Tips for travelling Southeast Asia: The best way to save money on hotels or hostels for budget backpacking or travellers

To save money on travelling, you will need to know how to look for deals to save on hotels or hostels when you’re travelling the world. Whether it’s on an adventurous exploration or a relaxing escape, I’ll show you a few ways I’ve managed to snag deals while I was travelling for the last 5 years!

Agoda App

This was my number one way of getting major steals around the countries I’ve visited. Best of all, you get Agoda Cash back for every booking you make and you can spend that on your next stay. 

Agoda is a well established and recognized app that every country knows. It’s no wonder they are so highly rated. They also have bargaining power which allows them to offer the lowest deals compared to other booking apps. 

Customer service is great too. Every country has a phone number you can call in case you run into a problem with the booking or the hostel/hotel is not up to advertised standard. This has happened to me a few times and every time Agoda stepped up for me and helped me find a new booking or provided a quick refund! I love them and 100% recommend Agoda.

Here are some tips: 

1. If you have a second device that can install the Agoda app, bring it. I’ve found that on my iPad it showed a cheaper price for the same stay compared to when I view it on my phone. I’m not sure how that happens, but it does.  Also they provide promo coupons randomly and you can receive double the amount of coupons if you have a second device!
2. Before booking a stay, check google reviews for the real reviews. Booking apps have a tendency to rank negative reviews lower and bury them. They want to support their business, so they’ll apply tactics like that. On google you can find real photos of the place and real ratings. Google is more accurate and owner’s photos are always edited to make the place look way better than it is. 

Save a stay as ‘Favourite’ on the app, this usually generate coupons. 

TIP: If you’re planning to check out another city, preview that city’s bookings ahead of time and then don’t check again. 

What happens is that the app will send you a discount code via the app to entice you to book in a few days, making your overall savings worth it!

Inquire in person for deals

If you have the time and are not due to check out in a couple days or so, walk around the neighbour hood to check other hotel’s ‘walk-in price’ and see if it’s cheaper. They generally are higher than what a booking app can provide, however you can try to negotiate. But from all honesty, no one really does this since it’s time consuming but deals can be had sometimes.

Tip for the backpacker:

Make sure not to filter out hotel stays on the app. You’ll find sometimes the hotels in Indonesia are $2 more than your hostel dormitory stay. This is great because sometimes you need a little alone time to rejuvenate when you’re on the road, trust me. :)