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Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

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Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#71

Post by lotsofpulp »

manigandham wrote: post #34
linuxftw wrote: post #17

Earlier 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.

HotelTonight's model is to find and offer up rooms for last-minute demand that would otherwise go empty. Hotels are happy to offer discounts for these. It's really just automating the same deals you could get if you called.

The bigger brands don't offer any discounts compared to their official sites. They can change prices many times during the day, but the official brand's website will always be the cheapest.

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

#72

Post by iooi »

Alex3917 wrote: post #21

Fuck hotel tonight, they're not even a real business and they're just scamming people out of money. They hide their mandatory "resort fees" underneath the Pay button so that it's not visible on screen, and those fees aren't included in any of the prices that are either shown initially or are visible on payment screen (room rate, taxes & fees, or total). You can see how this works in this video I made here: https://ww…

That's not for HT though, that's the hotel's policy and they take 100% of that charge. The hotel is choosing to advertise a room for $100 with a "hidden" $30 resort fee -- not HT.

Also, it's unfair to characterize it as a scam if it's printed clearly in the costs. It's your responsibility to read what you're paying for.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#73

Post by goshx »

jonknee wrote: post #49
Alex3917 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Just because it's being done by different companies it doesn't make it right. It's a shady way to lure customers and mislead them. They manipulate these fees in order to have a lower price displayed on the search results.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#74

Post by efields »

mc32 wrote: post #70
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…

Heard about them but haven’t used them. If your experience is representative then I hope AB&B doesn’t ruin them.

That’s my hope too. I hold the same high praise.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#75

Post by randomacct3847 »

vegannet wrote: post #24
the_watcher wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb expanded their offering to hotels (including boutiques and bed and breakfasts). According to them, they're seeing strong growth in this segment[0], which is probably related to your hypothesis: there's a group who aren't comfortable with the home-sharing model (or people who simply like hotels) and they're finding ways to serve those people. The HotelTonight acquisition seems like it's a way to more rapidly sc…

Does this mean the next step is developers start building out brandless hotels that are a collection of individual investor owned rooms that are serviced and let through Airbnb. There’s already “invest in a hotel room” schemes (that are mostly fraudulent/garbage) so maybe this is an inevitability.

Check out Sonder

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#76

Post by TaylorGood »

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…

Similarly, HotelTonight was one of the first digital products I've used and had a fondness for. Not a fanboy, just really like the experience. I've been using HT for leisure since 2011.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#77

Post by Alex3917 »

iooi wrote: post #72
Alex3917 wrote: post #21

Fuck hotel tonight, they're not even a real business and they're just scamming people out of money. They hide their mandatory "resort fees" underneath the Pay button so that it's not visible on screen, and those fees aren't included in any of the prices that are either shown initially or are visible on payment screen (room rate, taxes & fees, or total). You can see how this works in this video I made here: https://ww…

That's not for HT though, that's the hotel's policy and they take 100% of that charge. The hotel is choosing to advertise a room for $100 with a "hidden" $30 resort fee -- not HT. Also, it's unfair to characterize it as a scam if it's printed clearly in the costs. It's your responsibility to read what you're paying for.

> Also, it's unfair to characterize it as a scam if it's printed clearly in the costs.

It isn't, which is why I posted the video showing that.

On the screen you can very clearly see:

  Room (1 Night): $180
  Taxes & Fees: $32
  Total: $221
The resort fee isn't included in any of those. They put it in fine print thats hidden below the Apple Pay button. But they designed the UI to make it so that the Payment button is flush with the bottom of the screen in order to hide the fact that the fine print is even there.

In other words, they're purposely trying to hide the fact that the page is scrollable or that there is more content (the fine print) after the fold, and are trying to lead the buyer to believe that they already have the full pricing information before hitting the Pay button.

If the fine print that included the resort fee was above the Payment button then that would be one thing, but it's purposely designed so that you can't even see that the fine print even exists.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#78

Post by strange_quark »

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…

Ironically the first time I used HotelTonight was when my Airbnb turned out to be a scam leaving me with nowhere to stay well past midnight. Airbnb's customer service was horrid. It was really difficult to find a phone number -- they clearly don't want you calling them -- and once I did find a number, I was on hold for upwards of 30 minutes until I finally got a person who told me that I would have to wait over an hour more to make sure the host actually abandoned me.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#79

Post by randomacct3847 »

Numberwang wrote: post #15
randomacct3847 wrote: post #2

pretty 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.

Having lived in close to a 100 airbnb apartments soon and never once experienced an issue with the checking and checkout or a larger concern about the quality or communication, I'd recommend you to give it another go if you have the chance. Because your concerns are not warranted.

It’s fine 95% of the time. If you are booking an Airbnb same day as check in it’s going to have to be an instant booking, which is a fraction of the Airbnbs available.

If you’re a biz traveler and your flight is delayed or getting in late the comfort of knowing you can enter a hotel that is big, easy to find, and lobby open and attended to 24/7 is much more comforting than anything you can book on Airbnb. It’s hard to argue with.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#80

Post by jonknee »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #53
kylemh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you actually have a better price, then at least these brands will give you discounts or points. I don't see why they wouldn't hardcode it into their systems to not allow a cheaper priced to be reserved unless via their direct non commissionable channels, seems like a pretty easy thing to prevent. https://www.ihg.com/hotels/us/en/customer-care/lowest-intern... https://hiltonworldwide3.hilton.com/en/best-price-guara…

I mean sometimes you just want to book a room and not have to file a claim to get a refund.
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