18 ms·

Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

413 points by c_t_montgomery 8y ago

randomacct3847 8y ago
pretty interesting. My hypothesis is that there’s a large cohort of people (myself included) who hesitate to use airbnb because there is still a real issue of inconsistency with back and forth with host, key hand off, etc that people who are attracted to hoteltonight (extremely last minute bookings) would hate and that airbnb is trying to figure out how to appeal to that base.
- tudelo 8y ago
  To be fair, I have used HotelTonight for day of booking and it had a better deal than I could get through any other location online for a very nice hotel.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - linuxftw 8y ago
    By how much? I suspect they simply were operating at a loss to build up their brand. Jet.com did the same thing.
    - koboll 8y ago
      I've gotten $300-400 rooms for ~$120 several times. Nice boutique hotels in resort destinations, but at off-peak times of year.
    - jonknee 8y ago
      Well literally their entire pitch is that you book last minute and get savings. It would be weird if it wasn't at a discount... I just pulled it up for Seattle and the Kimpton Monaco is up for $115, $140 after taxes and fees. From the Kimpton website it's $208 or $264 after taxes and fees. So about half off, pretty good deal! This was just the first one in the list, there may be better deals.
      - linuxftw 8y ago
        Just compared this exact hotel for tonight on hoteltonight.com and hotels.com and travelocity.com Same price across all 3 sites. Chances are, if you see a price lower than the major travel sites, they're losing money. In this case, they're the same price.
        jonknee 8y ago
        Or chances are it really depends on where you are and if they have properties they have negotiated with vs general inventory that all the travel bookers use. Sometimes there are deals, sometimes there aren't.
        linuxftw 8y ago
        Seems they're 'just another booking site' IMO.
      - lotsofpulp 8y ago
        I am surprised to see that Hotel Tonight is cheaper than the ihg.com Kimpton website. Although, I wonder if IHG leaves themselves wiggle room to offer different pricing to different channels by saying their price guarantee doesn't apply within 24 hours of checkin: 5. Find a Lower Rate. If you find a lower rate on an eligible, non-IHG website within 24 hours of making your reservation on the IHG direct channel, and it is more than 24 hours before the standard check-in time for the hotel where you made your reservation, tell us about it by completing and submitting the online claim form (“Claim Form”). We will verify the lower rate by comparing the rate found on the IHG website or mobile app with the rate found on the non-IHG website for the same hotel, room type, stay dates, number of guests, and cancellation policy. I'm actually shocked that they would do that, because now I will definitely shop around, I had erroneously thought their best price guarantee would save time.
        linuxftw 8y ago
        Kimpton charges an additional 'resort fee' which is collected directly by the 'resort'. If you book direct, it's quite possible this is included in their price, but IDK.
    - manigandham 8y ago
      HotelTonight's model is to find and offer up rooms for last-minute demand that would otherwise go empty. Hotels are happy to offer discounts for these. It's really just automating the same deals you could get if you called.
      - lotsofpulp 8y ago
        The bigger brands don't offer any discounts compared to their official sites. They can change prices many times during the day, but the official brand's website will always be the cheapest. Edit: I'm going to have to retract my comments about cheapest price being on official hotel brand websites. I did a cursory search and find many cheaper options on Hotel Tonight (and expedia) for same day reservations than the brands, and while I haven't looked at all the brand's best price guarantees, at least IHG's exempts them from having to provide the lowest price within 24 hours of checkin, so it seems like a loophole to let them dump rooms for cheaper on third party websites day of arrival.
      - linuxftw 8y ago
        This is what priceline et al have been advertising for two decades.
        manigandham 8y ago
        Last minute? That was HT's original thing, same day bookings in an easy app.
        linuxftw 8y ago
        No, it wasn't there original thing. Last minute hotel deals have been a thing for decades online. Oh, they have an app? That doesn't make their ideal original, nor were they the first to book 'last minute deals' on an app anyway.
        manigandham 8y ago
        Last-minute same-night deals was HotelTonight's entire business before they added all the other features like memberships and future bookings. That's where the name comes from. I didn't mean they were the first to do deals but nobody cares about that anyway. Users only care if it works for them, and HT has one of the smoothest apps with some of the biggest discounts. When I started using HT years ago, I could book a room in less than a minute at a lower price than any other online source. Anyways, as to the original point, they might have lost money on some deals but not all of them, and this is directly from private hotel owners I spoke with.
  - jpalomaki 8y ago
    I’ve been under the impression that some of the large sites force hotels to sign agreements, which prevent the hotel from giving better rates to other sites. Found one article mentioning this [1]. Edit: but could be these don’t apply to last minute or same day reservation. Looks like for example Hotels.com best price guarantee excludes these. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/sep/15/australians-told-to-call-hotels-rather-than-rely-on-booking-sites-for-cheaper-rates https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/sep/15/australians-t...
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      All the big brands get around this by offering cheaper pricing restricted to their rewards members reserving directly via the brands' website or call center, which is non commissionable. It's free to be a rewards member for all of the hotel rewards programs, so there's no reason not to go that way if your goal is to spend the least amount of money. Edit: I'm going to have to retract my comments about cheapest price being on official hotel brand websites. I did a cursory search and find many cheaper options on Hotel Tonight (and expedia) for same day reservations than the brands, and while I haven't looked at all the brand's best price guarantees, at least IHG's exempts them from having to provide the lowest price within 24 hours of checkin, so it seems like a loophole to let them dump rooms for cheaper on third party websites day of arrival.
      - jdeibele 8y ago
        Found this was true for car rentals last weekend. Went to an aggregator, saw their price, went to the to the car rental company to compare. Aggregator price was 2/3rds of the rental company's lowest price. Have found the same for airline flights. Google Flights showed me a flight on Delta and provided a link that was much cheaper than I could find on their own site. Absolutely no problems with either reservation. Not sure why people would go direct unless it's their employer's policy or something.
    - splonk 8y ago
      Correct, but this is being slowly phased out in some areas, particularly in the EU due to regulations. e.g. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2d2ab9fe-a2a5-4f37-be33-914f5a30f441 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2d2ab9fe-a2a5...
- the_watcher 8y ago
  Airbnb expanded their offering to hotels (including boutiques and bed and breakfasts). According to them, they're seeing strong growth in this segment[0], which is probably related to your hypothesis: there's a group who aren't comfortable with the home-sharing model (or people who simply like hotels) and they're finding ways to serve those people. The HotelTonight acquisition seems like it's a way to more rapidly scale their hotel inventory than anything else, although I suppose last-minute travel may simply be better served by hotels than home-sharing. [0] https://press.airbnb.com/more-hotels-are-using-airbnb/ https://press.airbnb.com/more-hotels-are-using-airbnb/
  - gav 8y ago
    I think it's a smart choice to give their customers the option for hotels, it solidifies Airbnb as a one-stop-shop for travel experiences. There's a lot of cases where a hotel makes sense, such as short trips (especially if it's just one night), or business travel (some companies have policies that exclude non-hotel stays from reimbursement for safety concerns), and so on. You don't want to send these customers elsewhere.
  - vegannet 8y ago
    Does this mean the next step is developers start building out brandless hotels that are a collection of individual investor owned rooms that are serviced and let through Airbnb. There’s already “invest in a hotel room” schemes (that are mostly fraudulent/garbage) so maybe this is an inevitability.
    - randomacct3847 8y ago
      Check out Sonder
- Numberwang 8y ago
  Having lived in close to a 100 airbnb apartments soon and never once experienced an issue with the checking and checkout or a larger concern about the quality or communication, I'd recommend you to give it another go if you have the chance. Because your concerns are not warranted.
  - randomacct3847 8y ago
    It’s fine 95% of the time. If you are booking an Airbnb same day as check in it’s going to have to be an instant booking, which is a fraction of the Airbnbs available. If you’re a biz traveler and your flight is delayed or getting in late the comfort of knowing you can enter a hotel that is big, easy to find, and lobby open and attended to 24/7 is much more comforting than anything you can book on Airbnb. It’s hard to argue with.
