The George V– one of the best hotels in Paris.

Regardless of where you stay, hotels in Paris tend to be expensive, so it pays to do a little trip planning in advance to make sure you’re getting the most for your money. Whether you’re paying top dollar or traveling on a budget, your room will likely be smaller than you thought it would be – especially the bathroom. And unless you reserved one of the best rooms, your view may be a disappointment too.

Although you certainly want your room to comfortable, clean, and attractive, chances are that you won’t spend much time there.

Location will affect the price as much as anything. Most Paris luxury hotels are located in the 1st arrondissement, near the Louvre or the Champs Elysees. Inexpensive hotels are located further from the heart of the city, although there are some bargains in the Latin Quarter, St.-Germain-des-Pres, the Ile St.-Louis, and the Marais. As a rule, the longer the Metro ride to get to Paris attractions, the cheaper the hotel.

The Right Bank is where you’ll find haute couture shops and five-star restaurants. The Left Bank is more Bohemian with atmospheric wine bars and bistros.

When to go to Paris, if you want to save money.

Traveling off season will also get you a better deal. Although most French people travel in July and August, it’s peak season for American tourists. And Christmas and New Year’s are always popular. June and September will be a little less expensive. March, April, October, and November offer the best deals.

If you’re coming in summer, make sure your hotel has air conditioning – many don’t. And if you’re coming in winter, be prepared for colder temperatures than you’d expect.

The best hotels in Paris are usually full all year long, so if you want to stay in a smaller hotel that’s a good value, make your reservations several months in advance. Otherwise, you may be disappointed.

Don’t put too much stock in the hotel’s star rating. Given by the government, these are awarded based on service and amenities, not overall quality. A two-star hotel without an elevator can be a lot nicer than a three-star one with an elevator and a restaurant.

View from a Paris hotel room.

Paris hotels don’t have the same amenities as American ones. Alarm clocks, for example, are fairly uncommon. So if there’s something specific that you want in your room – such as Internet access – better confirm it in advance.

Breakfast in Paris can be expensive. So if you’re watching your Euros, choose a hotel that includes it in the room rate. Most places have a buffet with pastries, cheese, ham, fruit, hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, orange juice, and coffee.

For luxury hotels, travel websites like Luxury Link and Vactionist are the best places to look for bargains, especially if your dates are flexible. If you don’t want to spend a fortune, Priceline and late-booking sites like Last Minute Travel can save you quite a bit.

The George V– one of the best hotels in Paris Image Flickr:  Alan Light
View from a Paris hotel room Image Flickr: Jeff Keen

B&B.com

But if you’re not made of money — and who is these days – it’s also important to get the most for your travel dollars. If you can find inexpensive hotels that suit your requirements, you can splurge on an expensive meal, buy yourself a nice souvenir, or stay an extra day or two.

It’s easy to find cheap hotels. But finding good ones is another matter. So here’s our advice for how to find hotels deals that won’t leave you regretting your choice.

1) Try a local website. It costs hotels – either directly or in the form of commissions – to appear on some websites. The large chains can negotiate the price and take it out of their marketing budgets. But most mom-and-pop properties can’t afford it. Remember, the more a hotel spends on marketing, the more they have to charge for their rooms.

Most destinations have local websites that include hotel listings. Try the local chamber of commerce, visitor’s bureau, or tourism board. The cost to advertise or be listed on these sites is very reasonable — in some cases, it’s free. So more hotels can afford to be represented.

2) Look for a directory. Doing a Google search for + directory will usually give you the results you’re looking for.

3) Don’t be put off if a hotel doesn’t have its own website. Although it’s great to be able to find out more about a place, there are plenty of terrific places out there that still don’t have a website. And plenty of awful ones that do.

Venere

5) As a rule, bed and breakfasts are less expensive than conventional hotels, so if you don’t need all the services a hotel offers, try one of the B&B sites. Breakfast is usually included in the room rate and you can often enjoy really nice accommodations for a lot less.

6) Once you find a hotel that’s the right price, make sure the location is right. Saving a little money won’t matter if you spend it all on transportation or if it takes you hours to get where you want to go.

NH Directory

8) Finally, use your common sense. You’ve heard it a thousand times, but it’s true — anything that sounds too good to be true probably is. So don’t book anything that’s ridiculously inexpensive. There’s bound to be a reason for that.

If you follow these simple tips, you should be able to find inexpensive hotels that are attractive, clean, and comfortable wherever you go.

Read more hotel tips here.

Back in the old days, when you were going somewhere, you went to a travel agency, and they arranged everything for you.

They reserved your flights, hotels, and rental car with a Computerized Reservations System (CRS) like Sabre or Apollo. And when they were done, out popped a written itinerary showing every detail of your travels – in triplicate.

