Using a hotel-bought voucher with booking.com?

Hi guys,

First off, apologies if this is the wrong forum.

I can't seem to get an answer on the interwebs, so figured I'd ask here.


If I buy a voucher for a hotel (say €100 to keep it simple), and I then, 6 months down the line decide to use the voucher, but Booking.com is working out substantially cheaper than the hotel's own site, can I book a room on Booking.com and pay on arrival with the hotel's own voucher?


Presuming this changes from place to place, is it best to ask the hotel will they match a booking.com price (before mentioning the voucher) or is there a better way to handle it (dont want to book a hotel hoping they might take the voucher, but instead say it's not valid for rooms booked through external sites, and kick me out).


(note: the "me" in this story is actually a friend, but its just easier to tell it from a first person perspective).


Cheers

Batgurl

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Hi guys,

First off, apologies if this is the wrong forum.

I can't seem to get an answer on the interwebs, so figured I'd ask here.


If I buy a voucher for a hotel (say €100 to keep it simple), and I then, 6 months down the line decide to use the voucher, but Booking.com is working out substantially cheaper than the hotel's own site, can I book a room on Booking.com and pay on arrival with the hotel's own voucher?


Presuming this changes from place to place, is it best to ask the hotel will they match a booking.com price (before mentioning the voucher) or is there a better way to handle it (dont want to book a hotel hoping they might take the voucher, but instead say it's not valid for rooms booked through external sites, and kick me out).


(note: the "me" in this story is actually a friend, but its just easier to tell it from a first person perspective).


Cheers

Nope booking won't allow that as then they would make any commission on it.

Best to call the hotel, ask them to match it, get the agreed price in writing/email and don't mention the voucher til arrival.

Hey Batgurl,


I appreciate the reply.

I was flicking around the sites and trying to work out ways of pulling the wool over their eyes and eventually just said 'feck it, i'll ring them and ask them'. My thinking was if they say no, I'm not looking to stay there for a month or two, so I can try to sneak it upon them in a month or two when they won't remember me :P

But they said that you can pay in hotel-specific vouchers upon arrival if you wish, even though you've booked with an external site (booking.com). So they don't seem to care. Voucher is regarded to them as being money anyway, so.. yay.


(again, it's not actually me doing this, it's a friend, but it's just easier to write the post in first-person-perspective, instead of loads of "he said, they said", etc.)