Rakuten Travel - More Expensive

Hi All,

Prior to covid - I would often book accommodation with Rakuten Travel which seemed to have a larger range of hotels with extra benefits such as meals and such. Prices used to also be quite good too.

However - since the opening up in October they seem to have redesigned their website and prices are now more expensive than Booking or Agoda.

Has anyone else noticed this as well?

Also - what English language booking sites do you normally use for Japan? I normally use Booking. Agoda, Expedia, Japanican, Rakutan and Japanese Guest Houses if it's hard to book in English....

From October 11th to the end of December, travel discounts are being offered to residents of Japan.
From January 10th, the discount rate will be lowered again, and travel discounts will be offered to residents of Japan.
Travel agencies headquartered in Japan, such as Rakuten Travel, sell plans that qualify for travel discounts.
Due to travel discounts, the number of reservations is increasing, so there are cases where the pre-discount price is higher than the regular price at some hotels.
I also use Agoda, Booking.com, etc.
You may have used Expedia as well.
I know of trivago, but have never used it.
Japanican is affiliated with JTB, a Japanese travel agency, but it may not have gone up in price since it targets foreign travelers.

Thanks for the info Haro.

I used to find Rakutan to be the best priced - but they now seem to be more expensive than Booking and Agoda.

In general - I used to like using them as they included meals which were not always available on the other two sites. Oh well - I've got plenty of time until I leave....

Have you tried : https://www.jalan.net/ ?

Hi Mfedley,

I too noticed that Rakuten had gone up in price and the selection had gone way down. I started looking at accommodations before Japan's official opening in early October for my upcoming trip.

I ended up mostly using Booking (again) because the selection seems to have gone up. When I first started looking their prices were quite good, but I suspect because of when I am traveling prices have gone up A LOT. I think for this specific trip, I used: Agoda (they were the only ones that had a hotel I wanted for a night) Booking, Japanican (they were the only ones who had availability at any onsen resorts for my time period) and I booked directly with the Hyatt for Kyoto because I got a great rate with breakfast and a 5000 yen food credit. I don't know if I can use it for my Christmas cake pre-order but maybe I can use it for something else?

I had a previous booking with expedia that got canceled because I'd accidentally double booked. (we moved around our itinerary which is not a good thing to do in late December.)

Trivago is just a booking aggregator that links you to other hotel's websites. So it's an easy way to see price comparisons between say Expedia, Booking, Agoda, Hotels, Orbitz, or any of the other hotel booking sites, but you don't book direct with Trivago. I think I looked at Priceline but they had issues with my group since I am an adult with a tween. Japanican has that issue too. I am probably overpaying for my tween, but if I book 2 adults there is room availability but if I book 1 adult and 1 12 year old there is none. (And none of the properties are adult only, I think Japanican just can't fathom a parent traveling alone with their kid.)

I do try to look at the actual hotel's website. It's frustrating when they sometimes only have availability on 3rd party sites. Royal Park Iconic in Shiodome had all sorts of plans on the Japanese website but no availability at all on the English, but rooms on Booking et al. I've not seen that before.

Reservations on many of the hotel own website became impossible especially with the introduction of the subsidised Japan travel to local residents.
All searches will show as no availability irrespective of dates, yet you can find them on Booking or other sites. I contacted a few (of the well known local chains) and some offered to make the reservations directly for me circumnavigating their website. Without a doubt the directive from HQ to block all foreign bookings (IP address) is making it inconvenient for customers & some hotel operators/ franchisees.

As noted above there are better offerings if you book on the hotel websites especially if staying in ryokans.

Have you noticed that some local chains, now require credit card details when making reservations? About time. I suspect the abuse with Japan�fs generous cancellation policy has brought this about.

Thanks for the info all. I also forgot why I never used Jalan - with it's odd blocking of prefecture or major city for all hotels. I'll look at that site a bit closer as you can only book 3 months in advance.

I also did not think about putting on my VPN to use a Japanese IP address to see if this gives better prices. I'm also lucky that I have plenty of time.

prices are now more expensive than Booking or Agoda.
Agoda/Booking (part of Priceline) had a tactic of showing prices before taxes and service fees (there are toggles to show total price). Lately Agoda is showing prices after their "cash-back", another sneaky ruse, but pretty typical of many companies looking the claw back some losses of the last few years. It will have the effect of seeming like other sites are more expensive. (Also, Agoda changed their Agoda-cash rewards to have a much shorter expiry making it harder to make use of that benefit.)
Most of the big online companies have contracts that require hotels/accommodation to list the same price as customers can get directly. While it is anti-competitive, it does mean many sites have identical prices for identical products. Slightly different descriptions/options can change the overall price paid.
I have, in the past, used Rakuten for some bookings - as you mention, they sometimes have properties not shown on other sites, but in doing bookings for my last few tours have not noticed any large discrepancy - maybe I wasn't looking specifically for it.