- eiopa 8y ago
  My personal experience with Airbnb is that they simply don't know how to do support. Even basic issues take multiple days to resolve, and usually involve many phone calls. HotelTonight has been awesome there. You can get a representative on live chat and resolve most issues while you're still en-route from the airport. On one hand, I am hopeful Airbnb will be able to learn from HotelTonight, but in reality, it seems most acquisitions end up with the acquired company diffusing into nothingness :(
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Or I book with a hotel directly and I (essentially) never have issues that require me to deal with the corporate support line. I realize I’m not as price sensitive as some but I mostly want to minimize lodging hassle when I travel.
    - pfranz 8y ago
      I've had HotelTonight installed on my phone for years, but have only had to use it once or twice. I only travel a few times a year and tend to use it when my plans fall through. I generally book ahead of time, often with the hotel directly. The most obvious example I had using it was when I missed a flight and it was rebooked for the next morning. I was tired and I remember getting in a cab/Uber and finding out the friend who dropped me off wasn't able to let me crash there for the night. Before we had left the airport I had booked a room nearby and could direct the driver there. The hotel was nice. I might have had to wait 10m for the hotel to receive a fax confirming my booking (faxing reservations seems to be pretty common with a lot of hotels). There's no way I could have done that booking directly. It would have taken me 10x as long to figure out which hotels were nearby, near my cost, what rooms were available, and check out. I do those things when booking ahead of time, but they're also much harder to do on a phone. I'll be bummed if it I lose this contingency.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        Fax? Seriously? I haven’t used a fax with a hotel in decades. I’d probably try one or two major chain apps and, failing that, Expedia or booking.com. Perhaps HotelTonight has more options for last minute but there are plenty of other sites that let me book quickly online.
- why-el 8y ago
  It wouldn't surprise me if Airbnb moves to the hardware space pretty soon, trusting their long time hosts with say wall-mountable boxes that speak Airbnb APIs and can facilitates key exchange, door locking/unlocking based on timed codes, and so on. Heck, build one and Airbnb will most likely buy it from you. ;)
  - gjs278 8y ago
    that does nothing to resolve the fact that many air bnb situations involve a bedroom in someone’s occupied house
  - randomacct3847 8y ago
    Yes, not necessarily novel either. Some Hilton and Marriott hotels have “digital keys” that you’re granted through their app once you check in on the app to unlock your room.
  - untog 8y ago
    That stuff already exists, albeit in less advanced forms (a lock box with a number code, for example). If hosts aren't using them I'm not sure that adding another layer of technical whatevers on top of it is going to change anything.
  - lavezzi 8y ago
    They already advertise third party products for hosts on their website IIRC. They are fully aware of the market.
- yesimahuman 8y ago
  Especially for business travelers. The quality of the average listing has gone down quite a bit (lots of crappy quick flips with no amenities), combined with the inconsistent experience, means I've pretty much stopped considering airbnb for business travel (I did used to enjoy it compared to being stuck in a hotel for work which can get pretty depressing)
  - splonk 8y ago
    They're aware of this, and are in some stage of building out a business travel product. I believe part of their product roadmap includes identifying/segregating some of their more reliable inventory that's more suitable for business travelers. No idea exactly what's launched beyond what's at https://www.airbnb.com/work https://www.airbnb.com/work, though. (Not affiliated with AirBnb, but I had a chat with the tech lead of their business travel team last year).
- draw_down 8y ago
  Yeah, the uncertain/inconsistent parts of Airbnb aren't great. Waiting for the host to respond if you need them, having to tell them why you're visiting, figuring out the entry details/getting the keys, whatever rules they have about cleanliness and so forth. For one or two nights all that stuff is a pain.
Rafuino 8y ago
No mention of an acquisition price. Congrats to Sam Shank and the team though!
- randomacct3847 8y ago
  Hm not sure if it’s much cause for celebration for the HT team...they raised $130m and probably sold at max their last valuation. Employees aren’t going to make out with much and unclear if anyone is getting let go. Every OTA does last minute bookings now...reality is what they offer has been largely commoditized.
  - nedwin 8y ago
    Got any data to back that up? My anecdotal understanding was that HotelTonight was doing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Some component of that $130m may have been secondary stock sale. I don't think we have enough data to determine what the price might have been, or how well employees will do.
    - relaunched 8y ago
      Pass through revenue isn't a great metric to value off of. It's a fancy and deceptive way to pass off a broker like a software company. If you pass through 70%-80% of your revenue, your revenue is more accurately stated as a net revenue. It's more akin to how we value traditional retailers in brick and mortar businesses, with low margin - think Best Buy.
    - randomacct3847 8y ago
      I’m referring to their last valuation of $400m in 2017. The company hasn’t hockeysticked since then, by any measure (e.g. App Store rank), so I think we can deduce the sale price was likely well below $1b, maybe 500m at very best but guessing lower. Factoring liquidation preferences for VCs and you get a small pie for most people involved.
      - krn 8y ago
jonknee 8y ago
> The HotelTonight app and website will continue to operate as they do today I really hope that's the case, I love Hotel Tonight but will absolutely stop using it if I end up getting someone's condo. Regardless, I'm worried that hotel selection will go way down. They keep emphasizing boutique hotels, but that's not people go to Hotel Tonight for. I could definitely see large hotel chains not wanting to do business with Airbnb though...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- the_watcher 8y ago
  I can see some hotels taking this approach, but it will come down to how Airbnb is ultimately looked at. If hotels ultimately come to the conclusion that Airbnb is here to stay, like it or not, leveraging it to fill last-minute supply may end up being their best option.
- tspike 8y ago
  This is boilerplate new acquisition-speak. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't immediately integrate everything. 1. Buy company 2. Draft press release saying "nothing to see here, folks" 3. Wait a year 4. Company absorbs what they like, discards the rest
  - dmix 8y ago
    There are also plenty of examples where this didn't happen...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
matchbok 8y ago
Will AirBnb stop harming our communities with illegal mini-hotels then?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
redunculous5 8y ago
Oh God no. I absolutely loathe Airbnb and will not book a property with them. Does this mean I can no longer use HotelTonight too?
- __alias 8y ago
  Why do you loathe them?
  - Joe-Z 8y ago
    Don't know the GP's intention, but coming from a small tourist-heavy city, it can really fuck with the local housing market and make an already dire situation even worse. Also: What are the rules for flagging on HN? Can people not express opinions here? For reference: GP was expressing worry that she can't use HotelTonight anymore because of not wanting to support AirBnb. Glad nobody needs to read that anymore...?
    - csallen 8y ago
      Post I saw from GP didn't give any reasoning whatsoever. Merely said, "I loathe Airbnb." Perhaps it was edited after I saw it and before you did?
      - redunculous5 8y ago
        Oh, was it you that flagged my comment? I wondered why. Your comment is disengenuous (actually a straight up lie). I did not edit the comment at any point. For ref, since it's been removed it said (if I remember) "I absolutley loathe Airbnb and will not make a booking with them. Does this mean I can no longer use HotelTonight too?" or something like that. I'm fairly new to posting on HN. Maybe the comment was a little political but it was merely expressing an opinion and a concern. Are those absolutely forbidden here? (This does not seem strange on HN, even looking through your comment history)
        dang 8y ago
Alex3917 8y ago
Fuck hotel tonight, they're not even a real business and they're just scamming people out of money. They hide their mandatory "resort fees" underneath the Pay button so that it's not visible on screen, and those fees aren't included in any of the prices that are either shown initially or are visible on payment screen (room rate, taxes & fees, or total). You can see how this works in this video I made here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdrFYb4otTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdrFYb4otTs The entire app is designed to trick people about what the actual prices are. The founder is a total scumbag and belongs in prison.
- nikanj 8y ago
  I’ve been burned by this on both hotels.com and hoteltonight. Show up at 11pm for your $89 room, learn about the mandatory $215 resort fee for the pool and gym you didn’t use.
  - jak92 8y ago
    wtf.. did that really happen? that's some major bs, i would expect to see the all in price with a last minute site like this
