Need a motel or hotel? Use an app.

My phone is fast becoming my ‘go to’ tool for everything. For some tasks I have downloaded Apps – and soon discovered which ones were worth keeping. If I’m needing accommodation my favourite at the moment is Booking.com .

If I think I’m going to need accommodation somewhere I simply select the location, the dates I need and the number of guests and rooms required. It then offers me a range of options. Search results can be filtered to put things like most popular, most reviews, distance from town, number of stars, review scores at the top. Usually I sort by price – lowest to highest – and I always choose somewhere with no deposit and free cancellations up to a couple of days before travelling. It does require a credit card number to confirm the booking but most places don’t want actual payment until the stay. Of course, if I didn’t cancel and didn’t turn up there is usually a one day’s charge.

I have found the free cancellation very useful. It has allowed me to book well ahead to be certain that we do have beds when going to a big event eg the North Island Colgate Games for children’s athletics held in Hawkes Bay in January. Closer to the time I was able to look again and find a better option which I booked before cancelling the first.
Booking.com is also useful for spur of the moment holidays as hotels, motels and other accommodation providers will list rooms at a reduced price to hopefully fill their rooms at a time of low demand.

Property facilities are listed and are worth checking. We recently went to a wedding in central Wellington and chose to book where a carpark was available.. As there were limited parks we did have to request one in advance. I had forgotten that after the recent earthquake several Wellington parking buildings were out of action. The accommodation was walking distance to the wedding so we had no additional transport costs and our car was in a secure park the whole time for a small additional charge.

We could also request a room with a window! This was, I think, a converted office building and not all rooms had windows. We only needed the room to sleep for the few hours left after a night of celebrating and a shower to help wake up the next day so we did without a window.

Need to check the location? A link to Google Maps pops up with the place marked so it’s easy to work out where it is in relation to anywhere else you need to go. If we were off to the Michael Fowler Centre or Wellington Town Hall and needed overnight accommodation, I would rebook in this place. Past bookings are stored in the App, so it would be easy to find again. You are also able to Review your stay. This place had the unusual distinction of being the first we’ve ever found earplugs thoughtfully provided! We didn’t use them and didn’t need them but it did give us a laugh.

Kaye Lally, Age Hacker