The receptionist in the hotel lobby smiled.

The receptionist in the hotel lobby smiled.

I had just asked: "Is there any possibility of a room upgrade?"
"Yes," she answered cheerfully!

And just like that, the vacation got a nice little upgrade of its own.

In the middle of July, when hotels are fully booked, trying to negotiate a lower price is a losing battle. The smart move is to negotiate for higher value.

Personally, I’m all about the balcony and the ocean view.

For someone else, it might be late checkout. Free breakfast. Complimentary parking.

Don't get blinded by the price tag. Often, the best deals are made by expanding the value pie, not cutting the price.

• What can be added?
• What can be optimized?
• What can create a true win-win outcome?

How about you? Are you flexing your negotiation muscles during the off-season? I love the art of the deal and experiment constantly.

Drop your best negotiation hacks in the comments below, let's trade strategies!

I'd post a funny yt short about intense asian haggling, but someone will report me again for 'derailing' since it's not the saloon. But basically yeah, that's how you do it... I haggled thrice, basing my request on we're not paying Booking fees, we're not paying tax because I pay in cash, etc, etc, only room / apartment fee + cleaning / service fee. Plus they know we plan to return regularly and this time it's 2 months so together 5 months total so yeah, they prefer to keep us and have the apartment occupied. They gave us cheaper, higher floor and slightly bigger.

Anyone else having any pro tips or just me again? I remember also @indianmojojojo had very good tips in Platinum eh.

SilverClouds said:

I'd post a funny yt short about intense asian haggling, but someone will report me again for 'derailing' since it's not the saloon.

Click to expand...

Damn what??? Whoever did that is a little bitch. Report button should be for bigger issues like scam ads or some shit not cause someone posted a vid.

SilverClouds said:

But basically yeah, that's how you do it... I haggled thrice, basing my request on we're not paying Booking fees, we're not paying tax because I pay in cash, etc, etc, only room / apartment fee + cleaning / service fee. Plus they know we plan to return regularly and this time it's 2 months so together 5 months total so yeah, they prefer to keep us and have the apartment occupied. They gave us cheaper, higher floor and slightly bigger.

Anyone else having any pro tips or just me again? I remember also @indianmojojojo had very good tips in Platinum eh.

Click to expand...

Yea what @Dopious posted was solid af and how you do it. What you did was pretty solid too.

Me? I suck ass at negotiating. I basically always forget and just pay sticker price for everything lol.

Sometimes I’m just trying to get on with my day and don’t want to negotiate on everything but I know I should do it more often.

Margins are so tight these days and sales people need the commission due to constant price increases I think it's hard to negotiate a decent price these days, I think it's better off to try and just get something bundled in or thrown in for free or as a token gesture.

Only time I go pushing for a deal now is if I go buying 2nd hand and have the ability to buy there and then, i.e having the right amount of money, be able to do a bank transfer etc. The old "how much for cash" doesn't carry much weight anymore.

I prefer to trade rather than haggle a discount. I'll give you Y for Z off you.

Here I thought you managed to score in a different way.

Still a score so nice one!

shattered world said:

Damn what??? Whoever did that is a little bitch. Report button should be for bigger issues like scam ads or some shit not cause someone posted a vid.

Click to expand...

Hahahah, I'm thinking people must report each other like crazy, mods' dashboard must look interesting lol. Honestly I wouldn't care to report too much since I'm not earning here, it's all a big saloon so far. People should chill a bit. I guess these same people later send fake DMCAs/copy strikes to their competitors on youtube and google.

shattered world said:

Yea what @Dopious posted was solid af and how you do it. What you did was pretty solid too.

Me? I suck ass at negotiating. I basically always forget and just pay sticker price for everything lol.

Sometimes I’m just trying to get on with my day and don’t want to negotiate on everything but I know I should do it more often.

Click to expand...

Yep, I'm not very used to haggling. Usually I'd just shop around / go to another cheaper store than haggle and my polish clients do the same mostly, although some of them negotiate but most don't, they assume it's final price. But I see here in Asia there's a bit of haggling culture, somehow worked in my favour this time. Still learning how to haggle though. But I remember in Sri Lanka jeweler was also 'tell me your best price' and I basically just wanted to leave the store since my card was running empty soon hahaha. But I see that if I actually wanted something it'd be possible to haggle down perhaps. So I guess you can mix both of these things, no? In places that you can haggle at do that, sometimes switch stores (like idk I prefer to go to Guardian or even same beauty products at grocery store are couple ringgit cheaper than Watsons in Malaysia) and last resort if you have to, use these loyalty cards, Revolut points, Amex, airline miles etc, etc. Somehow this post went 'how to save in general'.

Most of the time, the only kind of negotiation I do with hotels is if I'm staying for an extended number of days, which I think is actually already pretty common.

But I guess the thing is if you don't ask, they will not tell you that you could get that deal and you could end up paying full price while the next person gets a better deal than you just because they asked for it : )

So I think it's probably just better to ask at least even if it's not about haggling. You never know

I posted this thread as a value-added marketing theme to talk about how we all can add value instead of doing sales that affect the profits when customers is wanting more from us, hmm.