Room 77 lets you select specific hotel rooms
— -- If you can't put up with the noise of guests tramping into and out of the hotel elevator or you just have to score a room with a picturesque view, then Room77.com's new Room Concierge service may help meet your need.
Room 77's online hotel comparison-shopping service already documents the attributes of individual hotel rooms at thousands of hotels around the world, including the views from their windows, the distance from the elevator, the room size and whether there is a connecting room.
With the free Room Concierge service, Room 77 gets disruptive. That's because when you book a stay in a three-star hotel or above, Room Concierge also requests specific rooms at the hotel on your behalf, although it offers no guarantees.
A service claims internal tests show hotels confirm "actual room numbers" to guests 24 to 48 hours before their stay in about one in four cases, based on Room Concierge requests. And they provide some information about the room request, such as specific room, comparable rooms, floor number or side of the hotel, about half of the time.
Here's how the service works:
When you search on Room77.com for a hotel, you can view rates offered by Room 77 itself for 120,000 hotels or navigate to Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, Hotels.com and others to book a room.
The Room Concierge service is activated if you decide to book a prepaid room via the Room 77 option. (The rates for the book Room 77 option are largely provided by Expedia or directly from the hotels, so the pricing is competitive.)
Before booking a hotel using the Room Concierge service, you can use Room 77's See Room Views feature for thousands of hotels in its floor map database to view and pick specific rooms for your wish list. Then, you can specifically ask for those rooms (instead of merely having Room Concierge interpret your preferences) or indicate floor preferences and whether you need a crib or refrigerator, for instance. Room Concierge asks for your primary and secondary room preferences (based on Quiet, Views, Size, Easy Access and Connecting Rooms).
After you book a stay, Room Concierge then contacts the hotel, asking that you be placed in a specific room or another appropriate room based on your preferences. Room 77 says it will even phone the hotel about your request if it doesn't get a reply.
Room 77 says it has floor plans, blueprints and other data for "thousands" of hotels. But, beyond these, the company says its technology develops intelligence about rooms at other properties around the world based on such factors as the address, latitude/longitude, physical orientation, and number of rooms and floors. In this way, the company says it can ascertain patterns about hotels and request specific rooms for guests even if it doesn't have an actual blueprint or floor plan.
Room Concierge has the potential to dramatically change hotel bookings if services such as this catch on. However, the service just began a couple of weeks ago, so it is too soon to gauge how well it actually delivers.
The bottom line, though, is that prior to your stay, either you will receive an e-mail confirming you secured a specific room, or you will arrive at the hotel equipped with possible room numbers that fit your preferences. So if you know how to schmooze the front desk staff and the hotel isn't full, you may be able to talk yourself into one of your desired rooms.
Here's more about Room 77's Room Concierge:
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