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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 dependent (I only tried it in NYC and SF)?

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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 <15s to book

- 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 experience using other booking sites for 'cheap deals' has been that you're often treated as a lower-tier customer, for example being given worse rooms (ground floor, no windows etc). The HotelTonight experience is the opposite. ~25% of the time, I receive a room upgrade without asking

- No hidden charges

I'm not a person who is loyal to a brand by nature. But HotelTonight is the closest I've come to feeling that way so far.

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.

This. I was stuck in Seoul because I missed my train and needed a hotel for the night. Downloaded HT for the first time, it found me a nice boutique hotel for not very much, and I was booked in less than 5 s (didn’t need to enter any payment info since it supported Apple Pay). The quality of the hotel was excellent even though it was rated Basic on HT.

"My experience using other booking sites for 'cheap deals' has been that you're often treated as a lower-tier customer, for example being given worse rooms (ground floor, no windows etc). The HotelTonight experience is the opposite. ~25% of the time, I receive a room upgrade without asking"

They're all OTAs. You're just as likely to get a "good" room with HotelTonight as you would with Priceline, Hotwire, etc. The quality of room you receive is mostly dependent on room availability and the check-in agent.

> You're just as likely to get a "good" room with HotelTonight as you would with Priceline, Hotwire, etc.

Can't speak for every hotel (obviously), but I know for a fact this isn't true for several.

Hotels always have better and worse rooms - it's very rare to have a building where there isn't a loud/dark/musty room or two.

In most hotels where I know a member of staff, they freely admit to having several 'worse' rooms which are given to booking.com/priceline etc guests first, regardless of availability.

They purposefully save a few 'better' rooms in case valued customers show up last minute. For some reason, HT customers get lumped into this category - maybe because it's assumed they have the purchasing power to become a 'real' customer in the future (but that's just a guess).

There is a high chance that this is anecdotal, specially if both OTAs were offering you the room at the same price. For bigger chains, the person at the front desk hardly cares about where you booked from. It could be the case where there were very few rooms remaining when you booked with OTAs other than HT so you ended up with worse rooms.

> In most hotels where I know a member of staff, they freely admit to having several 'worse' rooms which are given to booking.com/priceline etc guests first, regardless of availability.

You don't think Hotel Tonight is lumped in there with booking.com and Priceline? They're all OTAs. They're all treated the same.

I’ve had the same experience

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 to use hotel tonight again.

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.

Same question applies. By point of comparison im rarely paying much under $300/night and often more in Manhattan.

Yeah, it was around 250. But I assumed that with hotel tonight you were getting a good deal for using otherwise unused inventory, not getting essentially market rate for a hotel

I can often get a room for $250 at one of my preferred, maybe slightly off the beaten track, clean/quiet hotels especially on the weekend. Of course prices can rise dramatically from there.

I find it a lot easier to find $250 “bargains” in Manhattan these days than in SF. Recent event I ended up couch surfing with friends rather than pay $650/night there.

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.

> Takes <15s to book

That's a nice feature. I don't think I've ever booked a hotel that fast.

Not sure how this relates to my comment.

Do you use it even if you plan the trip well in advance? Have you ever run into problems finding a room or being forced to take a room in a distant part of town?

> Do you use it even if you plan the trip well in advance?

Yes, often. I'll check there first at least.

If it's a special occasion (Valentine's Day for example) I'll probably use another booking platform.

> Have you ever run into problems finding a room or being forced to take a room in a distant part of town?

Yes, never been worse than the main booking sites though. I was in SF at the same time as the Salesforce conference was taking place a few years back, for example. Nothing available anywhere.

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.

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.

Lots of these companies create the fake assurance that you can be connected to customer support within minutes, but then go out of their way to hide it behind as many menus as possible and don't have a phone number to call. There needs to be a site indexing and monitoring this.

I was once very positively surprised by booking.com. I perceived them as super scammy because the website is one giant big dark pattern. But when shit hit the fan while in China, they proactively reached out and gave me a 20$ voucher (mind you, the hotel was very cheap, so that was actually a good amount of money) without me having any receipts to show for.

> It was really difficult to find a phone number -- they clearly don't want you calling them

Maybe it changed in the mean time, but googling "airbnb phone number" showed it right in the search page. That info came from https://www.airbnb.com/help/contact_us, wherein clicking "It's something else" shows a "Call us" option, which has the number.

I use HT quite a bit. It used to be significantly cheaper 5 years ago since it was only last minute hotels. They've since expanded to work more similarly to other booking sites since you can book way in advance now.

You get decent discounts with their loyalty program, which doesn't work with points, but just tracks your spend on the platform and levels you up as you spend more.

