On my way home from my epic Tier Point run, I had this idle idea of actually staying at a hotel and crashing for a while in peace and quiet.
Not the worst idea in many respects I think we can all agree with the flying that I’ve done recently.
For a giggle, I fired up Hotel Tonight on the phone to see what it could pull in the Heathrow area. My “preferred” (well, that’s a loose term, but it will suffice) hotel in the Heathrow area is the Holiday Inn Ariel.
Why? Because for a hotel on the edge of the Heathrow area, it’s normally dirt cheap.
So what did Hotel Tonight offer?
£109. Hmm. That’s a little on the high side to say the least. Not unknown by any stretch of the imagination, but still high.
For an additional giggle, I fired up the IHG app that’s on my phone. The price difference… was… well.
IHG App, taken a few minutes later (trimmed my personal information out).
£69 direct with IHG.
So Hotel Tonight wants to charge £40 more for the same room.
Hmm. I think not.
In the end, I’m writing this at the train station, as I’ve got a 30 minute wait before I can go on the cheap train tickets…. and I want my own bed tonight. And own bathtub.
But the lesson here is an important one – shop around before you hit the book button.
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I had a different experience with Hotel Tonight in NYC. Hotels tonight was offering the best price by 30 bucks. Instead of booking it, I went to the hotel, showed them and asked if they could match it on the spot since booking direct would yield me points and a stay credit. They happily obliged as the few dollars they would pay for the provided points is nothing compared to what hotel tonights cut would have been.
My experience is that Hotel Tonight is never a good deal. I’ve used Priceline and Hotwire last minute with much more success. Hotel Tonight is targeted at a very high end, “money is no issue” demographic. Their US Black Friday promotion was a disaster – crashed all the time. Another overfunded, overrated travel startup.
Hotel Tonight will do a price match if you find it cheaper – https://www.hoteltonight.com/price_guarantee – and I’ve found them to respond to those requests much faster than any chain BRG/BPG/similar department ever has!
That said, for a chain hotel I’d normally rather book with the chain itself, even if a few pounds more than HT or similar, just for the points + status credits. My normal use of Hotel Tonight is for when there’s no suitable chain hotel, for which I’ve found them pretty good, but when time permits a quick looking around is always worth it when BPG/BRGs could exist! (Catch an IHG hotel doing it and the first night’s free!)
If you ever need a hotel near CLE Hopkins airport. Candlewood Suites is a wonderful IHG hotel. I booked through hotel tonight for a one night stay. The rate was 64 a night through both hotel tonight and IHG. But I saved 25 dollars off by using the ht app.
I have had no luck with HotelTonight. It has never been better priced than other avenues; Kayak etc.