Hotels & stays
The rate is
not the bill.
A hotel quote and a hotel bill are two different numbers, and the gap between them is where most travel budgets quietly go. We book the room, read the rate code, and tell you what checkout will actually cost.
Hotels for every trip
Tell us the city and dates and we’ll match the property to the purpose — a boardroom near the client, or a pool the kids will not leave.
Business hotels
Central, well-connected properties with reliable Wi-Fi, desks and early check-in.
Luxury hotels
Five-star and deluxe stays, suites and resorts, with the perks that come from a booked agent.
Budget hotels
Clean, safe, value stays vetted for real reviews — not just the lowest headline rate.
Long-stay hotels
Serviced apartments and weekly/monthly rates for projects and relocations.
What we book
Six kinds
of stay
Different problems, different answers. A three-night sales trip and a four-month deputation should not be booked the same way, and usually are.
Corporate stays
City hotels on negotiated rates, with bill-to-company settlement so travellers do not front cash and claim it back three weeks later.
Long stays & apartments
Deputations, project postings and relocations. Past roughly two weeks, a serviced apartment usually beats a hotel on both cost and sanity.
Heritage & boutique
Havelis, palace properties and restored homes across Rajasthan, Kerala and the hills. Character, with the plumbing checked first.
Resorts & leisure
Beach, backwater and hill properties, with the meal plan matched to how far the nearest alternative restaurant actually is.
MICE room blocks
Conference and offsite blocks with held inventory, phased release dates and a rooming list we manage rather than email around.
Transit & airport hotels
Day-use rooms, long layovers and 4am arrivals. Often the difference between a productive first meeting and a wasted one.
Quote versus bill
Anatomy of
a hotel rate
A room rate is a bundle of decisions, and only the first one is the number you compared. The rest are where checkout goes wrong.
| Code | Component | What it is | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| ROOM | Room tariff | The published or negotiated price for the room category, per night. | Category names aren't standard. One hotel's "deluxe" is another's entry level. |
| PLAN | Meal plan | EP room only, CP with breakfast, MAP with one more meal, AP all meals, AI all inclusive. | Some resorts make MAP compulsory in peak weeks. That is a rate change, not an upgrade. |
| TYPE | Rate type | Flexible, semi-flexible or advance purchase. This governs cancellation, not the hotel's general policy. | Advance purchase is typically non-refundable from the moment it is confirmed. |
| GST | GST on the room | Charged in slabs based on the room tariff, so the tax rate itself changes as the tariff crosses a threshold. | A small tariff rise can push the whole stay into a higher slab and cost more than the rise itself. |
| EXTR | Extras at the desk | Extra bed, early check-in, late checkout, airport pickup, laundry, minibar. | Early check-in is the common surprise. A 6am arrival is usually charged as the previous night. |
| LEVY | Local levies (overseas) | City tax, tourism levy or resort fee, collected at the property and rarely included in an online rate. | Payable in local currency at checkout, per person per night, in much of Europe. |
| FEST | Compulsory festive charge | A mandatory gala dinner billed per person around major festivals and year-end at many Indian properties. | Occasionally larger than the room itself, and buried in the rate terms. We surface it in the quote or book you elsewhere. |
| BASIS | Per room or per person | Indian properties usually quote per room; some resorts and most overseas packages quote per person. | The single most common cause of a front-desk dispute. We state the basis on every confirmation. |
Every quote we send states the room category, meal plan, rate type, cancellation deadline and tax treatment against each night. If a property will not confirm one of them in writing, we tell you rather than book around it.
Meal plans
Five codes
worth knowing
These three letters change the price of a stay more than the star rating does. In a city, CP and eating out is usually cheaper and better. In a remote resort where the nearest alternative is nine kilometres away, MAP or AP wins — and we say which we would pick for your specific property.
| EP | European Plan | Room only |
| CP | Continental Plan | Room + breakfast |
| MAP | Modified American Plan | Room + breakfast + lunch or dinner |
| AP | American Plan | Room + all three meals |
| AI | All Inclusive | All meals, usually with selected drinks |
Selection
Six checks a
star rating
won't tell you
Star classification in India is inconsistent between states and rarely re-audited. We work from these instead.
Location against traffic, not distance
A hotel four kilometres from your meeting can be forty minutes away at 9:30. We check the route at the hour you will actually travel it, not the map.
Reviews from the last six months only
Properties change hands, renovate and decline. A five-star average built over eight years tells you nothing about next Tuesday.
Safety for solo & women travellers
Lit approach, staffed lobby overnight, room floors above ground, internal corridors. This is a duty-of-care requirement for a corporate client, not a preference.
Wi-fi that survives a video call
Every hotel claims free wi-fi. Whether it holds a call from the room at 9pm is a different question, and one we ask other guests.
Breakfast timing against your flight
Breakfast from 7:30 is useless on a 6am departure. We check whether the property does early trays, and get it in writing.
Whether the invoice will be correct
A property that cannot issue a GST invoice against your GSTIN costs your finance team more than it saves. We confirm before booking.
Corporate hotel programme
Rates that
hold on the
bad nights
A negotiated rate is only worth having if it applies when the city is full. That clause has a name, and most SME agreements are signed without it.
Negotiated rates on your routes
Rates tied to where your people actually go, reviewed annually. Volume helps, but consistency on a handful of cities matters more.
Last room availability
The clause worth having. Your negotiated rate applies while any room is available, including on high-demand nights when public rates spike.
Bill to company
Room and tax billed directly to the company, extras settled by the traveller. No cash outlay, no reimbursement cycle, no lost bills.
Rate loading we check
Negotiated rates fail silently when a hotel loads them wrong. We audit what actually appears against what was agreed.
One monthly invoice
Consolidated billing with GSTIN, cost centre and project code against each stay, so input credit is claimable without chasing properties.
Where your people are
A live record of who is staying where — the question you cannot answer quickly during an emergency without one.
On every booking
Six things we
confirm in writing
- Named hotels with confirmation numbers before you travel — never "property to be advised"
- The meal plan stated against every night, in the currency you will be charged
- Cancellation deadline shown in your local time, not the hotel's
- If a confirmed property falls through, we replace it at equivalent standard or better, at our cost
- Special requirements — dietary, accessibility, floor level — confirmed back in writing
- GST invoice checked against your GSTIN before it reaches your finance team
Get a rate
Tell us the city and the dates.
Three named properties back within a working day, with the rate type and cancellation deadline against each.