Just received an email through from hotels.com about a flash sale happening until midnight on 12th Jan. I am always suspicious about these hyped up promos but thought I'd take a look anyway as I hadn't booked anything for Hua Hin yet.

Listed amongst the properties was the Sheraton at Cha'am and a deal for stay three nights, get 30% off. It seemed to be highly thought of looking at the reviews, so I put in a few dates. It seemed to be coming up with stay two nights get 30% off, so I plugged in a variety of days that I have unplanned. Doing so I managed to get two nights for £134 ($200) - albeit without breakfast and "only" in a Garden View room - which I thought was pretty good for starters.

I tried the hotels.com discount code I recently posted about but no joy - it doesn't work for a lot of the major chains, including Sheraton. However, in the UK we have cashback websites and TopCashback were offering a whopping 12% cashback on hotels.com purchases, which gave me another £8 ($12) off per night. Adding in the hotels.com Rewards programme, which is effectively worth another 10% (as it's a free night every 10 nights you book with them), I was looking at a final rate of around £52 ($78) per night to stay at the 5 Star(?) Sheraton.

So if you're looking to travel to Hua Hin soon and especially if you're a UK citizen and can join/use TopCashback, see what bargains you can get! As ever, if you book through hotels.com then I'd be grateful if you could use the links below as the forum will get a small commission. One of these days someone will!

hotels.com UK

hotels.com Australia

hotels.com USA

Happy travels
cheers
Steve

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Owner, travelforum.org
My latest travels: Shikoku Pilgrimage

A very good deal indeed Steve. I suspect that there will be quite a lot of tempting offers from hotels big and small in the Hua Hin/Cham Am area over the forthcoming weeks/months following the massive storm of a week or so ago which inflicted an enormous amount of damage on both towns and the infrastructures thereto.

I hope there are some price reductions Emdee as thanks to your heads up about the storm damage I haven't booked anything yet for my May trip. I did however notice on the Sawadee web site my preferred hotel, the Sofitel, (now being run by the Centara group from early this month) has actually increased its prices and deleted breakfast as well. Previously brekkie was included in the room cost. So now its dearer than before and breakfast is an added extra!!. Perhaps the Thai thinking is that because of the storm damage prices will have to rise to pay for the damage......... Isn't this how they do it?

I've never truly figured out the Thai way of thinking Wabbit. Last year when much of Thailand was inundated with massive flooding, Thai Airways actually raised their seat prices instead of decreasing them. The result: lowest loading percentile rate since the uprising in Bangkok the year earlier.

I would surmise that the Centara thinking is along similar economic lines with a resultant low occupancy rate.

Keep your powder dry Wabbit, the bargain offers will be around the corner, if not at the Centara, then at their major opposition, i.e. Grand Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott and others.

Although having said that, I was waiting for the bargains in Honkers and the only result I got was a massive increase in room rates, owing to the Hong Kong Sevens Rugby Union tournament, plus a very big international flower show as well as a major medical conference at the HK Conference Centre!

The result: shortage of hotel beds with the old supply and demand principle kicking in!!!!