Is Cheaptickets the new “go-to” hotel site?

Cheaptickets used to be under the constellation of hotel sites owned by Orbitz, accessing the same inventory. Although they had good coupons, with consistent 20-25% off, the Orbitz rates were inflated, and good rates were hard to get.

Not too long ago, Cheaptickets started using the same hotel inventory as Expedia, Hotels.com, etc. I find that these sites are pretty good at having the lowest available rate. However, even though Cheaptickets rates have gotten substantially better, they still offer the same coupons that they previously offered! For example, today, with the coupon HOTCHEAP, you can get 20% off most hotels in their inventory. Considering the rates they now use are the same as Expedia’s, this can often present as the best available deal.

I’ll give you an example. We’ll search The Arc Hotel in Ottawa on August 17-18. Note that everything will be priced in USD, as that’s what Cheaptickets charges in.

If we do a Hotelscombined.com search (my favourite hotel comparison site), we see that hotels.com is the cheapest available site at $USD 127 pre-tax for the cheapest room. After tax, hotels.com is charging $USD 152.

Cheaptickets is charging $USD 127 for the cheapest room as well (with the same conditions as hotels.com). However, if we apply the 20% off coupon that’s currently available, we can bring that down substantially:

Now, hotels.com and other sites often have coupons as well, usually ranging between 10-15%. However, Cheaptickets consistently offers 20-25% off coupons, and considering that they can be applied to Expedia rates, which are usually the “lowest available rates,” this makes Cheaptickets my new go-to booking site for non-chain hotels (you can’t usually use coupons of chain hotels, and you wouldn’t get points, etc.).