Similarly, HotelTonight was one of the first digital products I've used and had a fondness for. Not a fanboy, just really like the experience. I've been using HT for leisure since 2011.

This. I was stuck in Seoul because I missed my train and needed a hotel for the night. Downloaded HT for the first time, it found me a nice boutique hotel for not very much, and I was booked in less than 5 s (didn’t need to enter any payment info since it supported Apple Pay). The quality of the hotel was excellent even though it was rated Basic on HT.

"My experience using other booking sites for 'cheap deals' has been that you're often treated as a lower-tier customer, for example being given worse rooms (ground floor, no windows etc). The HotelTonight experience is the opposite. ~25% of the time, I receive a room upgrade without asking"

They're all OTAs. You're just as likely to get a "good" room with HotelTonight as you would with Priceline, Hotwire, etc. The quality of room you receive is mostly dependent on room availability and the check-in agent.

> You're just as likely to get a "good" room with HotelTonight as you would with Priceline, Hotwire, etc.

Can't speak for every hotel (obviously), but I know for a fact this isn't true for several.

Hotels always have better and worse rooms - it's very rare to have a building where there isn't a loud/dark/musty room or two.

In most hotels where I know a member of staff, they freely admit to having several 'worse' rooms which are given to booking.com/priceline etc guests first, regardless of availability.

They purposefully save a few 'better' rooms in case valued customers show up last minute. For some reason, HT customers get lumped into this category - maybe because it's assumed they have the purchasing power to become a 'real' customer in the future (but that's just a guess).

There is a high chance that this is anecdotal, specially if both OTAs were offering you the room at the same price. For bigger chains, the person at the front desk hardly cares about where you booked from. It could be the case where there were very few rooms remaining when you booked with OTAs other than HT so you ended up with worse rooms.

> In most hotels where I know a member of staff, they freely admit to having several 'worse' rooms which are given to booking.com/priceline etc guests first, regardless of availability.

You don't think Hotel Tonight is lumped in there with booking.com and Priceline? They're all OTAs. They're all treated the same.

I’ve had the same experience

The one time I used hotel tonight, I was placed in a room that was literally the size of the full size bed + ~2' around 3 of the edges to navigate. The bathroom was almost larger than the room itself, and I had to store my luggage in there because there was no where else. I didn't mind too much, because I was only in the city for 1 night and mostly just slept there, but it was a ugly enough result to make me not want to use hotel tonight again.

If that was Central London, and the price not particularly high, that wouldn't be especially unusual. Except the bathroom would probably be smaller.

Chelsea, but the NYC one, not the London one.

Same question applies. By point of comparison im rarely paying much under $300/night and often more in Manhattan.

Yeah, it was around 250. But I assumed that with hotel tonight you were getting a good deal for using otherwise unused inventory, not getting essentially market rate for a hotel

I can often get a room for $250 at one of my preferred, maybe slightly off the beaten track, clean/quiet hotels especially on the weekend. Of course prices can rise dramatically from there.

I find it a lot easier to find $250 “bargains” in Manhattan these days than in SF. Recent event I ended up couch surfing with friends rather than pay $650/night there.

I noticed the prices are getting closer to any other option. When I first started using HT the deals were great but this year that seems to be evaporating slowly.

> Takes <15s to book

That's a nice feature. I don't think I've ever booked a hotel that fast.

Not sure how this relates to my comment.

Do you use it even if you plan the trip well in advance? Have you ever run into problems finding a room or being forced to take a room in a distant part of town?

> Do you use it even if you plan the trip well in advance?

Yes, often. I'll check there first at least.

If it's a special occasion (Valentine's Day for example) I'll probably use another booking platform.

> Have you ever run into problems finding a room or being forced to take a room in a distant part of town?

Yes, never been worse than the main booking sites though. I was in SF at the same time as the Salesforce conference was taking place a few years back, for example. Nothing available anywhere.

Heard about them but haven’t used them. If your experience is representative then I hope AB&B doesn’t ruin them.

That’s my hope too. I hold the same high praise.