- jonknee 8y ago
  In prison? That's exactly how all hotel bookings work. I agree resort fees are a scam, but that's how it works and it's always charged directly by the property.
  - Alex3917 8y ago
    > that's how it works and it's always charged directly by the property. If the hotel wants to charge their own fee separate from the app then that's not a problem at all. The problem is the Hotel Tonight lying about what the prices are.
    - jonknee 8y ago
      But it works that way even if you book on the hotel's own website... Or Hotels.com, Booking, whatever you want.
louisswiss 8y ago
This makes a lot of sense. I travel a lot for work (100+ nights per year). Sometimes I stay for 2+ nights, often it's just a 1-night stop over. For 2+ nights, I almost always go with an AirBnB - more space to cook/work/think etc. For 1 night though, AirBnBs are too much hassle. I don't want to have to choose a great location from a long list which includes some terrible options. I just want a clean bed, bathroom and decent wifi in a good location. HotelTonight gets me that in under 30s. I'm not sure how AirBnB locations can/will be built into HotelTonight - after all HotelTonight is all about ease of use, low friction and flexibility. The very things AirBnBs are bad at (coordinating check in times etc).
- lbotos 8y ago
  > I'm not sure how AirBnB locations can/will be built into HotelTonight - after all HotelTonight is all about ease of use, low friction and flexibility. The very things AirBnBs are bad at (coordinating check in times etc). I expect them to just show hotel tonight data in the airbnb interface. From the press release: > We are making it easier for people who use Airbnb to find last-minute places to stay when Home hosts are often already booked. The availability of boutique hotels—in addition to private rooms and entire homes that are instantly bookable—helps ensure authentic, high-quality stays are available on-demand, especially at the last minute. I think about it this way all the time: AirBnB bought the product for X price, because they think it will help them make Y more money. They don't even need to "merge" as long as the product is profitable but if they can get even 1% more with a cross over, then AirBnB (the parent co) is making even more money (with more risk ofc)
  - kokokokoko 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure AirBnB acquired HotelTonight so they can legally speculate about owning a much larger share of overall travel booking, including traditional hotels, on their S-1.
HeavenFox 8y ago
Those who have used HotelTonight, can you comment on your experience? For me, there have been several rare occasions when I needed a room at last minute, but HotelTonight was never actually cheaper than any other aggregators or booking directly with the hotel. All being equal I vastly prefer booking direct so I get my points and elite benefits. I guess they have a fancy interface, and that's... it? Maybe it's market dependent (I only tried it in NYC and SF)?
- randunel 8y ago
  Same, tried a few times, gave up since it was always more expensive than booking/hotels.com/expedia.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > HotelTonight was never actually cheaper than any other aggregators or booking directly with the hotel I think every major hotel chain guarantees that their direct price is the lowest, and why wouldn't it be when there is no middleman, so why go anywhere else when you've found the hotel you want?
  - jonknee 8y ago
    They don't really though, I have called and they told me they were unable to do it and once got a sure they'll price match, but I'll have to pay the much higher rate and then file paperwork for a refund of the differnce... Like that will ever work!
  - kylemh 8y ago
    I've never actually found this to be true. I go through Kayak, and I always check the hotel directly just to be sure. I've done this 9 times in the last 4 months for Loew's, Ramada, Best Western, and Hilton.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      If you actually have a better price, then at least these brands will give you discounts or points. I don't see why they wouldn't hardcode it into their systems to not allow a cheaper priced to be reserved unless via their direct non commissionable channels, seems like a pretty easy thing to prevent. https://www.ihg.com/hotels/us/en/customer-care/lowest-internet-rate-terms-conditions https://www.ihg.com/hotels/us/en/customer-care/lowest-intern... https://hiltonworldwide3.hilton.com/en/best-price-guarantee/overview.html https://hiltonworldwide3.hilton.com/en/best-price-guarantee/... https://www.marriott.com/online-hotel-booking.mi https://www.marriott.com/online-hotel-booking.mi https://www.choicehotels.com/deals/best-rate https://www.choicehotels.com/deals/best-rate https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/wyndham/hotel-deals/best-rate-guarantee https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/wyndham/hotel-deals/best-rate-... https://www.hyatt.com/info/best-rate-guarantee https://www.hyatt.com/info/best-rate-guarantee Edit: I'm going to have to retract my comments about cheapest price being on official hotel brand websites. I did a cursory search and find many cheaper options on Hotel Tonight (and expedia) for same day reservations than the brands, and while I haven't looked at all the brand's best price guarantees, at least IHG's exempts them from having to provide the lowest price within 24 hours of checkin, so it seems like a loophole to let them dump rooms for cheaper on third party websites day of arrival.
orliesaurus 8y ago
I hope they truly remain independent. It's a great platform. A few years ago I was in Paris. It was a last minute thing and I used a similar website to HotelTonight that was the "hot" product in the last minute industry for big EU cities. Basically I got to stay at a really exclusive hotel for an extremely interesting rate. Something like 60% of its original value. I guess hotels don't care anymore at a certain point as long as they get their minimum back. Especially this was when Airbnb was the new cool kid in town. It is kinda interesting how Airbnb is just now moving into this market slowly eating the hotel industry one piece at a time
dm8 8y ago
I have used HotelTonight several times and I loved it. In general I found cheaper deals. Now with AirBnB, it will be interesting to see if hotel chains that partner with HotelTonight continue working as there is no love lost between Airbnb and hoteling industry. I guess Airbnb will try to make HT as an hybrid app of hotels and Airbnb bookings.
zackmorris 8y ago
This looks like a good opportunity to discuss something I'm concerned about regarding booking apps. We used Expedia I believe to book a hotel last year and I remember that it charged a $20 fee on top of an $80 hotel room. I believe they had an agreement where the online and in-person price was the same, so the hotel basically ate that $20. So it's good for them to get the constant business (similarly to how Groupon works) but I can't help but feel that more of that $20 should have gone to the hotel staff, especially maids doing the actual work of cleaning up after everyone. To me, running a bunch of web services to book rooms could be done on a properly configured computer taking 10,000 reservations a second for ~$10 per month. So the cost for booking apps has got to be mostly logistical (getting hotels onboarded with the organization, paying for liabilities, etc). My question is, will competition in these spaces ever lower the fees and free up more money for labor? Or are we entering an endgame where labor gets relegated to the shadows?
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  It will not. The labor is commoditized - if you want more money to go to the staff, you need to directly hand it to them in the form of cash.
- calbear81 8y ago
  When the hotel participates with an OTA like Expedia or others, they are not paying for the facilitation of the booking, they are paying for the demand that Expedia has generated for the hotel. An unsold room is perishable every night and the cost of not participating on Expedia is that the room is empty instead of being filled at a $20 lower profit margin.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  Whenever I see comments along the lines of "In my mind you could replace this 20,000 person company with a computer running a script for $10 months", I'm convinced that folks don't know what really goes in to running a large e-commerce site. To be sure, I'm not arguing there isn't a lot of waste at these large companies, but running a large eCommerce business at scale is a hugely complicated endeavor. For one, the economics of large OTAs mean that very small increases in conversion rates can result in huge increases in revenue, so they all have very large teams optimizing their sites, running a ton of A/B tests, optimizing their search advertising bidding, etc. Yes, it definitely would be possible to build a fairly straightforward hotel booking site with a very small number of people. To do it in a way that makes any money is a much more difficult problem.
crushcrashcrush 8y ago
Fantastic product, super concerned about AirBnB acquisition - not because of what they'll do to the product, but I guarantee their partnerships with hotels and hotel groups will evaporate when contracts expire. A hotel working with Airbnb is like BlockBuster working with Netflix to share customer data. The hotels groups aren't as fucking stupid as Blockbuster was, though.
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  Another thought (should I have edited my original post?) - this may have been a pure Customer List & Historical Data acquisition play. They may have purchased HT fully knowing that they'll lose hotel partners at contract expiration... could be next year or in 2025.
