Welcome to My Weird Prompts. I'm Corn. Today's question is from Daniel, and it's one that every Israeli has asked out loud at some point, usually while looking at a hotel website with one eye shut. Israel is a notoriously expensive country. Are there any hacks for finding last-minute getaways and staycations here? Websites we can actually recommend, and, his words, brazen tactics for asking for deals.
Herman Poppleberry. And a note before we start, because this one is full of prices. This script was written offline, by hand, from a research pass done today, the eighteenth of October twenty twenty-six. Every deal we name was live on that day, or we'll say it's expired. Deals in this country have the life expectancy of a fruit fly, so check the date on everything.
And Daniel asked for something specific in the cast list. He wanted Hilbert in the middle of this one, not at the end.
Hilbert Flumingtop, producer. I've been brought out from behind the desk because I'm the one who books everything for this show. The studio, the transport, the one time we did a retreat.
The retreat in Tiberias.
The retreat in Tiberias, which I got for forty percent off, and which nobody has thanked me for, because the pool was closed. The pool was why it was forty percent off. That's the first lesson. There's always a reason.
Hilbert has brought a laminated card.
I've brought a laminated card. We'll get to the card.
Let's do the depressing bit first and quickly, because we did the full economics back in March, in the episode about why a flight to Athens costs less than a hotel in the Galilee. Herman, the thirty-second version.
Thirty seconds. Israelis pay VAT on hotel rooms, eighteen percent since January twenty twenty-five, when it went up from seventeen. Foreign tourists generally don't. So the person in the next room, with the same view and the same buffet, may be paying almost a fifth less than you, just for having a different passport.
I'd like that on the record as the most Israeli sentence ever said.
The exception is Eilat. Eilat is a free-trade zone and there's no VAT there, for anybody. Which is part of why Eilat behaves differently from every other resort in the country, and we'll come back to that. The second thing is that Israel has a weekend problem. Everyone wants Thursday night to Saturday night, at the same handful of places, during the same eight weeks of holidays. Hotels price for that crush.
So the trick is not to be in the crush.
Almost the whole episode is a version of that. Don't be where everyone else is, when everyone else is there.
And this is where it gets a bit more cheerful, isn't it? Because this year, the hotels are not exactly overrun.
This is the most important number in the episode, and it's not a deal. It's leverage. The Israel Hotel Association published figures in July. National hotel occupancy for the first half of twenty twenty-six was forty-four percent. In the same period last year it was fifty. In twenty twenty-four it was sixty-two.
So more than half the rooms in the country were empty.
On average, yes. Foreign tourism has largely not come back since October seventh, and the war with Iran in March made it worse, with flights suspended. Israelis are still travelling at home, about seven point two million hotel nights in the first half of the year, but that was down about nine percent on last year. And the association said outright that domestic tourism can't fill the gap.
Which means somebody, somewhere, is sitting at a reception desk on a Tuesday, looking at a screen full of empty rooms, and that person is my best friend.
And the regional numbers are where it gets useful. Herzliya was at seventy percent. Eilat at sixty-six. The Dead Sea at forty-eight. Tel Aviv at forty. Haifa thirty-eight. Jerusalem thirty-one. Tiberias twenty-nine. And Nazareth, nineteen percent.
Nineteen.
Nineteen percent occupancy, across the first half of the year.
In Nazareth, you're not booking a room, you're adopting one.
So if I'm reading this right, the cheapest place to have a holiday in Israel is the place everyone else has stopped going.
Roughly, yes. Eilat is full because it was the only place left. This summer, with flights limited and Sinai off the table and the north still unsettled, Eilat had something like ninety percent occupancy, and it was the only city where occupancy improved year on year in the first half. So it's VAT-free, but it's also the one place where hotels don't need to give you anything.
And Tiberias at twenty-nine percent does.
Tiberias at twenty-nine percent will give you the pool. Assuming the pool is open.
Right. So, principle number one, the calendar. Herman.
The calendar is the biggest discount there is, and it's free. Three rules. One, Sunday to Thursday. Midweek is cheaper almost everywhere, and a lot of the smaller places only discount midweek. Two, the week after a holiday is dead. Everyone has just spent their money and their leave on Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot. Which, if you're listening to this today, is right now.
The great post-chagim exhale.
The great post-chagim exhale. And three, the holidays themselves are where hope goes to die. In July, the Jerusalem Post priced a Rosh Hashanah stay in advance. Herods Dead Sea, three nights, half board. Fourteen thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight shekels.
