Use a Comparison Website or Book Through Rapid, What Is The Difference?

When it comes to booking your contractor accommodation, what's better – booking through a major comparison website or booking through us here at Rapid Travel Group? We're biased, of course. But we'll do our best to stay a tiny bit objective. Indeed, let's look at three of the key elements of booking your business accommodation and how they compare. First up...

THE EXPERIENCE OF BOOKING

With a typical booking comparison website, the experience is always going to be different. Sometimes it'll be a right pain. But, to be fair, other times it'll be a breeze. It obviously depends on what mood you're in, how easy it is to navigate the website you've chosen to use and what deals they have listed. The best sites will make it easy for you. But still, if you're not in the mood, even the most user friendly website is going to cause you frustration. So, what's the experience like when you book through us here at Rapid? Well, in the first instance, you'll speak to an actual person. Someone who cares about helping you get things sorted. That's a major positive compared to a faceless website. Then there's the fact that you don't have to spend ages searching around a website for the best offer – we'll do that for you. That's another big win. And when it comes to the stay itself – if you have any problems, you can just call us. Try calling a major comparison website once you've given your card details over. On balance, we think it's fair to say the experience of booking with us is a bit nicer. But there are two other key factors to consider. Next...

THE TIME IS TAKES TO BOOK

Of course, there's the time it takes to find and book your accommodation. That's a huge factor to consider. When it comes to comparison websites, the actual booking is usually pretty speedy. At least, it is if you know all your credit card details off by heart, don't mind signing up for a million and one random offers and you knew exactly which hotel you were looking for. Of course, in reality, it's going to take you ages to find a decent hotel at a decent price, and that's just for yourself. If you're booking for a big group, that's going to take even longer. Then there's entering all the card details, various addresses and ticking boxes to say you DON'T want to receive random offers from irrelevant sponsors. On the flipside, with Rapid Travel Group, pretty much all of that goes out of the window. We'll do the searching for you. We'll book it all for you. And we can arrange invoices for you so you don't need to worry about any of it. If you were thinking that sounds like it could save you a lot of time… You'd be right. It could. In fact, here at Rapid, saving our clients time on contractor accommodation booking is one of our number one goals. Finally, then, there's the issue of cost...

THE COST OF BOOKING

On the face of it, it does probably seem cheaper to book your own business accommodation through a major booking site. Naturally, they profess to have various exclusive deals and deploy seemingly cunning money saving tactics. Let's be honest, you're bound to see prices crossed out all over the place and a new, 'cheaper' price presented. But in actual fact, this often isn't the case. Earlier this year the Competition and Markets Authority (a watchdog that keeps an eye on dodgy behaviour in the industry) found many comparison websites were using misleading tactics when it came to pricing. If that wasn't worrying enough, the fact is, some of the major comparison booking websites are based abroad and make it impossible for you to claim VAT on your business accommodation. This is something very few businesses think about, but can make a big difference. And then there's the simple fact that sometimes the best deals are frankly not found on comparison booking websites. Here at Rapid, we have developed a huge network with various different hotels and accommodation options that allow us to go direct and often get a more cost-effective solution overall. So, whether you consider the experience, the time you'll spend or the costs you'll incur, we think we're right to be biased... Booking through Rapid beats booking through a comparison website hands down. Call us on 0330 090 41 42 to talk more about how we can help you with your business accommodation booking and take a huge weight off your shoulders.