Show HN: Scout – See lower direct hotel rates as you browse online travel agents

Nine months ago, an article "For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies" sparked some interesting discussion on HN [1]. Many of the topics discussed informed the development of our new product, Scout.

The perception of many travelers is that the best hotel prices are to be found at the big online travel agencies.

The hotel chains have recently been attempting to alter this perception by offering lower prices when you book via their own websites. This usually requires membership in a loyalty program but they have streamlined sign-up so that you can become a member during the checkout process.

This channel shift is really important for the hotels because they lose so much in commission to the OTAs, not to mention market relevance and a direct relationship with the customer.

Room Key is a joint venture between six of the largest hotel chains in the world and has unique access to these lower direct rates.

We have just launched a new product called Scout, a Chrome browser extension that activates whenever you view a hotel at major OTAs.

Scout looks at the lowest rate being advertised by the OTA and then searches in the background to see if it can find a lower direct rate. If it does, it automatically displays a notification along with a button that takes the user to the hotel's own site to book the lower rate and get additional perks of booking direct (e.g. points, free wifi).

For now the hotels Scout works with are mostly limited to brands belonging to larger chains (Marriott, Hyatt, Wyndham, Choice, IHG). E.g. try looking at a Holiday Inn on Expedia and you're very likely to see a Scout notification.

The OTAs are currently limited to the major players (Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Travelocity) but we hope to grow this list to include metasearch engines (Kayak, Trivago, etc) in the near future. We also hope to introduce the extension on other browsers.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14443291

This seems impossibly similar to be an accident.

Roomkey is a joint effort by a number of large hotel groups, similar to how Hulu started. Their goal is to increase hotel direct bookings.

The widget showed me the same price as the hotel. I was asked to click through in order to see if a lower rate was available.

So no, I cannot 'see lower direct hotel rates as I browse online travel agents'.

The marketing messaging is completely disjointed from what the product actually does.