To haggle or not to haggle

Travel question of the week

Dear Rolf,

I am about to embark on a trip to Eastern Europe, and I was just wondering if I should be bargaining over the cost of hostel and hotel stays.

—Mark H., Elk Rapids

----------

Dear Mark,

It's worth the effort to bargain over your hotel prices anywhere in the world you travel, including the United States.  Naturally, the effectiveness of your haggling will vary according to season. Haggling over rooms is rather pointless during festivals, public events, or tourist high season, for example, since rooms are often full and difficult to find.  (In fact, it's often wise to make hotel or hostel reservations in advance under these circumstances, since rooms can be hard to find at any price during festivals and high season.)

On the other hand, bargaining for the price of your room is worth a try most any other time of year — especially during tourist low season (this means non-Christmas winter-time in Eastern Europe).  Indeed, outside of high season, hotels are a buyer's market, since empty rooms are of no use to hotel operators.  Hence, any desk clerk who has you in his lobby is going to want to keep you from wandering off to stay with a competitor, and this gives you leverage in bargaining.  If you can't get a simple discount for a single night, there are other haggling options, such as requesting an upgraded room for a basic room price, asking for a discount if you pay in cash, or re-negotiating room prices for a multi-night stay.  (Just remember to keep the bargaining process friendly, since logic and charm count for more than "hardball" manipulation.)

This bargaining advice applies to hostels as well as hotels — but sometimes hostels are a harder bargain, since standardized prices often apply to people who stay in common rooms.

Since I've heard some rumors of thieving going on in hostels on the Eastern Europe backpacking circuit (which means you should add a padlock to your travel gear), I'll add another suggestion, courtesy of my Slovenia-based travel friend Kristin Pedroja.  "Another cheap option," she told me in an email, "is to find rooms in flats.  Agencies in city centers in Tallin, Skopje, and throughout Hungary, Croatia, Poland, Slovakia, and Czech all have private rooms on offer that are far cheaper than hotels and usually cleaner and safer.  Sometimes it's possible to get a free breakfast from the family, as well as a nice perspective on how the locals live."

On a final note, when you arrive in Eastern Europe, be sure to keep an eye out for In Your Pocket City Guides, which are a great resource for numerous travel concerns (including lodging) in that part of the world.