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    I mean, what kind of data could they really want? Lists of people who stay in hotels when they travel? Probably cheaper ways to get marketing lists like that. Their market is essentially anyone and everyone that travels. They probably want to put Airbnb listings as options on the hotels tonight app.
    - Scoundreller 8y ago
      Targeting. If you know someone goes to London every November, your targeting return just went up 100x.
      - kdot 8y ago
        The nature of HT is last minute spur of the moment bookings.
        Scoundreller 8y ago
        I guess there are at least two categories: 1. Those that are in another city, knew they were going to be there, and didn’t book ahead (or just need an extra room?) 2. Those that live in a city and decide to get a hotel room tonight. I’m actually having a hard time figuring out who’s booking last minute (and why a site specializes in it) other than for parties (large groups or.... by the hour).
benatkin 8y ago
I have no problem getting AirBnb's at the last minute. I look for ones that say "self check-in" or "check-in anytime" and are bookable instantly. I think since AirBnb is already succeeding at that, this will just increase their success in that area. All they need to do is find those offering that service or have them come to them, whether they be people with extra rooms, or a full fledged hotel.
- therealx 8y ago
  Usually the stock of these is very low day-of in any major city.
  - benatkin 8y ago
    Oh, true, I haven’t travelled in season in a while. I often wind up traveling in the off season (summer in hot places, winter in cool places that aren’t ski towns). I think there are some places that tend to be affordable almost year round, but your comment reminded me what it’s like to try to find a place in Miami in the late winter. It’s not an AirBnb specific problem, though.
randomacct3847 8y ago
I still to this day scratch my head over how we’ve normalized sleeping in another stranger’s bed, as as hosts have normalized complete strangers touching our stuff and having sex in our beds. It’s wild.
- hunter23 8y ago
  A majority of the airbnb hosts nowadays are professionally managed ones at this point. I would say out of my last 10 stays, only 2 of them were hosts who actually lived in them. Airbnb is essentially a hotel operation at this point.
- opportune 8y ago
  As opposed to a hotel where nobody else has ever slept in or had sex in the bed
seppin 8y ago
damn.
samstave 8y ago
AirBnB has massive amount of money and clout. What should one do with money and clout? Build a thing... What type of thing? AirBnBs are consumed by primarily individuals/couples How provid? Welp - where do they go? They have the data. So - how about buy up and build tiny-home communities in highest ABnB places? Partner with Epic Tiny Home providers such as WindRiverTinyHomes Why not throw that clout around on city planning depts whi dont know how to zone, divest parcels... Alameda is an example - whom I have spoken with about just this Why not work with Warren Buffets Manufactured Homes groups (whom I have spoken with) to make an inventory.... Why not do many things... Fuck AIRBnB - have a 20 year vision. Build a freaking community based on a bolt-on tiny home over a shared common infrastructure in a very common design-build model. (Ive designed built gas stations, fast food, cell sites, data centers, and millions of square feet) - there are LOTs of people like me. Go build something.
therealx 8y ago
Theres one other feature of HotelTonight thats super useful - I often want to book a room very late into the night. Think finding a room at 11pm or 1am. A lot of hotels dont want to deal with you or aren't sure how to handle the rate/days. HotelTonight made that unquestionable and easy.
capkutay 8y ago
This just looks like Twitter acquiring vine 2.0. A big player acquiring an orthogonal product...most likely meaning they'll just kill it. I doubt hotels will partner with AirBnB on a booking service.
bertil 8y ago
It’s interesting that no one here, after 160 comments, is speculating about the impact to Booking.com B. is the 7th largest internet company in the world but because it’s in Amsterdam and not US based, hardly anyone think about them. They have incredible technology, often on-par with the big ones but I’m not anyone here could name one problem where they pionnered a solution. Disclaimer: I used to work for one of their subsidiaries.
- aboutruby 8y ago
  Completely disagree on the technology part, everything being written in Perl doesn't help and the user experience is not as good as Airbnb. The main thing going for them is that they have basically every hotel on their platform. And like others mentioned, that a lot of people prefer hotels to airbnbs.
  - hrktb 8y ago
    I heard the integration part was mostly java. I’d guest they have both alive internaly, a bit like amazon at a time (?) PS: dealing with hotels is playing with decades old technology. I think they’re doomed to keep a flexible and tried and true stack to deal with all the atrocities they’ll have to adjust to.
  - notyourwork 8y ago
    > Completely disagree on the technology part, everything being written in Perl doesn't help Doesn't help what exactly? Lots of Amazon.com still runs in perl so not sure why this matters.
  - cr1895 8y ago
    >the user experience is not as good as Airbnb. This user's perspective is the opposite.
  - bertil 8y ago
    I can’t and I won’t comment on that larger part of the code base, but I suspect that you are right. (I did leave the company after all.) Having every hotel on the planet requires some very heavy-handed growth teams and they have impressive talent there. It also requires to develop very flexible solutions and, even of the main code-base has some problem, that flexibility is worth mentioning. There are three areas where I’ve seen some world-class internal products (on par with what I’ve seen at Facebook): data engineering, A/B testing, Machine learning hosting and serving. I’ve asked them to open-source and started what I could to help them do that, but they are far from being able to do it.
openloop 8y ago
Good luck with your hotel murder. VBRO Hilton Marriot. Who give a shit the jobs are gone anyways.
stef25 8y ago
What's amazing at Airbnb is their ability to make places look so much nicer in the pictures than what they look like in reality. After staying in a crack house in Barcelona, a dirty dark hole in Manhattan, a "private" villa in France where the owner was screwing an endless stream of boyfriends behind the flimsy kitchen door at 10AM, a thermite infested apartment in Sicily with horrid beds, I still feel like a total asshole when leaving a negative review. I'm not sure why I keep going back to it.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > a thermite infested apartment in Sicily Thermite can't really infest things. You probably mean “Thermian”. (Ok, more likely: “termite”.)
  - amha 8y ago
    A thermite infested apartment would be pretty awesome, though.
    - jhanschoo 8y ago
      There are extreme hobbies, and then there are extreme hobbies.
    - wiredfool 8y ago
      It's all fun and games till someone lights the magnesium strip.
  - nstj 8y ago
    Can’t “really”?
- cgs 8y ago
  I agree and had a similar experience my very first time. It ended up being a space in a dusty basement with pet hair everywhere. However I've had many good experiences since then and some mediocre ones. It could be a case of "you get what you pay for" if you are trying to cut costs on lodging.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dana321 8y ago
Like ChickenTonight, only for hotels.
- dana321 8y ago
  Haha, someone don't like this joke
foobarqux 8y ago
Isn't this what Tosi got fired for advocating? He must be having an aneurysm.
dana321 8y ago
I feel like HotelTonight, like HotelTonight!
resalisbury 8y ago
Airbnb disrupts travel by offering hotel rooms :)
Lucadg 8y ago
On business trips I prefer hotels for 1 night. 3 nights or more is always an apartment (Airbnb or Booking.com which is often easier to book with). I hate eating outside alone and prefer cooking some food while enjoying JRE, Netflix or a call with friends and family. 2 nights is a mix. Family trips are always in apartments. It's just nicer than Hotels. Also, I find hotels pretty sad in general but that's maybe because I worked in some:) Edit: typo
Lucadg 8y ago
Some say Airbnb is diluting their brand. What does it stand for today? It used to be about the sharing economy, belong anywhere and so on. What is it now?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
neom 8y ago
There are two CEOs I admire and respect. Two people I have ever met who are both beyond wickedly smart, and, absolutely wonderful kind truly caring humans. Sam Shank and Jeff Lawson. Sam the CEO of hotel tonight is an incredibly brilliant intellectual, and also a genuinely wonderful person. I'm so happy they both did so well. Great job.
Nidaspec 8y ago
How is HotelTonight, can anyone give me some insight? I have never used their service in the past.
jamisteven 8y ago
Dying to know what the acquisiton price was. A good friend of mine works for them and I have been saying for years that they would be acquired.
johnchristopher 8y ago
Is there a list of AirBnb acquisitions ?
johnchristopher 8y ago
It's funny how when you talk to some of their higher-ups they still claim they are a start-up (and so they should be allowed to act like it). But start-ups rarely acquire.
mattkevan 8y ago
AirBnb used to be great, but in recent years their huge platform fees have put me off. I've had great success finding good places to stay by using AirBnb as a catalogue, then Googling the property and booking through the owner's own website. Last year we stayed in a lovely house in Bruges for less than half the price it would have been if I'd booked through AirBnb.

