I have used HotelTonight several times and I loved it. In general I found cheaper deals. Now with AirBnB, it will be interesting to see if hotel chains that partner with HotelTonight continue working as there is no love lost between Airbnb and hoteling industry. I guess Airbnb will try to make HT as an hybrid app of hotels and Airbnb bookings.
Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight
41–50 of 385 posts
Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight
#42Those 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…
> HotelTonight was never actually cheaper than any other aggregators or booking directly with the hotel I think every major hotel chain guarantees that their direct price is the lowest, and why wouldn't it be when there is no middleman, so why go anywhere else when you've found the hotel you want?
They don't really though, I have called and they told me they were unable to do it and once got a sure they'll price match, but I'll have to pay the much higher rate and then file paperwork for a refund of the differnce... Like that will ever work!
Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight
#43Those 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…
> HotelTonight was never actually cheaper than any other aggregators or booking directly with the hotel I think every major hotel chain guarantees that their direct price is the lowest, and why wouldn't it be when there is no middleman, so why go anywhere else when you've found the hotel you want?
I've never actually found this to be true. I go through Kayak, and I always check the hotel directly just to be sure. I've done this 9 times in the last 4 months for Loew's, Ramada, Best Western, and Hilton.
Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight
#44Those 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…
> HotelTonight was never actually cheaper than any other aggregators or booking directly with the hotel I think every major hotel chain guarantees that their direct price is the lowest, and why wouldn't it be when there is no middleman, so why go anywhere else when you've found the hotel you want?
You can even search the absolute lowest rewards membership pricing for all the chains at www.roomkey.com, which is owned by all the chains together.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_Key
Edit: I'm going to have to retract my comments about cheapest price being on official hotel brand websites. I did a cursory search and find many cheaper options on Hotel Tonight (and expedia) for same day reservations than the brands, and while I haven't looked at all the brand's best price guarantees, at least IHG's exempts them from having to provide the lowest price within 24 hours of checkin, so it seems like a loophole to let them dump rooms for cheaper on third party websites day of arrival.
Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight
#45Those 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…
> HotelTonight was never actually cheaper than any other aggregators or booking directly with the hotel I think every major hotel chain guarantees that their direct price is the lowest, and why wouldn't it be when there is no middleman, so why go anywhere else when you've found the hotel you want?
In principle an aggregator is showing customers multiple hotels at once, so each vendor has to discount to be competitive. If you are going specifically to a single one they could exploit your lack of information to charge a higher price.
People at some point realized this though and the individual hotel sites had to promise to be the cheapest to hope to get visitors at all.
Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
By how much? I suspect they simply were operating at a loss to build up their brand. Jet.com did the same thing.
Well literally their entire pitch is that you book last minute and get savings. It would be weird if it wasn't at a discount... I just pulled it up for Seattle and the Kimpton Monaco is up for $115, $140 after taxes and fees. From the Kimpton website it's $208 or $264 after taxes and fees. So about half off, pretty good deal! This was just the first one in the list, there may be better deals.
Just compared this exact hotel for tonight on hoteltonight.com and hotels.com and travelocity.com
Same price across all 3 sites.
Chances are, if you see a price lower than the major travel sites, they're losing money. In this case, they're the same price.
Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight
#47pretty interesting. My hypothesis is that there’s a large cohort of people (myself included) who hesitate to use airbnb because there is still a real issue of inconsistency with back and forth with host, key hand off, etc that people who are attracted to hoteltonight (extremely last minute bookings) would hate and that airbnb is trying to figure out how to appeal to that base.
It wouldn't surprise me if Airbnb moves to the hardware space pretty soon, trusting their long time hosts with say wall-mountable boxes that speak Airbnb APIs and can facilitates key exchange, door locking/unlocking based on timed codes, and so on. Heck, build one and Airbnb will most likely buy it from you. ;)
that does nothing to resolve the fact that many air bnb situations involve a bedroom in someone’s occupied house
Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight
#48pretty interesting. My hypothesis is that there’s a large cohort of people (myself included) who hesitate to use airbnb because there is still a real issue of inconsistency with back and forth with host, key hand off, etc that people who are attracted to hoteltonight (extremely last minute bookings) would hate and that airbnb is trying to figure out how to appeal to that base.
Especially for business travelers. The quality of the average listing has gone down quite a bit (lots of crappy quick flips with no amenities), combined with the inconsistent experience, means I've pretty much stopped considering airbnb for business travel (I did used to enjoy it compared to being stuck in a hotel for work which can get pretty depressing)
Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
In prison? That's exactly how all hotel bookings work. I agree resort fees are a scam, but that's how it works and it's always charged directly by the property.
> that's how it works and it's always charged directly by the property. If the hotel wants to charge their own fee separate from the app then that's not a problem at all. The problem is the Hotel Tonight lying about what the prices are.
But it works that way even if you book on the hotel's own website... Or Hotels.com, Booking, whatever you want.
Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight
#50pretty interesting. My hypothesis is that there’s a large cohort of people (myself included) who hesitate to use airbnb because there is still a real issue of inconsistency with back and forth with host, key hand off, etc that people who are attracted to hoteltonight (extremely last minute bookings) would hate and that airbnb is trying to figure out how to appeal to that base.
It wouldn't surprise me if Airbnb moves to the hardware space pretty soon, trusting their long time hosts with say wall-mountable boxes that speak Airbnb APIs and can facilitates key exchange, door locking/unlocking based on timed codes, and so on. Heck, build one and Airbnb will most likely buy it from you. ;)
Yes, not necessarily novel either. Some Hilton and Marriott hotels have “digital keys” that you’re granted through their app once you check in on the app to unlock your room.