It pays to shop around

I have never been a great believer in shopping around, thinking that market forces keep prices close enough together for it not to matter; until now. I spent a couple of hours over the weekend trying to find a hotel in central Tunis (having booked the flights some time ago) and started looking on Expedia and Travelocity with limited success. The guide book suggested a cheap boutique hotel which was only available on Opodo so I tried to book it there but got a failure message at the very end of the booking process. I then used Opodo to look for other hotels in Tunis and found a five star hotel in the very centre of town at less than half the price it was quoted at on Expedia. Two rooms for nine nights cost me £1,360 on Opodo when Expedia would have charged me over £2,800!