Using HotelTonight For a Hotel Tonight
The much-lauded hotel booking app HotelTonight, as the name suggests, is designed for same-day bookings and promises savings up to 70 percent off.
What kind of a lunatic books on the SAME DAY they need a hotel room? Well, judging from the last-minute hotel booking sites that have popped up recently (Booking.com's Tonight and Priceline's Tonight Only will be reviewed here at a later date), plenty of people, it seems.
I searched for a hotel room tonight, in Manhattan on HotelTonight. You can't search for rooms until noon eastern time, so at noon precisely, I searched with the goal of finding the best available rate at a hotel in Manhattan and got nine options - three downtown, three midtown and three uptown.
Step 1: Search on HotelTonight for best available rate at a Manhattan hotel
Step 2. Search for these same hotels on Expedia for check in tonight and took the best available rate
Step 3. Search on each individual hotel website for the best available rate
Results
| HotelTonight Price | Expedia Price | Hotel Website Price |
| Hotel Elysee: $255 | Hotel Elysee: $371
| Hotel Elysee: $350
|
| The Surrey: $320
| The Surrey: $615
| The Surrey: $492
|
| Dream New York: $215
| Dream New York: not found
| Dream New York: $254
|
| Cassa Hotel and Residences: $189
| Cassa Hotel and Residences: $349
| Cassa Hotel and Residences: $230
|
| Affinia Manhattan: $199
| Affinia Manhattan: $234
| Affinia Manhattan: $230
|
| Amsterdam Court: $150
| Amsterdam Court: $150
| Amsterdam Court: sold out
|
| Gild Hall, A Thompson Hotel: $199
| Gild Hall, A Thompson Hotel: $269
| Gild Hall, A Thompson Hotel: $189
|
| Hilton Garden Inn Tribeca: $189
| Hilton Garden Inn Tribeca: $249
| Hilton Garden Inn Tribeca: $249 |
| Gansevoort Park Ave $364
| Gansevoort Park Ave: not found
| Gansevoort Park Ave: $405
|
In the seven instances HotelTonight competed with Expedia, it beat Expedia six times and tied once.
In the eight times HotelTonight competed with the hotels' own websites, it beat them seven times and lost once (in the case of Gild Hall, A Thompson Hotel). It's odd that Amsterdam Court claimed to be sold out on their website, but I did check HotelTonight first and it's possible by the time I got to the hotel site, it had been booked up.
Bottom Line
HotelTonight did a great job at offering deals on last-minute hotel bookings.
So what's the downside? You can't shop until noon, which can make last-minute travel booking all the more stressful. The options are limited: Only nine were returned by HotelTonight, compared with more than 500 by Expedia. If you're hoping to score a deal at a particular hotel, there's a very good chance you'll be out of luck. Finally, HotelTonight is only good for domestic hotel bookings.
Even for people who aren't inclined toward last-minute travel, HotelTonight can be useful. Stranded at the airport by bad weather? Need to make an unplanned overnight stop on a family road trip? The app could come in handy in both situations.
And with the savings I'm seeing, maybe a spontaneous hotel stay is in my future. Time to start planning.