pretty interesting. My hypothesis is that there’s a large cohort of people (myself included) who hesitate to use airbnb because there is still a real issue of inconsistency with back and forth with host, key hand off, etc that people who are attracted to hoteltonight (extremely last minute bookings) would hate and that airbnb is trying to figure out how to appeal to that base.

tudelo 8y ago
To be fair, I have used HotelTonight for day of booking and it had a better deal than I could get through any other location online for a very nice hotel.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- linuxftw 8y ago
  By how much? I suspect they simply were operating at a loss to build up their brand. Jet.com did the same thing.
  - koboll 8y ago
    I've gotten $300-400 rooms for ~$120 several times. Nice boutique hotels in resort destinations, but at off-peak times of year.
  - jonknee 8y ago
    Well literally their entire pitch is that you book last minute and get savings. It would be weird if it wasn't at a discount... I just pulled it up for Seattle and the Kimpton Monaco is up for $115, $140 after taxes and fees. From the Kimpton website it's $208 or $264 after taxes and fees. So about half off, pretty good deal! This was just the first one in the list, there may be better deals.
    - linuxftw 8y ago
      Just compared this exact hotel for tonight on hoteltonight.com and hotels.com and travelocity.com Same price across all 3 sites. Chances are, if you see a price lower than the major travel sites, they're losing money. In this case, they're the same price.
      - jonknee 8y ago
        Or chances are it really depends on where you are and if they have properties they have negotiated with vs general inventory that all the travel bookers use. Sometimes there are deals, sometimes there aren't.
        linuxftw 8y ago
        Seems they're 'just another booking site' IMO.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      I am surprised to see that Hotel Tonight is cheaper than the ihg.com Kimpton website. Although, I wonder if IHG leaves themselves wiggle room to offer different pricing to different channels by saying their price guarantee doesn't apply within 24 hours of checkin: 5. Find a Lower Rate. If you find a lower rate on an eligible, non-IHG website within 24 hours of making your reservation on the IHG direct channel, and it is more than 24 hours before the standard check-in time for the hotel where you made your reservation, tell us about it by completing and submitting the online claim form (“Claim Form”). We will verify the lower rate by comparing the rate found on the IHG website or mobile app with the rate found on the non-IHG website for the same hotel, room type, stay dates, number of guests, and cancellation policy. I'm actually shocked that they would do that, because now I will definitely shop around, I had erroneously thought their best price guarantee would save time.
      - linuxftw 8y ago
        Kimpton charges an additional 'resort fee' which is collected directly by the 'resort'. If you book direct, it's quite possible this is included in their price, but IDK.
  - manigandham 8y ago
    HotelTonight's model is to find and offer up rooms for last-minute demand that would otherwise go empty. Hotels are happy to offer discounts for these. It's really just automating the same deals you could get if you called.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      The bigger brands don't offer any discounts compared to their official sites. They can change prices many times during the day, but the official brand's website will always be the cheapest. Edit: I'm going to have to retract my comments about cheapest price being on official hotel brand websites. I did a cursory search and find many cheaper options on Hotel Tonight (and expedia) for same day reservations than the brands, and while I haven't looked at all the brand's best price guarantees, at least IHG's exempts them from having to provide the lowest price within 24 hours of checkin, so it seems like a loophole to let them dump rooms for cheaper on third party websites day of arrival.
    - linuxftw 8y ago
      This is what priceline et al have been advertising for two decades.
      - manigandham 8y ago
        Last minute? That was HT's original thing, same day bookings in an easy app.
        linuxftw 8y ago
        No, it wasn't there original thing. Last minute hotel deals have been a thing for decades online. Oh, they have an app? That doesn't make their ideal original, nor were they the first to book 'last minute deals' on an app anyway.
        manigandham 8y ago
        Last-minute same-night deals was HotelTonight's entire business before they added all the other features like memberships and future bookings. That's where the name comes from. I didn't mean they were the first to do deals but nobody cares about that anyway. Users only care if it works for them, and HT has one of the smoothest apps with some of the biggest discounts. When I started using HT years ago, I could book a room in less than a minute at a lower price than any other online source. Anyways, as to the original point, they might have lost money on some deals but not all of them, and this is directly from private hotel owners I spoke with.
- jpalomaki 8y ago
  I’ve been under the impression that some of the large sites force hotels to sign agreements, which prevent the hotel from giving better rates to other sites. Found one article mentioning this [1]. Edit: but could be these don’t apply to last minute or same day reservation. Looks like for example Hotels.com best price guarantee excludes these. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/sep/15/australians-told-to-call-hotels-rather-than-rely-on-booking-sites-for-cheaper-rates https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/sep/15/australians-t...
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    All the big brands get around this by offering cheaper pricing restricted to their rewards members reserving directly via the brands' website or call center, which is non commissionable. It's free to be a rewards member for all of the hotel rewards programs, so there's no reason not to go that way if your goal is to spend the least amount of money. Edit: I'm going to have to retract my comments about cheapest price being on official hotel brand websites. I did a cursory search and find many cheaper options on Hotel Tonight (and expedia) for same day reservations than the brands, and while I haven't looked at all the brand's best price guarantees, at least IHG's exempts them from having to provide the lowest price within 24 hours of checkin, so it seems like a loophole to let them dump rooms for cheaper on third party websites day of arrival.
    - jdeibele 8y ago
      Found this was true for car rentals last weekend. Went to an aggregator, saw their price, went to the to the car rental company to compare. Aggregator price was 2/3rds of the rental company's lowest price. Have found the same for airline flights. Google Flights showed me a flight on Delta and provided a link that was much cheaper than I could find on their own site. Absolutely no problems with either reservation. Not sure why people would go direct unless it's their employer's policy or something.
  - splonk 8y ago
    Correct, but this is being slowly phased out in some areas, particularly in the EU due to regulations. e.g. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2d2ab9fe-a2a5-4f37-be33-914f5a30f441 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2d2ab9fe-a2a5...
the_watcher 8y ago
Airbnb expanded their offering to hotels (including boutiques and bed and breakfasts). According to them, they're seeing strong growth in this segment[0], which is probably related to your hypothesis: there's a group who aren't comfortable with the home-sharing model (or people who simply like hotels) and they're finding ways to serve those people. The HotelTonight acquisition seems like it's a way to more rapidly scale their hotel inventory than anything else, although I suppose last-minute travel may simply be better served by hotels than home-sharing. [0] https://press.airbnb.com/more-hotels-are-using-airbnb/ https://press.airbnb.com/more-hotels-are-using-airbnb/
- gav 8y ago
  I think it's a smart choice to give their customers the option for hotels, it solidifies Airbnb as a one-stop-shop for travel experiences. There's a lot of cases where a hotel makes sense, such as short trips (especially if it's just one night), or business travel (some companies have policies that exclude non-hotel stays from reimbursement for safety concerns), and so on. You don't want to send these customers elsewhere.
- vegannet 8y ago
  Does this mean the next step is developers start building out brandless hotels that are a collection of individual investor owned rooms that are serviced and let through Airbnb. There’s already “invest in a hotel room” schemes (that are mostly fraudulent/garbage) so maybe this is an inevitability.
  - randomacct3847 8y ago
    Check out Sonder
Numberwang 8y ago
Having lived in close to a 100 airbnb apartments soon and never once experienced an issue with the checking and checkout or a larger concern about the quality or communication, I'd recommend you to give it another go if you have the chance. Because your concerns are not warranted.
- randomacct3847 8y ago
  It’s fine 95% of the time. If you are booking an Airbnb same day as check in it’s going to have to be an instant booking, which is a fraction of the Airbnbs available. If you’re a biz traveler and your flight is delayed or getting in late the comfort of knowing you can enter a hotel that is big, easy to find, and lobby open and attended to 24/7 is much more comforting than anything you can book on Airbnb. It’s hard to argue with.
eiopa 8y ago
My personal experience with Airbnb is that they simply don't know how to do support. Even basic issues take multiple days to resolve, and usually involve many phone calls. HotelTonight has been awesome there. You can get a representative on live chat and resolve most issues while you're still en-route from the airport. On one hand, I am hopeful Airbnb will be able to learn from HotelTonight, but in reality, it seems most acquisitions end up with the acquired company diffusing into nothingness :(
- ghaff 8y ago
  Or I book with a hotel directly and I (essentially) never have issues that require me to deal with the corporate support line. I realize I’m not as price sensitive as some but I mostly want to minimize lodging hassle when I travel.
  - pfranz 8y ago
    I've had HotelTonight installed on my phone for years, but have only had to use it once or twice. I only travel a few times a year and tend to use it when my plans fall through. I generally book ahead of time, often with the hotel directly. The most obvious example I had using it was when I missed a flight and it was rebooked for the next morning. I was tired and I remember getting in a cab/Uber and finding out the friend who dropped me off wasn't able to let me crash there for the night. Before we had left the airport I had booked a room nearby and could direct the driver there. The hotel was nice. I might have had to wait 10m for the hotel to receive a fax confirming my booking (faxing reservations seems to be pretty common with a lot of hotels). There's no way I could have done that booking directly. It would have taken me 10x as long to figure out which hotels were nearby, near my cost, what rooms were available, and check out. I do those things when booking ahead of time, but they're also much harder to do on a phone. I'll be bummed if it I lose this contingency.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      Fax? Seriously? I haven’t used a fax with a hotel in decades. I’d probably try one or two major chain apps and, failing that, Expedia or booking.com. Perhaps HotelTonight has more options for last minute but there are plenty of other sites that let me book quickly online.
why-el 8y ago
It wouldn't surprise me if Airbnb moves to the hardware space pretty soon, trusting their long time hosts with say wall-mountable boxes that speak Airbnb APIs and can facilitates key exchange, door locking/unlocking based on timed codes, and so on. Heck, build one and Airbnb will most likely buy it from you. ;)
- gjs278 8y ago
  that does nothing to resolve the fact that many air bnb situations involve a bedroom in someone’s occupied house
- randomacct3847 8y ago
  Yes, not necessarily novel either. Some Hilton and Marriott hotels have “digital keys” that you’re granted through their app once you check in on the app to unlock your room.
- untog 8y ago
  That stuff already exists, albeit in less advanced forms (a lock box with a number code, for example). If hosts aren't using them I'm not sure that adding another layer of technical whatevers on top of it is going to change anything.
- lavezzi 8y ago
  They already advertise third party products for hosts on their website IIRC. They are fully aware of the market.
yesimahuman 8y ago
Especially for business travelers. The quality of the average listing has gone down quite a bit (lots of crappy quick flips with no amenities), combined with the inconsistent experience, means I've pretty much stopped considering airbnb for business travel (I did used to enjoy it compared to being stuck in a hotel for work which can get pretty depressing)
- splonk 8y ago
  They're aware of this, and are in some stage of building out a business travel product. I believe part of their product roadmap includes identifying/segregating some of their more reliable inventory that's more suitable for business travelers. No idea exactly what's launched beyond what's at https://www.airbnb.com/work https://www.airbnb.com/work, though. (Not affiliated with AirBnb, but I had a chat with the tech lead of their business travel team last year).
draw_down 8y ago
Yeah, the uncertain/inconsistent parts of Airbnb aren't great. Waiting for the host to respond if you need them, having to tell them why you're visiting, figuring out the entry details/getting the keys, whatever rules they have about cleanliness and so forth. For one or two nights all that stuff is a pain.