I think a huge factor for me using it is their customer service. You can text them via the app over anything and they'll respond back pretty quick. You also get upgraded "concierge" service as you level up, though I didn't find this to be that much better.

I'm worried that AirBnb will ruin HT since they have such horrible customer service. Hopefully they don't. It's nice not planning your hotels far in advance, land in a city, and take it from there.

Amazing app. I was in Bordeaux, having dinner, time slipped away, drank too much...what to do? HotelTonight. I would find something, book it, and be done. Back to dinner.

I did this 7 different times all around France. It was a perfect experience. The fact that the UI/UX makes super duper easy to view, book, set, & forget. I think its better than opening a chrome tab or any other mobile app thus far.

Don't even try to compare to other sites desktop experience. I can book everything before you would launch a chrome tab. Lastly, every time I showed up to the reserved hotel (usually later), everything was taken care of and never was my reservation, lost, not taken, or a problem with rooms. THE UI/UX is the reason this app is so amazing.

That aspect never occurred to me since their stated value proposition was always super cheap last minute deals. But their prices were never particularly great so it kind of failed at that one job. If it had been positioned more of a super-simple Uber for hotel rooms then maybe I would’ve approached it from a different angle and not been so disappointed.

Anecdotally - I've always gotten excellent deals in the Bay Area and I've used HT there a lot. It usually gets me prices about 15-20% less than what I'd get via the traditional booking sites. What makes you say it failed at its one job?

I count on it heavily. When I travel i don't make itineraries or plans, so that i am free to follow my desire.

If you're trying to find a comfortable and quiet bed after 2 flights and a train, airbnb, even with "book it now" is a nightmare waiting/organizing game, direct booking in foreign languages with different tax/fee structures can be really confusing.

For instance, in Paris I ended up in a $450/ni 5 star hotel, and was ~$30 away from playing french phone tag for a room in a shared airbnb apartment.

> 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.

This is based on a concept called price parity, for which there are exceptions - including opaque rates, packaged bookings, and last minute / mobile. HotelTonight is able to fit inside those limitations when selling rooms last minute - so they are indeed often cheaper than other aggregators or booking direct.

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!

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-guarantee/...

https://www.marriott.com/online-hotel-booking.mi

https://www.choicehotels.com/deals/best-rate

https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/wyndham/hotel-deals/best-rate-...

https://www.hyatt.com/info/best-rate-guarantee

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...

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.com it's $259.

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.

I've found Priceline Express to be much cheaper than the direct price, for major chains and otherwise.

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.

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.

But the hotel websites aren't the cheapest prices. They get around it by selling the discount rooms through sites like hotwire or Priceline. So you can't actually see the name of the hotel until checkout. I frequently get cheaper prices than the hotel site by going through hotwire.

That's called opaque pricing, and that's different since you are getting a discount in exchange for not knowing which specific hotel you are getting to stay at so it's not exactly comparable to going to your preferred hotel's website and choosing the room you want. However, as I have edited into my prior comments, I am finding that the best price guarantees may not apply on the day of arrival, and third party websites are evidently cheaper than hotel websites. Seems like a shortsighted move since now I don't trust the hotel website to have the cheapest price, so I'll go via third party websites and hotels have to pay commission.

You can save even more if you use a cashback site when booking through Priceline, Orbitz, etc.

The Best Price Guarantee is largely a lie. It's a Best Price Guarantee on a rack-rate rooms. The problem is most OTAs will offer a significant discount (sometimes more than 50%) for a non-refundable room. The rooms are exactly the same, they just classify them differently, so they don't have to actually have the best price.

> 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.

Well if I'm travelling on business in a major western city realistically I'm only going to consider a handful of major brands, but yeah or look at aggregators then book directly, or at least check the price.

I've used it a fair amount of the last few years. It worked quite well and found some good deals -- as others mentioned -- when it was last minute only. Stayed on place in Carmel at a price that I had never seen for that particular property.

I'm concerned, like others, that contracts and deals will evaporate as they end (as part of AirBnB)

This has been my experience exactly (I’ve tried it in American and international markets, but don’t recall specific cities). I try them like once every 6 months and am always disappointed. You go thru the whole flow to find that there’s a Hotel Tonight fee and therefore the rate is more expensive (or at least isn’t cheaper) than you’d get by simply searching various other travel sites, and they don’t give you a guaranteed room type. Maybe if you don’t care about finding the best deal it’s a nice experience for people? (I most certainly do like to get the best deal though.)

