Find a last-minute hotel with Priceline's Tonight-Only Deals
— -- Priceline has tapped into the same-day hotel check-in market with Tonight-Only Deals on its newly upgraded Priceline Hotel & Car Negotiator iPhone app.
And to book such a deal, it can take a lot of taps: about 40, depending on the length of your name and password. That compares with five using the iPhone or Android apps of HotelTonight, which began offering same-day hotel deals on its mobile-only platforms late last year.
It may be somewhat confusing to travelers, but if you download the latest version of the free Priceline Negotiator iPhone app, it now offers three ways to book a hotel room:
•Name Your Own Price, for discounts up to 60%, though you don't know the name of the hotel upfront.
•The regular published rates that you'll find on other websites.
•And a sort of "middle ground" in Tonight-Only Deals. With Tonight-Only Deals, you can book three- and four-star hotels starting at 11 a.m. on the day you're staying, until 11 p.m. The hotel's name is known in advance at promised discounts of up to 35%.
Priceline says it provides exclusive rates for Tonight-Only Deals. HotelTonight says it makes "special arrangements" to secure "phenomenal rates" at up to 70% off at some of the "hippest downtown hot spots." Neither guarantees a room type.
You can get some nice last-minute rates and have the security of knowing which hotel and where it is using either Priceline's Tonight-Only Deals or HotelTonight. Tonight-Only Deals tend to skew toward widely recognized brands. HotelTonight tilts toward boutique hotels.
There can be hyperbole about the size of discounts and exclusivity when it comes to booking hotels online. That's true with Tonight-Only Deals.
For example, on Oct. 4, both Tonight-Only Deals and HotelTonight offered a stay that night for the MCM Eleganté Hotel and Suites in Dallas. The HotelTonight base rate was $10 cheaper.
Tonight-Only Deals displayed a room there for a $79 base rate, while HotelTonight offered a stay for $69.
Priceline touted its Tonight-Only Deal for the MCM Hotel as about 35% off a supposedly $122 published rate. But Priceline's regular published-rate service was showing the MCM Hotel for the identical $79 rate late that evening.
Though I commonly found the published rate on Priceline and other websites to be considerably higher than on Tonight-Only Deals, the published rate for the MCM Hotel was the same on Priceline and Tonight-Only Deals.
Meanwhile, Travelocity offered the MCM Hotel that night for $99 — well below the $122 rate that Priceline claimed was the benchmark for its discount.
Here's a closer look at Priceline's Tonight-Only Deals:
•Overview. Discounted rates, up to 35% off, for bookings starting at 11 a.m. that day for a maximum of up to four nights in 34 U.S. cities. Available by downloading the latest Priceline Hotel & Car Negotiator iPhone app (version 5.5). The new service will be added soon to the iPad app.
•Pros. Nice alternative to Name Your Own Price and other websites for discounted rooms, because you know in advance the hotel's name and location. It has more cities than HotelTonight's 22. It provides guest ratings, while HotelTonight has none. Its deals are posted an hour earlier than HotelTonight's noon posting.
•Cons. The biggest flaw: It's necessary to re-enter your name, e-mail and password for each booking. That's more time-consuming taps than HotelTonight.
It shows only up to three hotels per city, while HotelTonight displays up to six. It's not yet available in Priceline's Android app. At 8 p.m. Oct. 4, for example, no Tonight-Only Deals were shown for in Seattle, San Francisco or Reno and there was no indication of whether deals had merely sold out or were not offered at all that day. You must book by 11 p.m., compared with 2 a.m. for HotelTonight.
•Takeaway. A fine alternative for last-minute, mobile bookers who aren't comfortable with the uncertainty of Name Your Own Price. Take percentage discounts with a grain of salt.
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