One Potential Source for Hotel Savings... AAA

With travel plans coming up, many people may be looking for a way to save a bit on lodging. Sources for good deals include hotels.com, travelworm and other sites that check for great rates at a variety of places. Many hotel sites also contain best rate guarantees on their home sites. But a couple of times that we've recently had to travel, we have found better rates available at AAA.

If you happen to be a member of AAA, it's worth seeing if this gets you some extra savings.

After we checked some specific hotel possibilities through searching hotels.com or similar sites, we would check those hotel sites directly and often found the same basic rates. But when we checked at AAA.com we found some hotels where hotel rooms were available for even less than "the guaranteed best rate."

Those best-rate guarantees are only valid for rates available to the general public, but since AAA rates are valid for members only they can be even lower. I don't think it's always across-the-board that AAA rates are better, but before you book that room, it's probably worth checking.

On a couple of our trips, the savings ended up being close to 10% off the best prices claimed elsewhere. And those extra dollars saved can add up.

Hey, you get the same rooms anyway... why not use every tool to get it at the best price?