How Hotels.com Benefited Me Living At Motel 6

While looking for a new apartment, I stayed at Motel 6. Having little experience staying in hotels, I didn't consider any other options besides booking directly through them. I entered the front desk every morning to book another day, thinking every time that this should be the last. After a couple weeks passed by, I became progressively hopeless, and I had the thought: "There must be a cheaper way."

Upon seeing hotels.com after googling "hotel deals", I thought that was an obvious choice, so I clicked it. I immediately created an account by simply using the "Sign in with Facebook" option and downloaded the app. I was now ready to explore what hotels.com had to offer over booking directly with the hotels.

10% Discount

The first obvious benefit was their 10% discount using MOBA (no longer valid at the time of this writing) within the app. From that point on, I was saving roughly $50 a week.

Free Amenities 

I discovered this by mistake, and it may not work for all hotels. When I originally booked my room at Motel 6, I got a room with a microwave and fridge, which was an extra $3. When I began booking my room using hotels.com, I neglected to select the room with the desired amenities. Then when confirming my registration at the front desk, I simply asked them to add another day. Occasionally, staff would bring it up and try to modify my reservation, and as you may know, expedia doesn't allow hotels to tamper with your reservation in any way (ahh bummer). I became familiar with the staff after staying a while and tried my damnedest to avoid the ones that noticed the slight flaw in my reservation. Considering that room was often unavailable online, I couldn't have corrected my mistake even if I tried, so I kept the room, saving an extra $21 a week. I was now saving a total of $71 a week.

Waiving Extra Person Fee

Motel 6 has a $10 free for a second person, and I had a friend living with me. I just didn't bring her up at first, but after staying a while, and to avoid feeling like a prisoner while I'm at work, she really needed her own key. As previously mentioned, the hotel is unable to modify my registration when made through expedia, so they just gave me an extra key. That's a whopping $70 savings a week!

Conclusion

Booking through hotels.com saved me $141 a week or roughly $600 a month.  There are even better ways to save through hotels.com, but that's another post for a later time.