The last few years I’ve really taken to going on city breaks, especially to London. The problem is it’s really expensive to stay there. I’ve had some pretty bad experiences of staying in hostels and 2 or 3 star hotels in the suburbs, and spent an absolute fortune on these awful little places and then transport costs to get into central London and back.

Lucky for me I discovered the websites Hotwire and Priceline (who will accept your Irish credit card, but their listings are in dollars), and also realised how wonderful the Last Minute dot com secret hotel deals were. These sites offer extremely reduced prices on hotel rooms, except they don’t tell you the name of the hotel you’re booking into, until you have confirmed and paid for your booking. These sites take full payment for your stay at the time of booking – so you can’t change your mind, which is great for the hotel because they are then guaranteed you won’t go cancelling your reservation.

What’s The Catch?

What, you thought there weren’t going to be any catches? They’re minor at best (unless you’re prone to cancelling your trips).

For example,  a few years back we stayed at the Le Meridien Piccadilly, an extremely centrally located 5 star London hotel . The reason they were offering a low price was because their hotel rooms were slowly being renovated, and the rooms that hadn’t been renovated yet were being offered at an extremely reduced price. Our room was immaculate, one of the nicest I’ve ever stayed in. Obviously they couldn’t offer these older style rooms at the same price as the modern rooms.

Like most hotels that use Hotwire etc. they didn’t want a low nightly rate associated with their luxurious hotel reputation and name. It’s one of the ways they can try to beat the search engines.

Recently we stayed at a brand new 4 star hotel, the Grange St Paul, very close to Tate Modern, right beside the Millennium bridge and across from the gorgeous St. Paul’s Cathedral. Another amazing location and a cheap deal, this time because the hotel was not 100% completed. It had only just opened but our room was perfect, no problems at all. Although their spa and pool area wasn’t operational – something a fully paying guest may have had a gripe with.

Sites like Hotwire and Last Minute offer hotels the ability to offer cheap rooms, without these cheap online listings being associated with their names. A 5 star hotel that’s having difficulty filling rooms, has just opened its doors or is having some renovations is able to offer a reduced price without tarnishing its reputation as being expensive and elite.

For me the most important thing about a city break is the location, I’ve learned this from all those bad experiences. As long as the room is clean I’m happy.  I’ve been very lucky with all the wonderful hotels I’ve actually ended up in. Obviously I’ve taken many risks booking into theses hotels and not knowing the names, but the location and amenities list (which is given on all of the sites mentioned) is enough for me to make a decision.

I’ve even happily booked into New York hotels using one of these sites.

I’ve heard some people gripe that they were given a small room after booking through these sites, but the staff do still treat you like a 100% paying customer and I personally have never had a bad experience.  I’ve always acted like a 100% paying customer and received equivalent customer service from the hotel staff.

I’ve had worse experiences in hotels where I was paying full price.

How to Figure Out the Hotel Names

If you’re going to use any of these sites listed you can of course try to figure out the exact hotels that are on offer. For Hotwire and Priceline there is a great user forum called Better Bidding where people swap the names of hotels that are currently listed on the site – allowing you to figure out the name based on the location, star rating and amenities listed.  If you’re uncertain about booking you can even try posting on this forum to see if anyone can help you identify the hotel.

With regards to Last Minute dot com, they use descriptions usually taken from either the hotel website or older offers, so you can try googling the descriptions and then match up the hotel info with the amenities list.

For further confirmation, you can check the Trip Advisor hotel listing. If the hotel is indeed on offer on one of these discount sites usually the recent Trip Advisor reviewers will have mentioned this fact. Reviewers will often say “got this as a secret hotel deal…” which is helpful.

Obviously this is a bit risky and I’m sure there are people out there that have had bad experiences. So, if you yourself have ever had a good or bad experience with a secret hotel deal – I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

Instead perhaps consider eBay as a gigantic 24hour outlet mall that’s filled with stores like Schuh, that are just desperate to get rid of last season’s Converse. It’s also populated with independent retailers, that can’t afford the online high street rents but compete with the larger stores like Amazon by offering you brilliant price reductions on new products. Then there are the niche stores/individuals that sell really rare or unique items like the HP battery I got for my 5 year old laptop (€36.99 with free P&P from Hong Kong) or my new Vans with the black soles and purple/black checkered pattern (€45 including P&P from Germany, the same price as the high street but very rare so totally worth it).