They folded it in thirds, tucked it into your ticket jacket along with your ticket – this is the old days we’re talking about – and you were all set. All your confirmation numbers, hotel addresses and phone numbers, etc. in one place.

But those days are long gone, and if you’re like most of us, you make your reservations yourself, online. Consequently, you have emails from all over confirming your arrangements. And while you really should carry all those hardcopies with you, shuffling through them to find what you’re looking for is a bad idea.

It’s much smarter to create an itinerary that shows all your travel arrangements at a glance. There are several travel websites that will help you do this, such as Tripit or NileGuide. But for years, I’ve used an Excel spread sheet to create an itinerary that lists everything I need to know on a couple of pages.

It ain’t pretty. But it’s fast and easy to do, free, and over the years it’s saved us countless hassles.

We always pack a copy in each of our bags, especially if we’re checking them. If our bag does get misplaced, the itinerary shows where we’ll be, when. It also provides contact information so we can be reached anywhere.

Twice, this has helped us recover our bags quickly. In Buenos Aires, our bag was returned to us in hours because the itinerary made us easy to locate.

Here’s the template I use. It describes in detail a week’s worth of travel arrangements – flights, hotels, transfers, tours, dinner reservations, ferries, and more – on a single 8-1/2” x 11” piece of paper.

You can do it any way you like, but here’s why I like this layout:

1) Numbering the days makes it easy to figure out things like how much the pet sitter will cost or how many days to stop newspaper delivery. And once I get a total trip cost, it’s easy to calculate the per diem.

2) Showing the days of the week alerts me to possible closures that may impact what we can do. In many places, most things are closed on Sundays, so that’s a good day to visit the museums. Many museums are closed on Mondays, so I’ll check to see when they’re open and make sure we have time for a visit on Sunday or Tuesday. It’s also helpful to know when you’re going to be somewhere on a weekend. As a rule, you’re more likely to need reservations for restaurants, clubs, sightseeing cruises, etc. on Saturday night. If you’re in town on a Tuesday, you might be able to get by without them.

3) The rest is pretty self-explanatory. There’s room for detailed contact information and confirmation numbers, as well as any additional notes.

We email the itinerary to friends and family so they’ll know where we’ll be and leave a copy for the pet sitter in case she needs to reach us. I use a yellow marker to highlight the hotel names and telephone numbers.

Find more trip planning ideas here.

Times have been tough for hotels lately. Their occupancy has been way down. And when their occupancy rates are low, all their other revenue streams – food and beverages, spa services, etc. – suffer too.

Most luxury hotels have big mortgages or management fees that are due every month. So they have to fill their rooms. And sometimes, the only way to do it is to really slash their prices.

So where can you find these great deals and save a bundle at a five-star hotel? Here are three travel websites that specialize in selling luxury travel at a discount.

An online luxury travel auction website.

Luxury Link auctions off travel packages to the highest bidder. You need to register to bid, and unlike at eBay, the auction doesn’t end at a specific time if people are still bidding. This is a nice feature because no one can come in and outbid you at the last second. Discounts are up to 65% off and all their properties have been vetted by their staff.

Luxury Link

Many of their packages include several nights in a suite or superior room, plus extras like massages, dinner one night, or a sightseeing activity or excursion.

In addition to hotels and resorts, Luxury Link also has deals on cruises and tours. And they also have packages you can buy at a pre-determined discounted price.

Read all the fine print carefully, because your bid is binding, and sometimes the packages are only available for certain nights of the week. Check before you bid to make sure your dates are available.

We’ve used Luxury Link several times and have always been very pleased with the accommodations and the value for money.

An invitation-only travel website.

Some of the most successful web businesses the past couple of years have been invitation-only shopping sites. Now Gilt Groupe, one of the pioneers in discount high fashion, has launched Jetsetter.com.

Jetsetter

Although the site is billed as invitation only, we put ourselves on the waiting list and received an invitation two days later. So don’t despair if you don’t know any members.

The way Jetsetter works is that they send you an email of travel sales each day. So far, the discounts seem to be around 50% off the rack rate. And an availability calendar lets you check your dates there and then.

Sales usually last two days or until the inventory sells out. If you can’t make a decision on the spot, you can place a hold on a room for 72 for 10% of the purchase price. It’s applied to the price if you travel, or credited to your account if you don’t.

We haven’t used Jetsetter yet, but they were offering rooms at Le Meurice in Paris for $295 less than their web site.

A travel website that analyzes the saving for you.

Dealbase

Dealbase combs the web for travel deals and then analyzes and quantifies them for you. They compare the offered price to other available rates – including the average 30-day price on hotels.com – and then show you how much you’ll really save.

We used it to compare Honolulu hotels and ended up booking our hotel through it. Right now, the number of places it covers is limited, but they are expanding into other markets.

Read more trip planning advice here.