Based on my limited experience, prices seem pretty inline with Google's hotel search but booking experience is much nicer. Last summer I was traveling in Europe and would end up booking a hotel in few seconds and showing up 15min later for my stay. The experience is so much better compared to Booking.com et al which require credit card input, bad websites, enless upsell and dark patterns.

I hope they keep HT as clean as it has been as the regular Airbnb experience is starting to feel like Booking.com; hidden fees and endless fake sense of urgency among other growth tactics.

I've used it a bunch in UK and Northern Europe... absolutely loved it. Most of my travel tends to be last-minute and I've always found the selection and pricing to be great. I've never had a hotel that wasn't at least "ok" and several times I've gotten ones that have been stellar. Having the whole thing integrate with Apple Pay made it so fast, too.

This news is devastating. My least favorite lodging company just bought my most favorite.

My question would be -- what other apps provide an experience close to what HT did?

I've used it merely for the convenience, sorta like Uber/Lyft. I'm sure there are certain circumstances where some independent driver at SFO could get me to the city for less but I appreciate the consistency and convenience of the apps.

One time my wife and I had way too much to drink and surprisingly, even in the middle of nowhere Ohio (Cedar Point) I was able to book a place right near the park from my phone while waiting in line for a rollercoaster. Very rad.

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?

Used HT since 2016. I think the biggest feature for me has always been the last minute convenience. It's true as other's have mentioned that the pricing has mostly reached an equilibrium with competitors but they still offer decent discounts based on several factors including points like your current location while you have the app open. I usually open the app before I get on a flight to see what's available, then when I land at my destination airport and I'm ready to book for same day or night, the prices tend to be discounted by a fair amount for some hotels.

The points and perks are also an added benefit, like not having to physically checkout at the front-desk for certain hotels once you've attained a "perk level" (read: loyalty points).

I will say I'm a little tepid about this deal, although very happy for the HT folk for what hopefully is a decent exit. I hope this only helps the app grow and offer more features and stay true to core, although it will likely be absorbed into the Airbnb app experience

I travel a lot. And there is no hotel I am aware of that requires you to physically check out at the front desk. Unless they have old school keys, you just leave. No perks program needed.

I have only used them twice, both in 2016:

Booked a solid $134 room in Leicester Square at about 3pm same day. Went great.

Booked an $82 room at an EWR hotel, a little cheaper than other OTA rates including apaglobal. Went fine.

They seemed to have access to consolidator-style inventory at rates lower than I found in the markets where I was looking on the dates where I was looking.

Same, tried a few times, gave up since it was always more expensive than booking/hotels.com/expedia.

I've used it several times to good effect. Got to stay in a decent room in Vegas when I was just passing through for 15 bucks. They offered it to me for a second night for 25.

Ive also used it in LA, SF, bumfuck Arizona, etc. Each time I got better deals. But I used it to find hotels day of.

i've never gotten a deal that good but generally find hoteltonight to be 25-50% cheaper (assuming booking within 3 days of arrival). i've stayed many times in SF for less than $100/night at nice (but not extravagant) hotels.

Great. Used it for probably > 25 bookings. Super easy to use, super helpful staff, and it seems to be actually cheaper.

Agreed that points and benefits not being given sucks, but that's the case with any 3rd party. HT's loyalty definitely adds up, though.

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 :)

I did get one great deal on HotelTonight back in 2012, so I got in the habit of checking it regularly but after that Priceline was always cheaper, often by a significant margin.

I have the app installed for 2 years. I never got a room through them, but have tried every time I needed it. The rooms I ended up staying at were cheaper somewhere else.

Hotel Tonight has found me some last minute bargains (usually in the class I like, which is "Hip") but for corporate style accommodations, its less advantageous. It's selections are pretty interesting

Where it is fantastic is in UX. It is simple, clean and staggeringly efficient. And I've used it on three continents equally well.

I used to live a few hours from Atlanta and would decide to visit at the last minute. I've heard about HT in its infancy and thought it was a great idea that made sense... But all these years they've never been cheaper. I gave up on them.

You still get your perks and points (at least with Marriott and Hilton) even when you don't book direct. You just need to give the clerk your member number when you check in. This also includes bargain sites like hotwire.com

Nothing but positive experiences with the app. The price is usually around the same, but you can find smaller boutique hotels and hidden gems depending on where you are going.

Used it in 5 different occasions throughout a 2 year timespan, never found a deal that was cheaper than just booking directly with the hotel.

I'm in Miami/Orlando.

I've used it once in Cancun, and got a room way way cheaper than what booking.com and others were displaying.

It was pretty quick and easy.

The room and the hotel were meh.

love it, often found great deals in places like Paris a week out.

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