Issue Date: March 2, 2003
Book a luxurious Asian vacation
While the bride ruminates about everything from flowers and tablecloths to bridesmaid dresses, what's a groom supposed to do? Plan a honeymoon, that's what. So when I was preparing for my wedding recently, I was charged with just that task.
Of course, the Internet is great for research. But even better are the discounts you'll find.
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My soon-to-be wife and I decided on Thailand, and because it was a celebration of marital bliss, high-end hotels would be the order. At Yahoo.com, I did a search on "luxury travel" and "Thailand." Thousands of sites popped up, including luxurythai.com, a site with modest information about touring Thailand in style. On it I found the Oriental Bangkok, a winner of various awards for best hotel in the world. (I later found this praise well-deserved.)
Using the same Yahoo keywords, I also found BKK-hotels.com, a Bangkok hotel Web site, which had a base room at the Oriental for more than 30% cheaper than the published rate on most other travel sites. After digging through the Mandarin Oriental hotel chain's own site (mandarinoriental.com), I actually found "Seasonal Choices" under "Rates and Packages" offering nearly the same discount.
Back at luxurythai.com, I searched northern Thailand. The site dubbed the Regent Resort in Chiang Mai the region's most exclusive property, which I again later found out was most definitely the case. Web discounts did not abound, however, for this Four Seasons resort. Undeterred, I did find a few online discounts; one on Asiatravel.com was a special Internet rate for a bit less than the published rate on the Regent site (regenthotels.com).
One lesson I learned through this booking experience is that you might just be better off calling the hotel after finding the lowest rate online. Many will honor the Internet rate once they know you've done some research. And you won't be locked in with a prepaid third party. (It's also much easier to cancel, upgrade or reschedule if you need to.)
With that knowledge in hand, it was on to the famous beaches of southern Thailand. My search led me to the top of the hotel food chain -- the Amanpuri in Phuket, the first resort in the exclusive Aman Asian hotel chain. My added wisdom of Internet bookings in this case turned out to be completely useless; there were no discounts to be had for this hotel anywhere. With only 40 guest villas and a 9-to-1 employee-to-guest ratio, it was so exclusive there was not even a single deal amid the Web's general discount madness.
Deals or not, one good thing happened on my online journey: My honeymoon was planned almost entirely from my desktop. My wife certainly couldn't say that about the bridesmaids' gowns, the tablecloths or the flowers.
-- David Lipschultz
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