For three nights.
For three nights.
That's not a holiday. That's a down payment. For that, the Dead Sea should come to you.
And there's a bonus this month, isn't there? Something to do with the election.
There is, and I love it. The Knesset election is on the twenty-seventh of October, a Tuesday, and election day is a day off in Israel. The hotel chains have noticed. Fattal is running something it calls an election vacation. Thirty percent off at the NYX in Tel Aviv, for stays from Sunday the twenty-fifth of October to Sunday the first of November. Six hundred and eighty-five shekels down to four hundred and eighty a night for a couple, and four hundred and thirty-two if you're in their club.
So you vote in the morning and you're at the hotel bar by lunchtime.
Or you skip the bar, and watch the exit polls from a hotel bed you got at thirty percent off. I can't think of a more dignified way to watch democracy.
Do vote first, though. The polling station isn't going to come to the hotel.
Okay. So that's when. Now where, because Daniel asked specifically for websites. Herman, I believe you have the list.
I do, and I'll split it into two kinds. The zimmer sites, for cabins and bed and breakfasts, and the hotel sites. Zimmers first, because that's where the real last-minute market is in this country. A zimmer owner with an empty cabin on a Thursday afternoon is a motivated seller.
The man with the hot tub and the panic.
Exactly that man. The first site is Weekend dot co dot il. It has a page specifically for last-minute zimmers, and the rule on that page, according to the site, is that every place listed is offering at least fifteen percent off its regular price list for the night. It also has a coupons section, with midweek deals and a few student and soldier discounts.
Fifteen percent off, at least.
At least, off the list price. The second is Zimmer dot co dot il, which has a page for zimmers that are still free this coming weekend. That's literally its purpose. Prices on it started at around eight hundred shekels a night when I looked, which tells you something about what a full-price weekend costs. The third is HaPisga, which runs a last-minute section it calls the ninetieth minute, and quotes midweek prices from about six hundred and fifty shekels a night. And then there's Mako, the news site, which every week puts together a short list of five zimmers that are still free for the weekend, at reduced prices.
Five. Every week. Somebody at Mako rings around zimmers on a Tuesday. I'd like that job.
You already do that job. For free. For us.
I'd like to be paid for it.
And the hotels?
For hotels, the general advice is to go to the chain's own website before you go anywhere else, because that's where the club prices are. And most of the big chains have a club that costs nothing to join. Dan Hotels has E-DAN, which gives members an ongoing eight percent off, and joining is free. Fattal has its club, with ten percent off on top of whatever deal is running. Caesar hotels has a free VIP club that gives ten percent. Isrotel has a special offers page with discounts of ten and fifteen percent at several hotels, and money off a third night on longer stays.
So join every club.
Join every club. It takes three minutes, and it's an email address. Which brings us to the one trap I want to flag on the chain sites. When I looked at Isrotel's offers page, the prices shown were before the eighteen percent VAT that Israelis pay. That's not hidden, it's in the small print, but the number you fall in love with on the screen isn't the number on your credit card.
The number on the screen is the tourist price. You're not a tourist. You're the man in the next room.
And for the international sites, Kayak has last-minute pages for Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, built from recent bookings. They're useful as a sanity check. If Kayak is showing a three-star in Jerusalem for a few hundred shekels tonight, and the hotel's own website wants a thousand, something is going on.
Okay, that's the respectable half. Now the less respectable half. Hilbert, I believe you have opinions about plastic.
I have opinions about plastic, and paperwork. In this country, the discount isn't attached to the room. It's attached to who you are, and specifically to what's in your wallet. Exhibit one. Fattal's last-minute page, today. Twenty-five percent off at the NYX, exclusively for Isracard holders.
Exclusively for Isracard holders.
The hotel doesn't care who you are. It cares which bank you're with. CAL has its own vacation card, and Astral hotels accepts it for some of its deals. Max, the third card company, does its own thing. If you've got a card from all three, and I'm not saying I do, you can shop the same hotel three ways.
And people forget about work. If you work somewhere big enough to have a workers' committee, the va'ad, it very often has negotiated rates with hotel chains. Some of them are genuinely good, and nobody reads the email.
Nobody reads the email. The email is titled something like "updated benefits package, Q4," and it's sent at four fifty-five on a Thursday. I read the email. I'm the only person in Israel who reads the email.
