So, what a cool thing it is to have most hotel booking sites offering discounted stays at 5 star hotels. The only drawback being...... you don’t find out the name of the hotel or it’s location until after you have parted with your hard earned.
It’s a pretty sweet deal but many people still baulk at the unknown aspect of it – what if it is far away from where I want to be? What if I’m somehow being ripped off? Well, I reckon there are 4 easy to spot clues that can help you narrow down the guesswork so you can be relatively sure you know which hotel you’re getting before you pay.
NOTE: I’m not saying this is foolproof. It may be a bit like Sex Panther (works 60% of the time, every time for those of you who appreciate the Anchorman reference) but for I reckon I get it pretty spot on.
So the way I do it is firstly I have a look at the description page for the relevant Secret Hotel. I’m going to go over the page and find any characteristics that may make this unidentified hotel stand out from the crowd.
Clue 1: It’s self rated – So my line of thinking says that I can eliminate any hotel that is not 5 star self rated. Easy!
Clue 2: ‘Centre of the Shops and more’– ok so it’s in the middle of the shopping area of the city from which I ever so smartly deduce that it not on the outskirts. Its closest attraction is the shopping district which rules out plenty of others.
Clue 3: Check Out times - In by 2pm, out by 11am. Easy. We can use this to eliminate hotels with different check in / out times.
Clue 4: Hotel Facilities – I try to find the aspect that is most unusual. For the example shown it is an outdoor heated pool. Not too many hotels have these so searching specifically for hotels with this feature really narrows possibilities down.
After collecting all these clues the task becomes easy. We use the search function and enter in all our clues. From this we take the number of possibilities down from 165 (all rated hotels in Sydney) to 35 (5 star rated) to 8 (swimming pool, sauna, day spa, 24 hour reception). From these only 5 are self rated not including the Secret Hotel. But!! Only 1 of the 5 self rated hotels have an outdoor heated swimming pool. Voila!!
This means our secret hotel advertised as ‘5 Star CBD Sydney, centre of the shops and more’ for $245 a night on the 22nd of March 2012 is, in my opinion, is the Swissotel Sydney, located in Market St above the Pitt St mall. Now their regular price