Rafuino 8y ago

No mention of an acquisition price. Congrats to Sam Shank and the team though!

randomacct3847 8y ago
Hm not sure if it’s much cause for celebration for the HT team...they raised $130m and probably sold at max their last valuation. Employees aren’t going to make out with much and unclear if anyone is getting let go. Every OTA does last minute bookings now...reality is what they offer has been largely commoditized.
- nedwin 8y ago
  Got any data to back that up? My anecdotal understanding was that HotelTonight was doing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Some component of that $130m may have been secondary stock sale. I don't think we have enough data to determine what the price might have been, or how well employees will do.
  - relaunched 8y ago
    Pass through revenue isn't a great metric to value off of. It's a fancy and deceptive way to pass off a broker like a software company. If you pass through 70%-80% of your revenue, your revenue is more accurately stated as a net revenue. It's more akin to how we value traditional retailers in brick and mortar businesses, with low margin - think Best Buy.
  - randomacct3847 8y ago
    I’m referring to their last valuation of $400m in 2017. The company hasn’t hockeysticked since then, by any measure (e.g. App Store rank), so I think we can deduce the sale price was likely well below $1b, maybe 500m at very best but guessing lower. Factoring liquidation preferences for VCs and you get a small pie for most people involved.
    - krn 8y ago

jonknee 8y ago

> The HotelTonight app and website will continue to operate as they do today I really hope that's the case, I love Hotel Tonight but will absolutely stop using it if I end up getting someone's condo. Regardless, I'm worried that hotel selection will go way down. They keep emphasizing boutique hotels, but that's not people go to Hotel Tonight for. I could definitely see large hotel chains not wanting to do business with Airbnb though...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
the_watcher 8y ago
I can see some hotels taking this approach, but it will come down to how Airbnb is ultimately looked at. If hotels ultimately come to the conclusion that Airbnb is here to stay, like it or not, leveraging it to fill last-minute supply may end up being their best option.
tspike 8y ago
This is boilerplate new acquisition-speak. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't immediately integrate everything. 1. Buy company 2. Draft press release saying "nothing to see here, folks" 3. Wait a year 4. Company absorbs what they like, discards the rest
- dmix 8y ago
  There are also plenty of examples where this didn't happen...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

matchbok 8y ago

Will AirBnb stop harming our communities with illegal mini-hotels then?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

redunculous5 8y ago

Oh God no. I absolutely loathe Airbnb and will not book a property with them. Does this mean I can no longer use HotelTonight too?

__alias 8y ago
Why do you loathe them?
- Joe-Z 8y ago
  Don't know the GP's intention, but coming from a small tourist-heavy city, it can really fuck with the local housing market and make an already dire situation even worse. Also: What are the rules for flagging on HN? Can people not express opinions here? For reference: GP was expressing worry that she can't use HotelTonight anymore because of not wanting to support AirBnb. Glad nobody needs to read that anymore...?
  - csallen 8y ago
    Post I saw from GP didn't give any reasoning whatsoever. Merely said, "I loathe Airbnb." Perhaps it was edited after I saw it and before you did?
    - redunculous5 8y ago
      Oh, was it you that flagged my comment? I wondered why. Your comment is disengenuous (actually a straight up lie). I did not edit the comment at any point. For ref, since it's been removed it said (if I remember) "I absolutley loathe Airbnb and will not make a booking with them. Does this mean I can no longer use HotelTonight too?" or something like that. I'm fairly new to posting on HN. Maybe the comment was a little political but it was merely expressing an opinion and a concern. Are those absolutely forbidden here? (This does not seem strange on HN, even looking through your comment history)
      - dang 8y ago

Alex3917 8y ago

Fuck hotel tonight, they're not even a real business and they're just scamming people out of money. They hide their mandatory "resort fees" underneath the Pay button so that it's not visible on screen, and those fees aren't included in any of the prices that are either shown initially or are visible on payment screen (room rate, taxes & fees, or total). You can see how this works in this video I made here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdrFYb4otTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdrFYb4otTs The entire app is designed to trick people about what the actual prices are. The founder is a total scumbag and belongs in prison.

nikanj 8y ago
I’ve been burned by this on both hotels.com and hoteltonight. Show up at 11pm for your $89 room, learn about the mandatory $215 resort fee for the pool and gym you didn’t use.
- jak92 8y ago
  wtf.. did that really happen? that's some major bs, i would expect to see the all in price with a last minute site like this
jonknee 8y ago
In prison? That's exactly how all hotel bookings work. I agree resort fees are a scam, but that's how it works and it's always charged directly by the property.
- Alex3917 8y ago
  > that's how it works and it's always charged directly by the property. If the hotel wants to charge their own fee separate from the app then that's not a problem at all. The problem is the Hotel Tonight lying about what the prices are.
  - jonknee 8y ago
    But it works that way even if you book on the hotel's own website... Or Hotels.com, Booking, whatever you want.

