Hotel and Travel Deals Blog

The Springtime destinations continue to churn out enticing new deals, and our editors sort through a bunch of e-mail promotions so you don’t have to. Enjoy,

The DealBase.com Team (Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter & Facebook!)

Las Vegas – $139 & up/night (47% savings)

Palazzo Hotel & Casino (5-star)

Exclusive Online-Only Suite Package includes a complimentary upgrade to a Luxury View Suite, $25 in slot credits, and a free line pass and admission to their LAVO nightclub. In addition, the following discounts are available: 2-for-1 Maverick Helicopter tour of the Strip, $30 off any service of 50 minutes or more at the Canyon Ranch SpaClub, a complimentary glass of wine at Morels French Steakhouse with entree purchase, and 20% off your bill at the Dal Toro Ristorante.

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Nowadays you don’t have to be a high roller to stay like a high roller in Vegas’ most luxurious hotel suites. Once reserved as comps for high rollers, these sweet suites are available to anyone willing to slap down the big bucks. With sky-high pools, basketball courts, bowling alleys, and more, let the party come to you:

• Bellagio, Villas: Opulence at its greatest and the numbers alone prove it: 6,500 to 8,500 (sq ft); 130 (staff dedicated to the nine villas); 3-7 (beds/baths); $6,000 (one night room rate). These “lavish estates” also include a private workout room, massage room, sauna room, hair salon, kitchen, fully stocked bar, fireplaces, marble floors, Michael Kors products, and in true regal style—your own private pool and spa.

  

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Hotel surcharges used to mean one of two things: taxes or supplemental add-ons you chose to pay extra for. Not any more. The trend of charging additional fees—whether hidden or not—for previously standard inclusions is on the rise. It’s now the norm for hotels to rack up a slew of hotel fees onto that seemingly inexpensive per night base rate, leaving you with a check-out bill that could make you feel cheated.

Along with “for your convenience” Resort Fees (as Vegas’ Luxor reservations website rationalizes it), hotels are getting creative with hidden hotel fees like:

• Automatic Gratuities,
  
• Early Departure Fees,
  
• Daily Parking Fees,
• Visitor Parking Fees,
  
• Facilities Usage Fees,
  
• Fitness Room Fees,
• Mini-Bar Restocking Fees,
  
• Package Delivery Fees,
  
• Turndown Charges,
  
• Pet Fees (both 1-time and nightly),
• Safe Usage
• Energy Surcharge
• even an “Under-25 Fee”—a $54 surcharge for guests 24 and under (at the Grand Oasis Cancun).
  

The list goes on. These hidden hotel fees are leaving guest in a huff as the costs add up, especially when they are listed in very fine print—or not listed at all. Read the rest of this entry »

Put away your Spanish Dictionary, as Belize is [gasp] an English-speaking country! Just south of the tourist-jammed Mexican Mayan Riviera, Belize is an adventure traveler’s dream—adventures under the ocean, atop a rainforest, or within a cave system. And with a slogan like “Mother Nature’s Best Kept Secret” (Belize has inadvertently remained untouched by massive tourism bouts) it’s no wonder that Belize is gradually—yet quietly—rising to become another hip eco-tourism destination. Read the rest of this entry »

Costa Rica is finally sharing the limelight with its neighbors as other Central American countries are catching the eyes of budget travelers interested in adventure, beach, and culture. These countries are meeting the demand for low-cost vacations in proximity to home with offering a slew of new ecotourism, diving, and spa themed hotel properties. So it couldn’t have been a better time to launch DealBase’s Central America hotels section. Each week we’ll be highlighting a different Central American destination. Viva Central America!

Happy Earth Day! Spring is in full bloom with new deals and prices that seem to drop every week. We even list one of our many Eco-Friendly deals (just look for the tag when you’re searching). Questions? Comments? Keep them coming,

The DealBase.com Team
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Hotels have long been a hotly debated issue for being environmentally UN-friendly for their large scale energy usage and wasteful allowances. Times are changing though! In honor of this year’s globally-celebrated Earth Day, many hotels are growing greener and pledging to lower their emissions—some cutting back on free newspapers, others being part of an entire statewide eco movement—but all attempting to reduce their enormous carbon footprints to partake in the green movement. Here’s our roundup of how to save green with hotel deals that are getting green:

• Planting Trees: To help stomp out carbon footprints and assist in becoming a greener plant, the most popular eco-friendly hotel giveback is planting trees with guest’s hotel stays: the W’s “Spring Fling Package” includes a donation of 100 trees per night stay (in 2007 the hotel group alone planted 75,000 trees); Boulder, Colorado’s St. Julien Hotel & Spa is planting a tree for every person that joins their Facebook page (who said you couldn’t mesh one pop culture trend with an eco trend?); and even more traditional hotel brands, like the Fairmont, are hopping on the green bandwagon. Read the rest of this entry »

While the Caribbean’s turquoise waters and tropical air continue to entice American travelers and remain a DealBase favorite, Cuba remains a virtually untouched neighboring stranger to American travelers. With President Obama in office, and his recent trip to the Summit of the Americas, daily news coverage on the possibility of the American travel ban to Cuba being lifted grows. If lifted (Cuba has “no problema” with American tourists visiting), Cuba could be the next best affordable, exotic beach, and cultural destination in the Americas. Read the rest of this entry »

This week we updated our site with a couple new filtering methods on our city and hotel pages, that our users have been asking for:

- Filtering by a deal’s minimum required nights: If you know you’re only staying for 2 nights somewhere, make your browsing more efficient by leaving out any deals that require stays of 3 nights or longer. For example, if you’re planning a quick jaunt to Hawaii for the weekend, enter Hawaii in the search bar, and then use the dropdown list as shown below.

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Short-lived were the days when a hotel was considered Geek Chic for its free WiFi, flat-screen TVs, and iPod docks as hotel amenities. Enter the neo-Geek Chic era where a wide array of fancy gadgetry amenities is what’s putting hotels in the spotlight. These savvy high-tech hotel gadgets are what all hotel frequenters—business and leisure travelers, family and solo travelers—are pining for. Business travelers need them, leisure travelers want them, and young travelers don’t know how to live without them. Everyone’s embracing their inner neo-Geek Chic especially in hotels where Geek Chic rules:

• Electronic TV Mirrors: For those Geek Chic trainees, this is an LCD TV hidden behind a mirror. The St. Regis Washington D.C. was refurbished last year with these high-tech gadgets in their bathroom mirrors. Watching the news while shaving or putting on make-up becomes an effortless 2-for-1 task and when you’re done watching, simply press the OFF button and the image fades away. You stay of course.

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