And then there's the big one this year, which is reservists.
This is the largest discount category in the country right now, and it's real. After two years of very long reserve service, almost every chain has a deal for reservists, and the proof is usually form three thousand and ten, which is the army's confirmation of reserve days served. A few that were live today. Caesar hotels offers fifteen to twenty percent off for reservists who've done at least sixty days, until the end of twenty twenty-six. Prima hotels gives twenty-five percent off its full price list, fifteen at its music hotel in Eilat, when you show the form at check-in, and that's valid until the first of January twenty twenty-seven. Eshet Tours has a page of reservist deals for October, up to thirty percent off, again with a sixty-day minimum. And Fattal has thirty percent off at the NYX for reservists until the first of January.
And a lot of them have already expired.
A lot of them have. Fattal ran a free third night for reservists over the winter, which finished in March. The hotel association's twenty-four hour sale this summer, at least twenty-five percent off in about a hundred and fifty hotels, finished in July. Africa Israel and Gordonia had offers that have ended. So the thing to know isn't the deal, it's the pattern. If you've served, check every time.
And this is where I put my foot down, because Daniel used the word brazen, and I'd like to define it. Brazen is asking. Brazen is not faking a form three thousand and ten. If you didn't serve, you don't get the reservist rate, and the man at reception in Tiberias with the empty pool will know, because he's done sixty days of reserves himself, and he'll be very polite to you and very disappointed.
So brazen, not fraudulent.
It's on the card. Line one.
Go on then. Show us the card.
The card. Hilbert Flumingtop's rules for asking a hotel for a deal. Laminated, because I've used it in the bath.
Why are you on the phone to hotels in the bath?
Because that's where I'm reminded I want a better bath. Line one, brazen, not fraudulent. Line two, call the hotel. Don't book on the big booking sites. Phone the actual building.
And there's a sound reason for that. When you book a hotel through one of the big international booking sites, the hotel usually pays that site a commission on the room. So a booking that comes straight to them is worth more to them than the same booking through a third party. They often can't advertise a lower price than they show on those sites, but on the phone, nobody's advertising anything.
On the phone, nobody's advertising. On the phone, it's just two people and an empty room. Line three. Call late. If you want tonight, call at four in the afternoon. If you want the weekend, call on Wednesday. By then the room is either going to be sold to you, or it's going to be sold to nobody.
And what do you actually say?
Herman, you're reception at a hotel in Tiberias. Twenty-nine percent occupancy. It's a Tuesday.
Oh, I'm good at this. Hello, good afternoon, reception, how can I help?
Good afternoon. I'm looking at tonight, two adults, one night. What's the best price you can do on a room tonight?
Tonight. Let me look. For tonight we have a standard room at nine hundred and ninety shekels, with breakfast.
That's the price on the website. I can see the website. What's the best price you can do?
Well. I can do nine hundred.
Line four. The first number is the website. The second number is the real one. You always ask the second time, and you ask exactly the same way, as if you didn't hear the first.
You didn't argue at all.
I didn't argue. Arguing makes it personal. I'm not haggling, I'm asking what's possible, like a man who's interested in what's possible. Herman, nine hundred is very kind. Is there anything you could add at that price?
Add?
Line five. Ask for things, not money. A receptionist often can't move the price much, but he can move almost everything else. Breakfast, if it isn't included. A room upgrade, because the better room is also empty. Late check-out. Parking. A voucher for the spa.
I suppose, since it's quiet, I could give you a sea view at the same price.
And on a Saturday, I'd ask for check-out after Shabbat ends. A lot of hotels here already do a late Saturday check-out, sometimes for a fee, because so many guests can't travel until the evening. If the hotel's empty, that fee has a way of disappearing. A whole extra day by the pool, for the price of one polite question.
Again, assuming the pool's open.
I've learned to ask about the pool. That's line six. Ask why it's cheap. If they offer you forty percent off without being asked, there's a reason, and the reason is under construction.
You've clearly done this before.
Line seven. Mention the competition, and mean it. I'll say, I'm also looking at the place two doors down, and they've got a room at eight hundred. And I need that to be true, because sometimes he'll say fine, go there.
And then you've got to walk two doors down.
And then you walk two doors down, with your dignity and your bag.
What about the honeymoon trick? Everyone's heard of the honeymoon trick.