louisswiss 8y ago

This makes a lot of sense. I travel a lot for work (100+ nights per year). Sometimes I stay for 2+ nights, often it's just a 1-night stop over. For 2+ nights, I almost always go with an AirBnB - more space to cook/work/think etc. For 1 night though, AirBnBs are too much hassle. I don't want to have to choose a great location from a long list which includes some terrible options. I just want a clean bed, bathroom and decent wifi in a good location. HotelTonight gets me that in under 30s. I'm not sure how AirBnB locations can/will be built into HotelTonight - after all HotelTonight is all about ease of use, low friction and flexibility. The very things AirBnBs are bad at (coordinating check in times etc).

lbotos 8y ago
> I'm not sure how AirBnB locations can/will be built into HotelTonight - after all HotelTonight is all about ease of use, low friction and flexibility. The very things AirBnBs are bad at (coordinating check in times etc). I expect them to just show hotel tonight data in the airbnb interface. From the press release: > We are making it easier for people who use Airbnb to find last-minute places to stay when Home hosts are often already booked. The availability of boutique hotels—in addition to private rooms and entire homes that are instantly bookable—helps ensure authentic, high-quality stays are available on-demand, especially at the last minute. I think about it this way all the time: AirBnB bought the product for X price, because they think it will help them make Y more money. They don't even need to "merge" as long as the product is profitable but if they can get even 1% more with a cross over, then AirBnB (the parent co) is making even more money (with more risk ofc)
- kokokokoko 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure AirBnB acquired HotelTonight so they can legally speculate about owning a much larger share of overall travel booking, including traditional hotels, on their S-1.

HeavenFox 8y ago

Those who have used HotelTonight, can you comment on your experience? For me, there have been several rare occasions when I needed a room at last minute, but HotelTonight was never actually cheaper than any other aggregators or booking directly with the hotel. All being equal I vastly prefer booking direct so I get my points and elite benefits. I guess they have a fancy interface, and that's... it? Maybe it's market dependent (I only tried it in NYC and SF)?

randunel 8y ago
Same, tried a few times, gave up since it was always more expensive than booking/hotels.com/expedia.
chrisseaton 8y ago
> HotelTonight was never actually cheaper than any other aggregators or booking directly with the hotel I think every major hotel chain guarantees that their direct price is the lowest, and why wouldn't it be when there is no middleman, so why go anywhere else when you've found the hotel you want?
- jonknee 8y ago
  They don't really though, I have called and they told me they were unable to do it and once got a sure they'll price match, but I'll have to pay the much higher rate and then file paperwork for a refund of the differnce... Like that will ever work!
- kylemh 8y ago
  I've never actually found this to be true. I go through Kayak, and I always check the hotel directly just to be sure. I've done this 9 times in the last 4 months for Loew's, Ramada, Best Western, and Hilton.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    If you actually have a better price, then at least these brands will give you discounts or points. I don't see why they wouldn't hardcode it into their systems to not allow a cheaper priced to be reserved unless via their direct non commissionable channels, seems like a pretty easy thing to prevent. https://www.ihg.com/hotels/us/en/customer-care/lowest-internet-rate-terms-conditions https://www.ihg.com/hotels/us/en/customer-care/lowest-intern... https://hiltonworldwide3.hilton.com/en/best-price-guarantee/overview.html https://hiltonworldwide3.hilton.com/en/best-price-guarantee/... https://www.marriott.com/online-hotel-booking.mi https://www.marriott.com/online-hotel-booking.mi https://www.choicehotels.com/deals/best-rate https://www.choicehotels.com/deals/best-rate https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/wyndham/hotel-deals/best-rate-guarantee https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/wyndham/hotel-deals/best-rate-... https://www.hyatt.com/info/best-rate-guarantee https://www.hyatt.com/info/best-rate-guarantee Edit: I'm going to have to retract my comments about cheapest price being on official hotel brand websites. I did a cursory search and find many cheaper options on Hotel Tonight (and expedia) for same day reservations than the brands, and while I haven't looked at all the brand's best price guarantees, at least IHG's exempts them from having to provide the lowest price within 24 hours of checkin, so it seems like a loophole to let them dump rooms for cheaper on third party websites day of arrival.

orliesaurus 8y ago

I hope they truly remain independent. It's a great platform. A few years ago I was in Paris. It was a last minute thing and I used a similar website to HotelTonight that was the "hot" product in the last minute industry for big EU cities. Basically I got to stay at a really exclusive hotel for an extremely interesting rate. Something like 60% of its original value. I guess hotels don't care anymore at a certain point as long as they get their minimum back. Especially this was when Airbnb was the new cool kid in town. It is kinda interesting how Airbnb is just now moving into this market slowly eating the hotel industry one piece at a time

dm8 8y ago

I have used HotelTonight several times and I loved it. In general I found cheaper deals. Now with AirBnB, it will be interesting to see if hotel chains that partner with HotelTonight continue working as there is no love lost between Airbnb and hoteling industry. I guess Airbnb will try to make HT as an hybrid app of hotels and Airbnb bookings.

zackmorris 8y ago

This looks like a good opportunity to discuss something I'm concerned about regarding booking apps. We used Expedia I believe to book a hotel last year and I remember that it charged a $20 fee on top of an $80 hotel room. I believe they had an agreement where the online and in-person price was the same, so the hotel basically ate that $20. So it's good for them to get the constant business (similarly to how Groupon works) but I can't help but feel that more of that $20 should have gone to the hotel staff, especially maids doing the actual work of cleaning up after everyone. To me, running a bunch of web services to book rooms could be done on a properly configured computer taking 10,000 reservations a second for ~$10 per month. So the cost for booking apps has got to be mostly logistical (getting hotels onboarded with the organization, paying for liabilities, etc). My question is, will competition in these spaces ever lower the fees and free up more money for labor? Or are we entering an endgame where labor gets relegated to the shadows?

crushcrashcrush 8y ago
It will not. The labor is commoditized - if you want more money to go to the staff, you need to directly hand it to them in the form of cash.
calbear81 8y ago
When the hotel participates with an OTA like Expedia or others, they are not paying for the facilitation of the booking, they are paying for the demand that Expedia has generated for the hotel. An unsold room is perishable every night and the cost of not participating on Expedia is that the room is empty instead of being filled at a $20 lower profit margin.
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
Whenever I see comments along the lines of "In my mind you could replace this 20,000 person company with a computer running a script for $10 months", I'm convinced that folks don't know what really goes in to running a large e-commerce site. To be sure, I'm not arguing there isn't a lot of waste at these large companies, but running a large eCommerce business at scale is a hugely complicated endeavor. For one, the economics of large OTAs mean that very small increases in conversion rates can result in huge increases in revenue, so they all have very large teams optimizing their sites, running a ton of A/B tests, optimizing their search advertising bidding, etc. Yes, it definitely would be possible to build a fairly straightforward hotel booking site with a very small number of people. To do it in a way that makes any money is a much more difficult problem.

crushcrashcrush 8y ago

Fantastic product, super concerned about AirBnB acquisition - not because of what they'll do to the product, but I guarantee their partnerships with hotels and hotel groups will evaporate when contracts expire. A hotel working with Airbnb is like BlockBuster working with Netflix to share customer data. The hotels groups aren't as fucking stupid as Blockbuster was, though.

crushcrashcrush 8y ago
Another thought (should I have edited my original post?) - this may have been a pure Customer List & Historical Data acquisition play. They may have purchased HT fully knowing that they'll lose hotel partners at contract expiration... could be next year or in 2025.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  I mean, what kind of data could they really want? Lists of people who stay in hotels when they travel? Probably cheaper ways to get marketing lists like that. Their market is essentially anyone and everyone that travels. They probably want to put Airbnb listings as options on the hotels tonight app.
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    Targeting. If you know someone goes to London every November, your targeting return just went up 100x.
    - kdot 8y ago
      The nature of HT is last minute spur of the moment bookings.
      - Scoundreller 8y ago
        I guess there are at least two categories: 1. Those that are in another city, knew they were going to be there, and didn’t book ahead (or just need an extra room?) 2. Those that live in a city and decide to get a hotel room tonight. I’m actually having a hard time figuring out who’s booking last minute (and why a site specializes in it) other than for parties (large groups or.... by the hour).

