Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight • Hacker News Board

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#171

Post by vegashacker » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 9:53 PM UTC

HeavenFox wrote: post #31

Those who have used HotelTonight, can you comment on your experience? For me, there have been several rare occasions when I needed a room at last minute, but HotelTonight was never actually cheaper than any other aggregators or booking directly with the hotel. All being equal I vastly prefer booking direct so I get my points and elite benefits. I guess they have a fancy interface, and that's... it? Maybe it's market…

This has been my experience exactly (I’ve tried it in American and international markets, but don’t recall specific cities). I try them like once every 6 months and am always disappointed. You go thru the whole flow to find that there’s a Hotel Tonight fee and therefore the rate is more expensive (or at least isn’t cheaper) than you’d get by simply searching various other travel sites, and they don’t give you a guaranteed room type. Maybe if you don’t care about finding the best deal it’s a nice experience for people? (I most certainly do like to get the best deal though.)

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#172

Post by jonknee » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #159

throwaway-1283 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely disagree with this analogy. Hotels have their place, and in so many ways they can be superior to a home rental. I am the furthest thing from a luddite, but I personally prefer (as I know many others) hotels to Airbnb. There's a consistency to the hotel product that you can't get with Airbnb that I place a premium on, especially for short or last minute stays. I'm also not really sure why Airbnb is consider…

I honestly question who hotels are for. I'm in the top 2% in income, and I actually prefer staying in a hotel, but they'r e just insanely expensive. Do you mostly stay in hotels for business reasons? Or are you just rolling in money?

If an Airbnb is a lot cheaper there is going to be a reason, often it's location. I tend to move around and the ridiculous cleaning fees for Airbnb make it a non-starter. I'm flying to San Diego tomorrow and Hotel Tonight has several nice looking choices at around $100 a night (~$120 with taxes and fees). I just looked at Airbnb and I can get a studio apartment in a similar area for $79 a night which seems like a steal, but it's $184 after fees! $70 cleaning, $19 service fee and $16 "Occupancy taxes and fees". Airbnb is worse than Ticketmaster in this regard.

I would only use Airbnb for long stays when I need extra bedrooms. It just doesn't make sense for the traveling I do or for most business travel.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#173

Post by therealx » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 9:56 PM UTC

goshx wrote: post #120

jak92 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when is a fee not a fee? why isn't it included in the fee + taxes ?

That's the point we are trying to make. I don't agree with this practice. I don't agree with the "Resort Fee" practice and I'd love to learn about a hotel aggregator that doesn't do this. Any recommendation?

I dont think they exist. This is part of how the hotel stipulates its operation and listing on a website.

Edit: from a US perspective, maybe things are better over the pond.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#174

Post by ddoolin » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 9:58 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #159

throwaway-1283 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely disagree with this analogy. Hotels have their place, and in so many ways they can be superior to a home rental. I am the furthest thing from a luddite, but I personally prefer (as I know many others) hotels to Airbnb. There's a consistency to the hotel product that you can't get with Airbnb that I place a premium on, especially for short or last minute stays. I'm also not really sure why Airbnb is consider…

I honestly question who hotels are for. I'm in the top 2% in income, and I actually prefer staying in a hotel, but they'r e just insanely expensive. Do you mostly stay in hotels for business reasons? Or are you just rolling in money?

Echoing other replies to this, I find them to be very competitively priced for the places I'm going. Anecdotally, I have a trip to NYC planned next month and the hotels are in the same range as most Airbnb listings, and you get more than a room in someone's apartment.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#175

Post by TheTruth321 » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

avani wrote: post #165

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly question who hotels are for. I'm in the top 2% in income, and I actually prefer staying in a hotel, but they'r e just insanely expensive. Do you mostly stay in hotels for business reasons? Or are you just rolling in money?

I don't know about op, but airbnb is crap for accessibility so I've learned my lesson and always choose hotels.

Agreed. AirBnN is a last resort. I always choose hotel first.

It might have something to do with the shitty Dutch AirBnB'er we had who tried to throw my wife and I out at midnight because he was paranoid schizo ... and AiBnN then not honouring the refund.

Frankly. F@ck AirBnB. And all who sail in her.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#176

Post by bertil » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 10:00 PM UTC

It’s interesting that no one here, after 160 comments, is speculating about the impact to Booking.com

B. is the 7th largest internet company in the world but because it’s in Amsterdam and not US based, hardly anyone think about them. They have incredible technology, often on-par with the big ones but I’m not anyone here could name one problem where they pionnered a solution.

Disclaimer: I used to work for one of their subsidiaries.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#177

Post by benatkin » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

therealx wrote: post #170

benatkin wrote: post #99

I have no problem getting AirBnb's at the last minute. I look for ones that say "self check-in" or "check-in anytime" and are bookable instantly. I think since AirBnb is already succeeding at that, this will just increase their success in that area. All they need to do is find those offering that service or have them come to them, whether they be people with extra rooms, or a full fledged hotel.

Usually the stock of these is very low day-of in any major city.

Oh, true, I haven’t travelled in season in a while. I often wind up traveling in the off season (summer in hot places, winter in cool places that aren’t ski towns). I think there are some places that tend to be affordable almost year round, but your comment reminded me what it’s like to try to find a place in Miami in the late winter. It’s not an AirBnb specific problem, though.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#178

Post by jonknee » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 10:02 PM UTC

jak92 wrote: post #103

jonknee wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's because they aren't charging you the resort fee, the hotel does that. They itemize what you're actually paying for... Just like they mention, but don't charge you for parking ahead of time. That's up to the hotel. Anyway, the UI is different now and in big type it says "Due Now" with the resort fee mentioned under that. I personally didn't find it confusing before, but it's now quite clear.

Parking is optional Resort fee is not. This isn't a difficult concept.

It's also not a difficult concept that since you don't pay the fee to Hotel Tonight that they don't charge you that fee. Just like every other OTA in existence. It's a scummy business practice by hotels, but it's clearly outlined when you book the room.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#179

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 10:04 PM UTC

zackmorris wrote: post #90

This looks like a good opportunity to discuss something I'm concerned about regarding booking apps. We used Expedia I believe to book a hotel last year and I remember that it charged a $20 fee on top of an $80 hotel room. I believe they had an agreement where the online and in-person price was the same, so the hotel basically ate that $20. So it's good for them to get the constant business (similarly to how Groupon w…

Whenever I see comments along the lines of "In my mind you could replace this 20,000 person company with a computer running a script for $10 months", I'm convinced that folks don't know what really goes in to running a large e-commerce site.

To be sure, I'm not arguing there isn't a lot of waste at these large companies, but running a large eCommerce business at scale is a hugely complicated endeavor. For one, the economics of large OTAs mean that very small increases in conversion rates can result in huge increases in revenue, so they all have very large teams optimizing their sites, running a ton of A/B tests, optimizing their search advertising bidding, etc.

Yes, it definitely would be possible to build a fairly straightforward hotel booking site with a very small number of people. To do it in a way that makes any money is a much more difficult problem.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#180

Post by Scoundreller » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

kdot wrote: post #157

Scoundreller wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Targeting. If you know someone goes to London every November, your targeting return just went up 100x.

The nature of HT is last minute spur of the moment bookings.

I guess there are at least two categories:

1. Those that are in another city, knew they were going to be there, and didn’t book ahead (or just need an extra room?)

2. Those that live in a city and decide to get a hotel room tonight.

I’m actually having a hard time figuring out who’s booking last minute (and why a site specializes in it) other than for parties (large groups or.... by the hour).