However, shopping online isn’t easy. It can be time consuming and frustrating. There are just too many choices, and far too many links to click to get to what you’re really looking for. There are just too many variables involved. So I thought I’d write up a few suggestions on how, as an Irish consumer, you can really utilise eBay.

How To Get The Best Out Of

The first step toward getting the best out of eBay is to know what you’re searching for. eBay is not for browsing, there are too many of the same item and you’ll give yourself a headache clicking through page after page of products.  Unless of course you’re just after a last minute bargain, which is purely opportunistic. I recently picked up a Wii Nunchuck Controller for 1c from China (€3.99 P&P but still a bargain). Often when I’m not too sure what I’m looking for I’ll use Amazon to browse instead, as the experience is better with regards to navigation and being able to see similar items is nifty too, but I’ll always price check against eBay if I find something I like. However, even if you just know that you’re looking for Wii accessories or a pair of shoes, that’s a good start.

The second step is to make sure you’re searching the entire European Union by clicking on the option in the left hand sidebar. This broadens your search to include all European countries and also removes non-European countries. This is good, because otherwise you’ll have to pay customs duty on anything over €22 (including the cost of the P&P) to ship  to Ireland from outside of the EU. Forget those international sellers, unless you’re willing to factor in the 21% Vat that will be added later (21% of the total cost, so again that includes the P&P) and the €6 post office handling fee into the overall price of the item. In the past I would have had no problem buying products from outside of the EU and then just requested for the seller to “mark the item as a gift” to dodge the customs duty, but from my experience that rarely works anymore.

The third step is to vary your search terms. Even if you know the *exact* name (or colour and size, etc.) of what you’re trying to track down, it might not be listed that way on eBay. Don’t forget that all eBay listings are written by different individuals and unlike places like Amazon there are no strict rules governing how to describe an item. Imagine you’re searching for a pair of shoes, in some instances the size of the shoe may not be apparent from the one line of text describing the item, but will be mentioned in the full description of the item once you’ve clicked on its page. In some instances the seller may not have even put their item in the right category or have even spelt the name of the item incorrectly. Though this can sometimes make tracking down a rare item difficult, it can work in your benefit too. By varying your search terms you might find a bargain that has gone unnoticed, has had no bids or had no page views. I recently “made an offer”, a haggle, on an item with only 20 page views and got a 25% further discount because the buyer could see only 19 other people had even looked at the item.

The forth step is to make sure you use European sizes. If you’re only searching the UK & Ireland it’s fine to think in size 5 shoes, but in Europe that’s a size 38. Check a European size guide to help with your search for the right size (obviously this only applies to buying clothes, shoes etc).

The most important thing about any online shopping is of course safety. The best advice I can give is to always use Paypal, not only does it stop your credit card information being shared with a seller on eBay but PayPal buyer protection and their buyer complaint policy protect you if something goes wrong. Also, you should always make sure that before clicking on the “buy it now” or “place a bid” buttons that you have checked the feedback on the person/company you are purchasing from. Though eBay makes it pretty easy these days to really quickly see who is a legitimate and experienced seller, with their stars and power sellers icons, so familiarise yourself with these.

For me, finding a bargain on eBay is really rewarding but it also offers up far more options to me as a consumer. Yes I’ve had to get refunds or replacements, just like in real life, but I can’t say that I’ve ever had a bad experience on eBay, despite having purchased countless goods there over the last 5 years. Though I have come across some truly bizarre items, such as sex aids listed as adult Halloween costumes.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen on eBay? What tips would you add to this guide?

Hello my name is Lee Kelly and I’m currently studying for a Msc Cyberpsychology. As part of the course I am conducting a research project regarding attitudes towards online shopping. More specifically this study aims to examine levels of trust placed, when using online commercial sites. The study will also try to ascertain if levels of trust online differ between Digital Natives (people who grew up surrounded by information technology) and Digital Immigrants (people who learn to use information technology in adulthood). I’m looking for participants that would fall under both groups; so if you are over 18 and enjoy shopping online then I need to recruit you (sorry I’ve been watching Milk) to take part in my Online survey.

Once again participants will be given the opportunity to win €50 Amazon voucher on completion of the survey. Thank You in advance to everyone who agrees to take part in this study and also many thank to Sinéad Cochrane for her help in allowing me to guest post.