benatkin 8y ago

I have no problem getting AirBnb's at the last minute. I look for ones that say "self check-in" or "check-in anytime" and are bookable instantly. I think since AirBnb is already succeeding at that, this will just increase their success in that area. All they need to do is find those offering that service or have them come to them, whether they be people with extra rooms, or a full fledged hotel.

therealx 8y ago
Usually the stock of these is very low day-of in any major city.
- benatkin 8y ago
  Oh, true, I haven’t travelled in season in a while. I often wind up traveling in the off season (summer in hot places, winter in cool places that aren’t ski towns). I think there are some places that tend to be affordable almost year round, but your comment reminded me what it’s like to try to find a place in Miami in the late winter. It’s not an AirBnb specific problem, though.

randomacct3847 8y ago

I still to this day scratch my head over how we’ve normalized sleeping in another stranger’s bed, as as hosts have normalized complete strangers touching our stuff and having sex in our beds. It’s wild.

hunter23 8y ago
A majority of the airbnb hosts nowadays are professionally managed ones at this point. I would say out of my last 10 stays, only 2 of them were hosts who actually lived in them. Airbnb is essentially a hotel operation at this point.
opportune 8y ago
As opposed to a hotel where nobody else has ever slept in or had sex in the bed

seppin 8y ago

damn.

samstave 8y ago

AirBnB has massive amount of money and clout. What should one do with money and clout? Build a thing... What type of thing? AirBnBs are consumed by primarily individuals/couples How provid? Welp - where do they go? They have the data. So - how about buy up and build tiny-home communities in highest ABnB places? Partner with Epic Tiny Home providers such as WindRiverTinyHomes Why not throw that clout around on city planning depts whi dont know how to zone, divest parcels... Alameda is an example - whom I have spoken with about just this Why not work with Warren Buffets Manufactured Homes groups (whom I have spoken with) to make an inventory.... Why not do many things... Fuck AIRBnB - have a 20 year vision. Build a freaking community based on a bolt-on tiny home over a shared common infrastructure in a very common design-build model. (Ive designed built gas stations, fast food, cell sites, data centers, and millions of square feet) - there are LOTs of people like me. Go build something.

therealx 8y ago

Theres one other feature of HotelTonight thats super useful - I often want to book a room very late into the night. Think finding a room at 11pm or 1am. A lot of hotels dont want to deal with you or aren't sure how to handle the rate/days. HotelTonight made that unquestionable and easy.

capkutay 8y ago

This just looks like Twitter acquiring vine 2.0. A big player acquiring an orthogonal product...most likely meaning they'll just kill it. I doubt hotels will partner with AirBnB on a booking service.

bertil 8y ago

It’s interesting that no one here, after 160 comments, is speculating about the impact to Booking.com B. is the 7th largest internet company in the world but because it’s in Amsterdam and not US based, hardly anyone think about them. They have incredible technology, often on-par with the big ones but I’m not anyone here could name one problem where they pionnered a solution. Disclaimer: I used to work for one of their subsidiaries.

aboutruby 8y ago
Completely disagree on the technology part, everything being written in Perl doesn't help and the user experience is not as good as Airbnb. The main thing going for them is that they have basically every hotel on their platform. And like others mentioned, that a lot of people prefer hotels to airbnbs.
- hrktb 8y ago
  I heard the integration part was mostly java. I’d guest they have both alive internaly, a bit like amazon at a time (?) PS: dealing with hotels is playing with decades old technology. I think they’re doomed to keep a flexible and tried and true stack to deal with all the atrocities they’ll have to adjust to.
- notyourwork 8y ago
  > Completely disagree on the technology part, everything being written in Perl doesn't help Doesn't help what exactly? Lots of Amazon.com still runs in perl so not sure why this matters.
- cr1895 8y ago
  >the user experience is not as good as Airbnb. This user's perspective is the opposite.
- bertil 8y ago
  I can’t and I won’t comment on that larger part of the code base, but I suspect that you are right. (I did leave the company after all.) Having every hotel on the planet requires some very heavy-handed growth teams and they have impressive talent there. It also requires to develop very flexible solutions and, even of the main code-base has some problem, that flexibility is worth mentioning. There are three areas where I’ve seen some world-class internal products (on par with what I’ve seen at Facebook): data engineering, A/B testing, Machine learning hosting and serving. I’ve asked them to open-source and started what I could to help them do that, but they are far from being able to do it.

openloop 8y ago

Good luck with your hotel murder. VBRO Hilton Marriot. Who give a shit the jobs are gone anyways.

stef25 8y ago

What's amazing at Airbnb is their ability to make places look so much nicer in the pictures than what they look like in reality. After staying in a crack house in Barcelona, a dirty dark hole in Manhattan, a "private" villa in France where the owner was screwing an endless stream of boyfriends behind the flimsy kitchen door at 10AM, a thermite infested apartment in Sicily with horrid beds, I still feel like a total asshole when leaving a negative review. I'm not sure why I keep going back to it.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> a thermite infested apartment in Sicily Thermite can't really infest things. You probably mean “Thermian”. (Ok, more likely: “termite”.)
- amha 8y ago
  A thermite infested apartment would be pretty awesome, though.
  - jhanschoo 8y ago
    There are extreme hobbies, and then there are extreme hobbies.
  - wiredfool 8y ago
    It's all fun and games till someone lights the magnesium strip.
- nstj 8y ago
  Can’t “really”?
cgs 8y ago
I agree and had a similar experience my very first time. It ended up being a space in a dusty basement with pet hair everywhere. However I've had many good experiences since then and some mediocre ones. It could be a case of "you get what you pay for" if you are trying to cut costs on lodging.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dana321 8y ago

Like ChickenTonight, only for hotels.

dana321 8y ago
Haha, someone don't like this joke

foobarqux 8y ago

Isn't this what Tosi got fired for advocating? He must be having an aneurysm.

dana321 8y ago

I feel like HotelTonight, like HotelTonight!

resalisbury 8y ago

Airbnb disrupts travel by offering hotel rooms :)

Lucadg 8y ago

On business trips I prefer hotels for 1 night. 3 nights or more is always an apartment (Airbnb or Booking.com which is often easier to book with). I hate eating outside alone and prefer cooking some food while enjoying JRE, Netflix or a call with friends and family. 2 nights is a mix. Family trips are always in apartments. It's just nicer than Hotels. Also, I find hotels pretty sad in general but that's maybe because I worked in some:) Edit: typo

Lucadg 8y ago

Some say Airbnb is diluting their brand. What does it stand for today? It used to be about the sharing economy, belong anywhere and so on. What is it now?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

neom 8y ago

There are two CEOs I admire and respect. Two people I have ever met who are both beyond wickedly smart, and, absolutely wonderful kind truly caring humans. Sam Shank and Jeff Lawson. Sam the CEO of hotel tonight is an incredibly brilliant intellectual, and also a genuinely wonderful person. I'm so happy they both did so well. Great job.

Nidaspec 8y ago

How is HotelTonight, can anyone give me some insight? I have never used their service in the past.

jamisteven 8y ago

Dying to know what the acquisiton price was. A good friend of mine works for them and I have been saying for years that they would be acquired.

johnchristopher 8y ago

Is there a list of AirBnb acquisitions ?

johnchristopher 8y ago

It's funny how when you talk to some of their higher-ups they still claim they are a start-up (and so they should be allowed to act like it). But start-ups rarely acquire.

mattkevan 8y ago

AirBnb used to be great, but in recent years their huge platform fees have put me off. I've had great success finding good places to stay by using AirBnb as a catalogue, then Googling the property and booking through the owner's own website. Last year we stayed in a lovely house in Bruges for less than half the price it would have been if I'd booked through AirBnb.