Line one, brazen, not fraudulent. If it's your anniversary, you say so. It doesn't hurt anyone to mention it, and a hotel with forty empty rooms likes having a reason to be generous. But I'm not going to tell anyone to fake a honeymoon. You will be found out, by the cake.
The cake?
They send a cake. Then they ask you questions. I know a man who invented a honeymoon in Eilat, and the staff were so delighted they came and sang to him at dinner, and he had to improvise a wedding. Venue, guest list, the first dance. His actual wife was furious, because she was sitting next to him, and in his version of the wedding she was the bride's aunt from Plovdiv.
That's a real person?
Line eight. Never ask who the man is.
Fine. Herman, does any of this actually work, or is it Hilbert's personality?
It works because of the forty-four percent. In a normal year, with tourists in every room, the receptionist has no reason to move. This year, almost everywhere outside Eilat and Herzliya, they've got rooms that are going to be empty tonight. An empty room tonight is worth nothing tomorrow. You can't sell last night's room. So anything above the cost of cleaning the room is better than nothing.
The room is a tomato. If they haven't sold it by tonight, it's soup.
That's very good.
Thank you. It's on the back of the card.
A couple more for the brave. Groups. Hilbert, you told me once you'd booked a whole floor.
I booked a whole floor of a guesthouse in the Galilee, for a cousin's birthday. Twelve rooms. Once you've got more than a handful of rooms, you're not a guest, you're an account. They'll talk to you differently, and they'll throw in a meal hall. So my advice is to make friends. Then book them.
The cheaper kind of accommodation is also worth a word. Kibbutz guesthouses, field schools run by the Society for the Protection of Nature, youth hostels. Simpler rooms, often in beautiful places, with a fraction of the marketing. I don't have reliable prices for those today, so check them yourself, but they're a different world from the resort hotels, and a lot of Israelis forget they exist.
The field school rooms are basic. I've been told the word is basic. You're not there for the room, you're there for the hike, and the fact that it's next to the sea, and that you didn't pay for a spa you weren't going to use.
And the Facebook groups? I know there are groups for this.
There are Hebrew Facebook and WhatsApp groups for deals on holidays in Israel, and they can be very good for a flash sale that shows up at nine in the morning and is gone by noon. I won't name a specific one, because they come and go and some of them are just advertising in a fake moustache. But if a deal is posted there, go to the hotel's own site, or call them, and check the price is real before you pay anything.
Never give your card number to a man named Shuki in a WhatsApp group. Line nine.
How many lines are on this card?
Eleven. Ten and eleven are about parking.
Let's leave parking. Herman, put it together for Daniel. A couple wants to get away, at short notice, without selling a kidney. What's the playbook?
Step one, pick a midweek night, and preferably a quiet week, like the one after the holidays, or around the election. Step two, pick the region with the most empty rooms, not the one everyone's posting from. This year that's somewhere like Tiberias, Jerusalem, Haifa or Nazareth, rather than Eilat. Step three, look at the last-minute pages, Weekend, Zimmer, HaPisga, the Mako list for the weekend, and the chain sites, so you know what the market price is. Step four, check your own cards. Your credit card, your workers' committee, your reserve days, and join every free club. And step five, with all that in front of you, pick up the phone.
And ask twice.
And ask twice. Ask for things before you ask for money, and ask why it's cheap before you say yes.
What I like about this is that none of it requires being a different kind of person. Except the phone call, which requires being Hilbert.
Anybody can be me for four minutes. It's being me for the rest of the day that's the work.
Before we go, does anybody want to correct anything? This is usually where Hilbert does it.
Just the one. Right at the start, Herman said the tourist in the next room pays almost a fifth less than you. He doesn't. The VAT is eighteen percent on top of the tourist's price, so the tourist pays about fifteen percent less than you. Not a fifth.
I did the sum the wrong way round.
You did it the wrong way round with great confidence.
It's still fifteen percent, Hilbert. It's still the most Israeli sentence ever said.
Fair. If you take one thing from this, it's that the empty room is the most perishable thing in a hotel, and this year there are a lot of them. You don't need a secret website. You need a Tuesday, a phone, and the nerve to ask a second time.
And check the date on every deal, including the ones in this episode.
And check the pool.
Thanks to Hilbert Flumingtop for producing this one, and for the card.
You can't keep the card.
This has been My Weird Prompts. If you're on Telegram, the channel has every new episode.
See you soon.
