The words on the booking page
Last reviewed: August 6, 2026
Twenty-eight terms that appear on every booking site and are explained on none of them. Tap any one to see what it means.
Meals
Everything about what you will and will not be fed. The full version is on the breakfast and board page.
- A cold breakfast: bread, pastries, butter, jam, often cheese and ham, with coffee, tea and juice. Nothing cooked to order.
- A cooked breakfast — eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, toast. Substantially bigger than a continental one, and usually enough to skip lunch.
- Self-service, with hot and cold food laid out together. The standard format in larger hotels and normally the widest choice.
- No meals at all are included in the price. You are paying for the bed and nothing else.
- The room plus breakfast. Also the name for a small owner-run guesthouse, where it is the default arrangement.
- Breakfast and one other meal, almost always dinner. Drinks are normally charged separately.
- All three meals included. Drinks are still usually extra, which is where the bill grows.
- All meals, snacks and most drinks. Which drinks varies a lot — local beer and wine are typically in, imported spirits and cocktails typically out.
Rooms and bathrooms
What you are actually booking when the room name is three words long.
- The bathroom is inside your room and only you use it. If a room description does not say en-suite, assume the bathroom is shared.
- A room of bunk beds shared with other travellers, sold one bed at a time. Sizes run from four beds to twenty; smaller usually means quieter.
- A mixed dorm is open to all genders; most hostels also sell female-only dorms, and some sell male-only. Both are normal to book.
- Your own lockable room inside a hostel, usually still sharing the bathroom, kitchen and common room. Cheaper than a hotel, quieter than a dorm.
- A twin room has two single beds; a double has one large bed. Booking the wrong one is the most common accommodation mistake there is.
- A single room that contains the bed, the living space and a kitchen corner, with a separate bathroom. The smallest thing that still counts as an apartment.
Money and fees
The charges that are not in the price you compared. Every one of these is normal and legal — they are just added at different points.
- A local tax charged per person per night, collected on arrival or at checkout. Set by the city, not the property, and usually not shown in the online price.
- An amount held on your card against damage, released a few days after you leave. It is a hold, not a charge — but it does reduce your available balance while you travel.
- A compulsory daily charge on top of the room rate, covering facilities whether you use them or not. Most common in the United States.
- A one-off charge on apartment bookings, added once per stay rather than per night. It makes short stays much more expensive per night than the headline rate suggests.
- A hostel charge for bedding or a towel, per stay or per night. Bringing your own travel towel avoids half of it.
- An extra charge for one person occupying a room priced for two. Common in tours, resorts and half-board hotels.
- You can cancel without charge until a stated date, after which you pay some or all of the stay. The date, not the phrase, is the thing to read.
Arriving, leaving and house rules
The practical constraints that decide whether an arrival goes smoothly.
- The earliest you can get into the room and the latest you must be out. Typically from 15:00 and by 11:00 — which leaves a gap at both ends of most trips.
- Getting in before or staying past the standard times. Sometimes free if the place is empty, usually a paid extra, never something to count on.
- No one meets you: a keybox, a smart lock or a code sent in advance. Standard for apartments, and it means arriving with a charged phone and internet access.
- When the desk is actually staffed. Small guesthouses often close in the evening, so a late arrival has to be arranged before you travel.
- Leaving your bags at the property before check-in or after check-out. Free at most hotels and hostels, and the thing that makes a departure day usable.
- A lockable box for valuables in a hostel dorm or a capsule hotel. Usually you supply the padlock — the single most useful thing in a hostel bag.