How I Use Google Hotels To Save Time

When deciding where to stay on vacation, you often have a lot more choices than finding a points deal to fly to your destination. This can lead to analysis paralysis and spending extra time checking each hotel chain’s website to see who has nice properties in the area at a decent value for your points or cash. 

I’ve used Google Hotels to streamline this process and reduce the number of websites I need to visit when finalizing lodging plans, so let’s take a look at how you can save time by using Google Hotels when planning your next vacation.

What is Google Hotels?

Google Hotels is Google’s response to websites like Trivago, which compare hotels and nightly cash rates across multiple online travel agencies to provide you with the lowest price. 

If you’ve ever used SkyScanner to find flight deals, Google Hotels is very similar in functionality. Additionally, it offers some advanced filters that I find pretty helpful when searching, which we’ll discuss later. 

When you first open the Google Hotels website, the search engine will look for hotels near your location. But it’s very easy to key in your desired destination and start filtering from there for your next desired stay.

I like using Google Hotels because it’s a familiar interface to Google Flights, which is my favorite tool for booking airfare. When you click on ‘View prices’, you’ll find a list of all the OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) and their respective prices.

If you’re booking a chain hotel, this is also a great way to see if you can take advantage of any Best Rate Guarantees they may offer.

How I Use Google Hotels to Save Time When Planning Vacations

As I’ve dipped my toes into US Credit Cards, I’ve got a plethora of points options between Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy, and World of Hyatt. And with all my work travels, I’ve even accrued a few points with Wyndham Rewards, Choice Privileges, IHG One Rewards, and Sandman RSVP Rewards as well. Searching all of those sites individually is a pain when I’m exploring a new destination and have no idea which brands have a presence in the city I need to stay in. 

Once I search a city in Google Hotels, my first stop is always to the Brands filter, and while Sandman hotels aren’t included in this list of filters yet, I can still cover most of my bases.

Because I have a baseline understanding of what hotel points are worth, I can generally estimate which properties will be within my ‘points budget’ or even within range for a Marriott 35K Free Night Certificate.

As a reminder, you should be aiming for the following values for your hotel points:

For example, we can see that the Civic Hotel, Autograph Collection in Surrey has a nightly rate of around $440, and the points price is above our recommended value, as you only need 40,000 points to redeem for a night here.

There are plenty of examples where the point prices won’t line up like this, so you’ll still need to check some websites as you approach a final decision. But you can at least rule out some brands that you won’t need to search if they don’t have any properties of interest, or you know they’ll be too expensive.

The Other Best Features of Google Hotels

In addition to the handy brand feature, there are several other aspects I appreciate about Google Hotels compared to using Google Maps. Namely, it’s easy to change the currency displayed. You can do this at the very bottom of the list of hotels.

I also frequently use the filters for free cancellation and adjusting the price range. I’m a big believer in free cancellation as there can always be points deals or something better that pops up close to your travel dates. But it’s also not in everyone’s appetite to continue searching for hotels after you’ve made an initial booking.

You can also track any price changes easily by activating the price tracking toggle switch. Google Hotels will automatically email you if rates in the area you were searching drop. You can have multiple trackers running, and add or reset trackers by turning off the tracker, resetting your dates and city, then toggling it back on.

The last feature I want to discuss is one that I’ve only recently seen introduced: filtering by vacation rentals. While this filter won’t pick up every single vacation rental available, it will give you a taste of what’s in the area, and you can filter down from there. 

I often find that Airbnb can provide an excellent return if you use a gift card purchased from a grocery store with an American Express Cobalt card while clicking through the British Airways shopping portal for bonus points.

Conclusion

Google Hotels is the most comprehensive tool with an easy-to-use interface that I’ve found for exploring lodging options in a city when I want to compare multiple brands. It’s saved me a lot of time searching, as I used to visit each hotel chain’s website individually. 

While my attempts at Best Rate Guarantees have been thwarted by fine print, it’s also an excellent tool to find opportunities to maximize pricing anomalies.