BTW, if any of you see someone sitting on the beach in dark glasses, a trench coat, and a fake mustache next month, it's me, they're on to me, and it's only a matter of time before the dot com's make me disappear for the above information. :cool:
I was going to ask if you could directly contact the hotels to see if they would price match...may try that the next time.
Trivago is legit. Ive used it before. The prices go way down at night and during the morning and afternoons the rates are reasonable.
I do this every stay. I've had wild success with one, fair results with others, and some that just aren't interested. A lot of front desk don't know the ins and outs of the online contracts or their hotel's overall profitability isn't really on their minds - and who can blame them - they're not paid to run the place, just to check people in and out and listen to the dozens of requests and complaints that come day in and day out (which I assure you is an underpaid job here and there.) But if you can get to a manager, they're the ones that will usually be more than happy to help because they know it's in their best interest. Better trained front desk know this, too, but don't always have the authority to make the call. All depends on how much their manager has empowered them. I've found that if they say they can't, a polite request for them to run it by their manager whenever is convenient to them and get back to me does the trick.Quote:
Originally Posted by tfw73
Trivago and Kayak are both heaven sent for us compulsive rate searchers. They search other major third party sites and provide the various rates listed on them. They make their money on click-thrus, ads, and commission splits. But when you book, you don't actually book through Trivago or Kayak, you book through the site they re-direct you to or at least in my experience. They are just a go-between for the go-betweens they redirect you to. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by kaycee
Wow GREAT info! as I was just about to post asking are there any deals out there for Coco in Aug..
There's a really good one on booking.com as we speak but I haven't been able to get ahold of anyone at Coco. They have a contact form instead of an email address and it's almost impossible for me to make a phone call during any sort of business hours. If you or anyone else has an email for them, please share! :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by love2travelchic
I just went to book CoCo for Aug and they had all these addt'l fees that are not added to the total...what are they anyone?Quote:
Originally Posted by rinakim
10% VAT
USD 2 city tax per night
1% service charge
Thanks JandMinJA, excellent info! I've used third party booking before, but always print out confirmation to carry with me and copy/paste it into an email directly to the hotel. I did arrive once and hotel had no reservation, but they accepted the confirmation that I carried with me. Would hotels be offended if we call them direct and ask for the bargain price we found on a third party site? I would rather just pay them cash directly if it helped them out more.
Speaking for the 3 hotels I'm a part of and all the hoteliers I deal with at brand conventions, etc., the answer is an emphatic NO! Not at all offended. In fact, we PREFER it. It's just smart business for us to match any rate you see. Now are folks in Jamaica offended? I can't answer that. I always feel like I'm being a bother when I ask (I am NOT good at haggling), but at the same time, I know the facts, and I know it's better for them and me if I book direct. For that reason, I can't imagine them being offended. On the other hand, maybe there's a cultural taboo I'm not aware of... Maybe a few vets around here could chime in on this one...Quote:
Originally Posted by goldilocks
I'm not a prolific price checker, but when negrilonestop couldn't get a better rate than $98 per night (including taxes and contintental breakfast) I booked a longer stay one the west end (cliffs) and decided on a week in Treasure Beach for the beach segment of our stay.
Regards,
Bob
I should state for the record, NegrilOneStop seems to have the least 'fine print' and consistently great deals. I do not know what arrangements they have with hotels and do not necessarily consider them as a "third party" (although they are obviously a go-between); my comments can only apply to sites with which I have direct experience which are all the national and international booking sites, not area specific sites like NegrilOneStop. :) Didn't want to step on anyone's toes. I've heard nothing but great things from folks that book thru NegrilOneStop.
This is the email that I have used when dealing with them in the past: reservations@cocolapalm.comQuote:
Originally Posted by JandMinJA
I have emailed them today to confirm that they received my reservation from booking.com but haven't heard back yet.
I do know that when emailing them while planning the wedding, sometimes it took a day or two for response.
Those are typical charges when booking a hotel in Jamaica.Quote:
Originally Posted by love2travelchic
Value Added Tax = 10%
10% Service Charge = Is either added to or included in when booking a hotel.
New tax brought in last year (I think) of $1 per person per night.
I too prefer to book directly when dealing with small locally owned properties, saves them some money. We have tried to book directly with Coco before quoting prices found elsewhere but there was no willingness to match those prices.Quote:
Originally Posted by JandMinJA
I love Coco but it was beginning to get out of our budget zone, but at this price we can afford to stay there.
Thank you Rina!! I'mma push the button!
I also have found several places, including coco, that were not willing to price match for our last trip....
I always call to see if the Hotels we stay at will match prices. CoCo won't match but I have found a lot of the other ones will. Fun Holiday did with a bit of persuasion, and a few of the others too. Twice, both under different management I had SeaSplash match a groupon price for different dates than Groupon specified (It was not during peak season).
I just booked and the reservation included this email..."cocores@cocolapalm.com"Quote:
Originally Posted by JandMinJA
Thank you chic! I just sent an email to them at the one rinakim posted. We'll give it a couple days and see if we get an answer this time and if not I'll try yours. And if all goes well, I'll see you there! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by love2travelchic
We literally booked Coco with NegrilOneStop for October just before I saw this thread. It's only 4 nights, so I'm not too excited, but I wish I'd seen this first...
Yay!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by love2travelchic
You are going again in October ...... wowsers :pQuote:
Originally Posted by 2nutz4travel
I typically use onestop to book Coco, but couldn't pass up this price.
Friends are going - their first trip to Jamaica - how could we say no?? We'll be at Coco for their Halloween party, which I hear is a LOT of fun. Then off to Catcha for 4 nights. Apparently we have it BAD!
I booked thru expedia last week at cclp. 59$ a night total with taxes and fees.. paid in full and confirmed. A little more then 45+fees,maybe, but for those that prefer arrangements and payments be completed before departure.
Btw, I found the deal on trivago too.. ;-)
Hi Rina - don't know if you've booked your air yet, but WestJet has great prices right now for our dates. I just booked for $911 return, taxes in for the 2 of us. Maybe too early for you yet, but I thought I'd mention it :)
Just chatted with Rina on FB this morning to let her know my kayak alert (for them) showed a decent price drop. Rina had just booked - extended their stay by one day to get a better deal. Sucks for us westerners, cuz we pay about $500 more for 2... a lot more miles to travel though too. Lucky you guys, another Negril trip...maybe I'll make it there November 2014. Hope you both are doing well...wish I was feeling better in April to visit more...next time!Quote:
Originally Posted by 2nutz4travel
This time I am going to spell apprehensive correctly!!
Apprehension is over ....... was feeling rather anxious about the whole thing so called Coco directly this morning.
They have our reservation, at the quoted price from Booking.com.
Every little ting, is gonna be alright :)
ps, thanks Melody for being my price alerter :)
We will see you next time for sure.
Excellent news! Glad it all worked out okay :)
Whew Hoo! I'm going to assume my sisters reservations are IRIE but will call just to be double sure...Quote:
Originally Posted by rinakim
Thank you so much Rina!!!
My sister wasn't going at first but after I shared the great deal she booked immediately...lol...This would be the only time I'm mad I booked mines so early I think I paid double the deal! haha!