VTince W.

So, I recently got invited to join this membership access discount travel site, and had some time to take a whirl.

This company is called Hotels Etc. The way they work is that they have several search engines within their site so you can search for the best deal. Here's the good and the bad of how its set up.

Lets start with the bad. In order to get these discounts that are lower than other travel sites, you have to pay a membership fee of $199 a year, which, in my opinion, is fairly reasonable. The problem is that once you gain access to their site, you spend a lot of time searching through each of their "search engines" to compare which one gives the best deal. I think its a bit annoying more than anything if I paid a membership, but then I spend so much time searching to find a deal that I get discouraged. So, overall, if they were to be able to combine all their search engine in an easy to use single search, the user experience will be much, much greater.

Now aside from the above mentioned, if you put you time into it. You will definitely find discounts on hotels, etc. through one of their search engines. Here's the catch tho, if you previously found the best rate on their "red" search engine, it might not be the case for another hotel, so you must search through all of their search engines provided. As another thing to mention, I have corporate discounts from my day-to-day job, which has deals that beat Priceline, Travelocity, Kayak, etc. and Hotels Etc. does give a bit better deal than my corporate discount site, which is nice.

Overall, if you dont have access to any corporate discount sites, and are willing to put in some time to navigate Hotels Etc. site and search through their search engines, this may be something to consider in saving some money while travelling.