A woman approached me in the street the other day and said: "I've come to London and I'm staying in a £200 a night Hilton hotel for £70".
She got this discount by turning detective on sites that offer 'secret' hotel deals.
If you're staying in a big city, these secret hotels – where you aren't told the name till you've paid – can seriously undercut usual prices. Plus, the US site Hotwire.com has recently joined the UK's Lastminute.com in offering secret hotel deals worldwide.
When you look at these secret hotels online, websites will only publish the rough location, star, price and a description.
But the sites often use similar descriptions to those on the hotels' own websites. So, by cutting and pasting key words into Google, you can often work out what hotel it actually is.
Once revealed, you can see if you really want to stay there and check if it really is a bargain by looking for cheaper prices for that deal on comparison sites – more help on this can be found at: www.moneysavingexpert.com/hotels
