Anyone on HotelTonight?

[GoodScout]

I've looked at the HotelTonight channel a couple of times. Always decide to avoid because of the last-minute reservations, inability to easily control how many guests are going into the room, etc.
Is anyone listing on this OTA, getting any business? And how does it work for you?

 

[Generic]

HotelTonight is actually owned by Air. Hope it works for you, I don't want the last minute people. Failure to plan doesn't sound like my clientele.

 

[Arks]

HotelTonight is actually owned by Air. Hope it works for you, I don't want the last minute people. Failure to plan doesn't sound like my clientele.

I'm getting more and more same-day requests for lodging. Due to blocking off days around each reservation for C19 "rest period", I usually have no availability. I can't imagine why travelers wait until near bedtime to start looking for a room! I do not want those people anyway. They're more trouble than they're worth, especially since they're almost always a one-night stay.

When I travel, I always make my reservations way head of my trip. Part of the fun of travel is studying places to stay and getting the best ones booked before someone else gets them!

 

[Morticia]

We are not using any OTA’s right now. We can’t compete with the mid range hotels that are down to $99/night. The cheap sleeps are down to $69!

Plus, yeah, I don’t want last minute bookings. I’m more focused on staying healthy.

 

[Morticia]

I'm getting more and more same-day requests for lodging. Due to blocking off days around each reservation for C19 "rest period", I usually have no availability. I can't imagine why travelers wait until near bedtime to start looking for a room! I do not want those people anyway. They're more trouble than they're worth, especially since they're almost always a one-night stay.

When I travel, I always make my reservations way head of my trip. Part of the fun of travel is studying places to stay and getting the best ones booked before someone else gets them!

Arks— are you using the new feature on Rez key to block rooms, or are you doing it manually?

 

[Arks]

Arks— are you using the new feature on Rez key to block rooms, or are you doing it manually?

Manually. Didn't know about the new ResKey feature! And I got caught on that the other day, when someone made a reservation right after someone else had made one, before I got to block off, so I had 2 reservations back-to-back. I had to move one of them to a different room. I'll look into this new feature. I've been wishing for it.

I DID find how to do it in Air, but didn't know ResKey offers this now. Great! Thanks!

 

[2cat_lady]

I love this new feature! Not only does it do the book direct reservations but John rigged it to include the ones from MyAlllocator. No more waking up in the middle of the night to check on bookings.

 

[gillumhouse]

I'm getting more and more same-day requests for lodging. Due to blocking off days around each reservation for C19 "rest period", I usually have no availability. I can't imagine why travelers wait until near bedtime to start looking for a room! I do not want those people anyway. They're more trouble than they're worth, especially since they're almost always a one-night stay.

When I travel, I always make my reservations way head of my trip. Part of the fun of travel is studying places to stay and getting the best ones booked before someone else gets them!

Years ago, before I found B & Bs (had too many kids) I WAS that traveler. we never knew where we were going to be when it was time to stop for the night. Only once did we have to sleep in the car (HE would not stop when I suggested it and summer near Fort Ticonderoga? Not a chance). Once said no way to a No-Tell and had to drive a couple more hours to Wichita. Would not do that today..

 

[JerseyBoy]

I'll jump in as someone who has been using hotel tonight from it's earliest days. I'm located next to a larger casino resort town and whether I like it or not there are lots of hotels around and a lot of competition. If you want to fill last minute rooms we have found HT to do the best job. Sure it sometimes comes with problems (extra people in rooms or sometimes children) but it has made the difference of nearly no revenue to a nearly full house (at maybe 75% rates) on many occasions. We use it with a channel manager but you can use it through their extranet and basically only open rooms when you want to, which is how we used it at first for many years. It's certainly worth a look and a try.

 

[Arks]

I WAS that traveler. we never knew where we were going to be when it was time to stop for the night.

I think that was the norm in the days when you couldn't easily check, from home in advance, all the lodging in a destination town, easily seeing photos and comparing rooms, locations and prices, and reading other travelers' reviews, days when you couldn't easily use Google Maps to know pretty much exactly where and what time you'll arrive at the next place to stop for the night. When I was a child on family trips we never had advance reservations. Just drove around looking for a Vacancy sign.

That was another era. These days it's so easy to go online and do a little advance planning to avoid having to find a place when you're tired and disoriented in a strange town at the end of a long day.