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Looking for Phuket Hotels at Cheap Prices?
Cheap Phuket Hotels and how to find them is one of the most popular topics that I have heard discussed by local expats and tourists over the years. I have heard many people give the wrong advice on this how to find the best deals at cheap Phuket hotels.
I have lived in Phuket and worked in both the Phuket hotel industry as well as the Phuket travel industry. I believe that I can offer you correct advice on how to find good deals at cheap Phuket hotels.
Cheap Phuket hotels do not necessarily stand for bad quality hotels. By cheap Phuket hotels most people refer to when they are simply trying to get the best possible rate at one or several Phuket hotels.
Finding cheap Phuket hotels can depend on a number of factors:
What month are you planning to travel to Phuket?
- How long are you planning to stay in Phuket?
- What type of Phuket hotel are you looking for?
- How many rooms will you be requiring?
- Would you prepay for your Phuket hotel reservation?
The factors above and a large number of other aspects can influence the price of the cheap Phuket hotels however to simplify the topic I will only list the main aspects so that you can quickly go and find your cheap Phuket hotels.
The suggestions are listed directly below and the explanations for each are listed below that in case you are interested in how the system works in regards to finding cheap Phuket hotels.
- Phuket Guesthouse – Book directly with guesthouse as travel websites do not normally offer them. You can search Google by using Phuket guesthouse as a search phrase.
- High Season (December – April) – Best rates for cheap Phuket hotels are found with online travel websites.
- 5 star Phuket hotels – Generally always through the online travel companies.
- Low season – Best option is to contact hotels directly and bargain. You can always compare with rates from online hotel reservation websites afterwards. Low season in Phuket is from May until November.
- Staying more than 2 weeks? - Same as above.
- Prepaid Hotel Reservation – This is normally always required when booking through a Phuket online travel agent. If you do not wish to do so then you will need to book with the hotel directly.
- Will you need multiple rooms? Bargain directly with the hotels and special deals are often offered which the online hotel reservation websites can’t do.
Phuket Guesthouse
Generally the Phuket guesthouses found in popular resort towns such as Patong beach and Karon beach are not offered through online travel agents or through traditional travel agents and tour operators.
The average Phuket guesthouse normally only offers guest rooms which are clean and serviced daily however the guesthouse will normally not have any pool or other facilities.
If you do not need those hotel facilities then I suggest for you to look into reserving a room at a Phuket guesthouse as the prices are much lower than those of hotels while the quality of the rooms remain the same.
Recommended Patong Guest House! Baan TipTop!
A very nice and clean guest house in Patong that I can recommend is the Baan TipTop guesthouse which is run by Andre.
Andre is a great Dutch guy who can make some spectacular Dutch snacks. (Broodje Bal, Frikandel) The pictures on his website do not credit the guesthouse as it’s much nicer in real time.
Tourist High Season in Phuket
If you are looking for a hotel in Phuket in between the beginning of December until the end of April then please note that you will be travelling to Phuket during the high season.
High season basically means the period of the year when most tourists visit Phuket.
The absolute tourist peak season is from the last two weeks of December until the second half of January.
You will need to book months in advance if you want to stay in Phuket during the peak season and want any change of paying a reasonable rate for your Phuket hotel.
Most Phuket hotels are already sold out for this period when it comes to September or October.
Phuket hotels all increase their room rates during the high season considerably and for almost all Phuket hotels you are better off not booking directly with the hotel.
The prices for the cheap Phuket hotels that you are in the hunt for will not be available directly with the Phuket hotel of your choice.
The method to obtain cheap Phuket hotels during the high season is to book through one of the main online hotel reservation agents that are based in Thailand or have connections in Thailand.
Online travel giants such as Expedia or HRS can’t compete against the local travel sites.
The reason why the cheap Phuket hotels during the high season can be found at the Online booking sites is because the rates that these travel websites have are obtained through local hotel wholesalers.
These hotel wholesalers obtained these rates from the Thai hotels for dealing with overseas tour operators who then package hotel + flight + tours into a package deal.
To make the packages in anyway attractive, these tour operators get very attractive rates for Phuket hotels through the Thai hotel wholesalers.
The difference in price is most visible in the 5 star hotel segment in Phuket which leads to my recommendation that these upscale Phuket hotels should almost always be booked through the online hotel booking websites.
As these Phuket hotel wholesalers are able to send a large volume of clients to the hotels throughout the year, the hotels are not in a position to suddenly change the rates to these wholesalers by a very large margin during high season.
The online travel agencies obtain these low net rates which were intended for overseas tour operators. The online travel portals sell them online with only a small margin on top.
This has lead to the situation which we have seen the last few years which is that the hotel’s own websites often offer rooms at much higher rates than those found on the various online travel sites.
It’s worth noting that the hotels are no longer accepting this and steps are taken by many hotel management companies to stop offering contracts to those Thai hotel wholesalers who continue to offer these tour operator rates to online travel agencies.
Prepaid Phuket Hotel Rates
Many tourists visiting Asia will have noticed that many of the Asian online travel agencies only offer hotel reservations on a prepaid basis.
The Thai online hotel reservation companies inform their clients that this is required as the online travel agent needs to pay the hotel in advance for them to be able to obtain the special low hotel rate.
Unfortunately this excuse is a lie that almost all the online travel websites get away with. These online travel websites almost always only pay for your stay AFTER you have checked out already.
This brings up the question why these online travel sites should be getting your money 6 months in advance if you were booking that far ahead? They will simply have an interest free loan from you for that whole period.
You can try to find online agencies which only require a deposit or which allow for you to pay at your choice of cheap Phuket hotels directly however those are rare and you will discover that their rates are often considerably higher than those offered to you by prepaid online travel websites.
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