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Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

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Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#201

Post by _ef9x »

jonknee wrote: post #172
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?

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 ste…

Yep. I got a hotel when I stayed w/ friends recently and had been planning to sleep on their couch but they didn't provide me a blanket, pillow, or towel (great people, terrible hosts lol) and a hotel room that was quiet conveniently located near them was cheaper than any Airbnb after fees.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#202

Post by wbronitsky »

gmanley wrote: post #195
wbronitsky wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Either people agree with you or they're Nazis? Maybe you should rethink why you are getting downvotes. It may be more due to people thinking that companies acting as gate keepers or moral compasses can very much be a slippery slope and you simply saying it's not does not change that people think that.

Downvotes simply silence a post. If someone doesn't agree, they can rebut, but that is not what a downvote is.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#203

Post by hawaiianbrah »

Scoundreller wrote: post #180
kdot wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I’m like 50/50 with booking things in advance and not. Prices don’t seem to go up too much so sometimes I value the flexibility of not booking until needed.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#204

Post by Symbiote »

oh_sigh wrote: post #143
louisswiss wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it a lot (several times each month for the past ~3 years). I absolutely love it. - You can trust that the hotels are good enough. Never had a bad experience - Takes - They have their own rewards system which really starts to add up the more you use it - They may never give you the absolute cheapest option available in that city for that night, but you'll get an amazing deal on a higher-quality hotel - My experi…

The one time I used hotel tonight, I was placed in a room that was literally the size of the full size bed + ~2' around 3 of the edges to navigate. The bathroom was almost larger than the room itself, and I had to store my luggage in there because there was no where else. I didn't mind too much, because I was only in the city for 1 night and mostly just slept there, but it was a ugly enough result to make me not want…

If that was Central London, and the price not particularly high, that wouldn't be especially unusual. Except the bathroom would probably be smaller.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#205

Post by notyourwork »

louisswiss wrote: post #55
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…

I use it a lot (several times each month for the past ~3 years). I absolutely love it. - You can trust that the hotels are good enough. Never had a bad experience - Takes - They have their own rewards system which really starts to add up the more you use it - They may never give you the absolute cheapest option available in that city for that night, but you'll get an amazing deal on a higher-quality hotel - My experi…

I noticed the prices are getting closer to any other option. When I first started using HT the deals were great but this year that seems to be evaporating slowly.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#206

Post by tedmiston »

chx wrote: post #200
dpandya wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not a company is a "tech" company is kind of a muddled question, but taking even a brief glance at https://airbnb.io/ (their engineering blog) makes it clear that AirBnB does some pretty serious engineering. For example, their post about their work in search ranking is quite interesting [1]. [1]: https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/machine-learning-power...

> AirBnB does some pretty serious engineering. They might but after all these years you still can't search for a room with a private bath despite the platform has the data and detail pages show it.

Do you mean private with respect to the host or private with respect to other guests (e.g., booking a single room in someone else's place)?

I'm trying to understand the underlying problem you're getting at. I haven't had trouble with getting places with my own bathroom though I do not stay in Airbnbs with multiple concurrent guests much.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#207

Post by rob_austin »

strychn9ne9 wrote: post #153
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 think Airbnb shines with large groups. Me and 10 friends can split a house in the mountains or in some European city for a fraction of getting multiple rooms in a Hotel - with much less hassle. However, if I'm traveling by myself or with my partner, hotels still seem the way to go. Valet parking in a city centre with room service can make a stay much comfortable.

Agreed. I have been using Airbnb since 2010. I've had more bad experiences when using Airbnb compared to hotels. Earlier it used to be cheaper to stay in Airbnb, but not anymore. Their fees are outrageous and the quality of the accommodation has been wildly inconsistent.

I find it more stressful to stay at an airbnb.. lots of weird rules and policies to keep track of. Airbnb customer service is horrible when things go wrong.

The better Airbnb locations are managed by professional companies. Their prices tend to be high.

Nowadays, I consider staying in Airbnb only for a long trip with a lot of people when I can justify the time to thoroughly research the places. Otherwise, I prefer the consistent experience offered by Hilton/Hyatt/Marriott. Ironically it is relaxing for me to come back to the cookie cutter furnishings where I won't have to open 5 cabinets to find a coffee mug.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#208

Post by notyourwork »

aboutruby wrote: post #183
bertil wrote: post #176

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 thei…

Completely disagree on the technology part, everything being written in Perl doesn't help and the user experience is not as good as Airbnb. The main thing going for them is that they have basically every hotel on their platform. And like others mentioned, that a lot of people prefer hotels to airbnbs.

> Completely disagree on the technology part, everything being written in Perl doesn't help

Doesn't help what exactly? Lots of Amazon.com still runs in perl so not sure why this matters.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#209

Post by oh_sigh »

Symbiote wrote: post #204
oh_sigh wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one time I used hotel tonight, I was placed in a room that was literally the size of the full size bed + ~2' around 3 of the edges to navigate. The bathroom was almost larger than the room itself, and I had to store my luggage in there because there was no where else. I didn't mind too much, because I was only in the city for 1 night and mostly just slept there, but it was a ugly enough result to make me not want…

If that was Central London, and the price not particularly high, that wouldn't be especially unusual. Except the bathroom would probably be smaller.

Chelsea, but the NYC one, not the London one.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#210

Post by lotsofpulp »

jonknee wrote: post #184
lotsofpulp wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm familiar with the reservations systems the hotel brands use, and I have yet to come across a situation where the same hotel room is being offered for cheaper on a third party website. It's also their official policies, and as I said, it doesn't make sense to me that they would advertise that and then not set a simple technical limitation in their reservation system to prevent anyone from being lower than them. Ye…

In theory you are correct, in practice the hotel will play dumb and say they'll match it but after you file paperwork proving it was cheaper somewhere else. I've literally booked on HT from the front desk because they can't match the rate. It makes no business sense, but yet here we are. Another example: I just checked HT for San Francisco tonight and the Hyatt Regency is up for $179 after taxes and fees. On Hyatt.co…

I see that now. I thought that the hotel would value consistently saving 15% gross revenue on commission over training people to shop for rooms on third party websites.
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