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Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

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Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#81

Post by jak92 »

nikanj wrote: post #29
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…

I’ve been burned by this on both hotels.com and hoteltonight. Show up at 11pm for your $89 room, learn about the mandatory $215 resort fee for the pool and gym you didn’t use.

wtf.. did that really happen? that's some major bs, i would expect to see the all in price with a last minute site like this

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#82

Post by lotsofpulp »

3into10power5 wrote: post #65
chrisseaton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Not true. I recently tried booking a flight on Cathay Pacific. Their price was $50 more than Kayak/Orbitz. I asked how come? They said, Kayak/Orbitz buy in bulk from Cathay Pacific so, they offer some discounts sometimes. For cathay pacific, they guaranteed income, whether or not tickets are sold.

chrisseaton specifically mentioned "every major hotel chain", which is true. See my other comment listing all the websites for all the big (American) brands showing they promise the cheapest prices on their own websites.

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

#83

Post by draw_down »

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 used it to book a couple last-minute hotels in LA during the holidays. I didn't do price comparisons but I would believe it's not much cheaper. The hotels I got were quite nice, and the prices were pretty good. The whole experience of using it is pretty nice.

On the price point, there seems to always be a $30-40 fee charged by the hotel when you check in that's not mentioned in the app, so the prices aren't as good as they seem. The fee is one time, so if you're staying there for several nights it's not much per day, but the main use of the app is finding a hotel room last minute for 1 or 2 nights.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#84

Post by jak92 »

goshx wrote: post #69
dymk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If hotels aren't disclosing these fees to HotelTonight, that's hardly HT's fault.

The fee is disclosed in the small print on HT. But it's not part of the total you pay to HT.

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

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#85

Post by csallen »

Joe-Z wrote: post #64
__alias wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you loathe them?

Don't know the GP's intention, but coming from a small tourist-heavy city, it can really fuck with the local housing market and make an already dire situation even worse. Also: What are the rules for flagging on HN? Can people not express opinions here? For reference: GP was expressing worry that she can't use HotelTonight anymore because of not wanting to support AirBnb. Glad nobody needs to read that anymore...?

Post I saw from GP didn't give any reasoning whatsoever. Merely said, "I loathe Airbnb." Perhaps it was edited after I saw it and before you did?

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#86

Post by lotsofpulp »

jonknee wrote: post #80
lotsofpulp wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Yes, for some specific hotels that don't belong to a big brand, it makes sense for them to price discriminate so that the person willing to pay $500 doesn't end up paying $200, but on the level that the big brands operate, it doesn't make sense to give up 15% of gross revenue for that reason, especially when they have better ways to price discriminate by tiering their rewards members and the rate at which people earn points.

Edit: As jonknee pointed out in another post, the ihg.com price for Kimpton Monaco in Seattle is higher than the hotel tonight price, and by quite a bit, and there's a carveout in the best price guarantee for rooms reserved within 24 hours of checkin. So I guess the best price guarantees aren't really worth much...

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#87

Post by debt »

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…

Extremely useful. Full stop. Great acquisition. Used it many, many times.

Big feature: geo-specific deals. Makes sense from a business perspective as it's Hotel Tonight, which mean hotels may have excess inventory near you for that night who's rate could be instantly negotiated down.

Changes the whole travel calculation, do you book ahead for peace of mind or wait until the night of to see if you get a good geo-specific deal?

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#88

Post by rb808 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #37
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…

> 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?

> when you've found the hotel you want?

that is the hard bit right? I guess you can showroom with expedia etc then book with the hotel direct.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#89

Post by lewisf »

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've used it all over the place and it's great. I even opted for it once when my AirBnB host cancelled last minute.

I'm hoping this is basically the expansion that happens. When hosts have emergencies, AirBnB can offer a local backup :)

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#90

Post by zackmorris »

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 works) but I can't help but feel that more of that $20 should have gone to the hotel staff, especially maids doing the actual work of cleaning up after everyone.

To me, running a bunch of web services to book rooms could be done on a properly configured computer taking 10,000 reservations a second for ~$10 per month. So the cost for booking apps has got to be mostly logistical (getting hotels onboarded with the organization, paying for liabilities, etc).

My question is, will competition in these spaces ever lower the fees and free up more money for labor? Or are we entering an endgame where labor gets relegated to the shadows?

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