Road Test: Mixed Luck With Hotel Booking Engine Room 77

UPDATED 05-01-2012

Not long ago, in Better Search, Blazing Fast, Tested, I tested hotel-finder Room 77 that claimed “blazing fast” search results. I was impressed. Going through the process of actually booking, that blazing fast speed slowed to a crawl and resulted in a less-than-ideal outcome.

Right after reviewing Room 77, I needed to book a hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for just one night later this week. The hotel I wanted was sold out as were many others during Fleet Week, a United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard tradition when active military ships recently deployed in overseas operations dock in a variety of major cities for one week.

Putting Room 77 to test, the site again performed quickly, delivering a number of good results. One of those results was the Hilton hotel I wanted which was sold out. That got my attention along with a price that was 35% lower than normal rates at that hotel.

Locking in that price, however, required leaving the Room 77 site and dealing with one of their affiliated companies, the UK’s OnHotels. A first thought was “Hmm, maybe this is a consolidator site that looks for canceled space at hotels and picks it up at a bargain rate.” Then there were second and third thoughts of “…or maybe its a scam” and the standard “WARNING: NON-US SITE, PROCEED WITH CAUTION.”

I booked anyway and received immediate confirmation from OnHotels. On that confirmation were two reservation numbers that looked to be OnHotels internal numbers, neither one a number Hilton hotel would probably use. Not a problem here either, I made a note to check with the hotel directly if I did not get a Hilton confirmation number shortly.

Later that day I called the Hilton who said no reservation had been made. That was not a total surprise because of the time zone difference between here in Florida and the UK so we sent an email to OnHotels asking for the hotel booking number.

“I see you have charged my card for this reservation but the hotel has no record of my booking. Please provide the hotel booking number,” I wrote.

OnHotels replied back pretty quickly, considering the 6 hour time zone difference.

“It is perfectly normal that the hotel still does not hold your booking as the booking information is often sent later even if the space has been reserved, and the booking has been done just today. Therefore we are not surprised to read that your booking is still not with the hotel.

Your booking is fully confirmed and all the details will be passed on to the hotel very shortly.

We are checking with the hotel for their reference number, please keep in mind that this might take a bit longer.”

The next day, a phone call to the Hilton revealed that still no reservation had been made so back to email we went.

“Are there details available for this hotel yet? I need a Hilton Hotel confirmation number please.”

Onhotels again responded rather quickly:

“I have sent the request to the hotel yesterday, however also due to the time difference i do not have any reply as yet.”

OK, but now we’re starting to worry about OnHotels and what they might be doing. Another day passes and the hotel has no record of our reservation. Clearly, something is wrong here. In response to a third inquiry, OnHotels sends:

“I already have chased the hotel even today. As soon as they have inserted your reference number in their system they will provide it to us.

“Your booking has been confirmed, you do not need to worry.

I will contact you as soon as I have the reference number.”

And that is where we pulled the plug, canceling the booking and requesting a refund to stay within the cancellation guidelines of OnHotels which were much tighter than the average hotel. With OnHotels, the booking had to be canceled no later than five days prior to the stay. Odd, but clearly detailed on their original invoice.

Considering the slow response time of the whole transaction, I canceled the booking 7 days in advance, just to be safe.

That refund came back in a reasonable amount of time, less a 10% cancellation fee, a charge clearly defined in the original confirmation when bookings are made.

Since no booking had actually been made at the Hilton hotel, thoughts turned to “Oh, maybe this is how they make their money. Never actually make bookings, just offer a super low price that bargain-hunters can’t resist, dancing with them for a while then refunding all but the cancellation fee.”

A quick call to the credit card company launched a fraud investigation that will temporarily put those funds charged in cancellation back on the card used while they sort it all out.

Thinking “That’s too bad, it really was a fast hotel search” I sent off an email to Hotel 77, detailing the transaction.

I’m a big believer that great customer service is not the day in and day out operations of an organization but what they do when something goes wrong.

Hotel 77’s Mel Bolton responded in a couple hours:

“I am glad you got to test out the site, and I am truly sorry for the lackluster experience with booking and confirming your room. Room 77 is, at it’s core, a search engine – we’ve scoured the web for the best rates and deals. The majority of the time, the best deal is found and booked through Room 77 and we 100% back up our booking – we are committed to offering the highest degree of customer service and we take all issues, like yours, very seriously.

Like other search engines, in some cases, deep discounts can be found through lesser known channels, like OnHotels in your case. We want to provide the most choice and offer the widest range of rates possible so the consumer can make the decision of what rate and what provider best suits there needs.

Based on your input, we are reviewing OnHotels and will remove them from search results if they don’t meet our stringent partner criteria. We have already removed nonperforming providers and we carefully monitor all the providers that are in our marketplace to make sure they have the same commitment to customer service that we do.

If you have some time, I’d love to connect you with our VP of Marketing, Roger Wong – he can discuss how Room 77 works with partners and providers to provide the most rates and deals. And let me know if you’d like to rebook your stay – I’d be happy to get you in touch with Bryan Waters, who leads our Room Concierge team, and who can make sure you have a much better experience than the one you have had.”

Impressive. That was exactly what I had in mind for a response so I immediately replied “Absolutely. Your site is wonderfully fast and easy to use. This experience with OnHotels though was/is bad.”

That was last Thursday.

Today is the following Thursday and I have received no further response or contact from Room 77.

Once again we see that if an offer looks too good to be true, it probably is; at least in the case of OnHotels. On Room 77 the jury is still out.

UPDATE 05-01-2012

Room 77 did get back with us later, were quite apologetic and sent along this statement:

“We take quality and customer satisfaction very seriously, and based on your experiences, we no longer feature OnHotels within our search. Our goal is to provide the best customer experience while also providing the most rates and the best deals, and we’ve removed any sites that provide a questionable customer experience. We’ll continue to monitor to make sure all partners of Room 77 adhere to the same strict customer service guidelines that we hold ourselves accountable to.”

Flickr photo by Anonymous9000

Better Search, Blazing Fast, Tested

Travel search engines commonly claim to produce the lowest prices or best selection. Some say they have the most accurate reviews or are quick at what they do. When we received a press release from hotel-finder Room 77 claiming “blazing fast” results, we put them to the test.

On our 25.5 Mbps DSL line, it took just 3.5 seconds for Room 77 to deliver 573 results for an overnight stay in a hotel in Miami later this month. That did seem fast so we compared it to a couple other hotel-finding sites. Hotels.com brought 437 in 3.6 seconds and Kayak returned 354 in 3.8 seconds – about the same speed-wise. But in addition to more results, Room77 delivered lower prices and included hostels in the search.

“Room 77 searches other sites for you and compares the prices right in the search results,” Kevin Fliess, Room 77’s general manager and VP of product development told Gadling. He added, “In addition to a fast and comprehensive search, we also allow travelers to earn loyalty points or pay at the hotel.”

Going a step further, Room 77 has their Room Concierge, a free service when booking a 4-star or above hotel that helps travelers identify a hotel room matching their preferences. Buyers specify what type of room attribute is most important – size, noise level or view – and Room Concierge staff goes to work finding just that room for buyers.

On Room 77 and other travel-related sites, it’s all about providing detailed, intuitive results that match what buyers want: a search process that is quick and easy.

Another site that delivers rich content fast in a very “we’re not wasting your time” sort of way is a new feature from Nerd Wallet that searches and compares airline fees.

Nerd Wallet, best known for finding and comparing credit card offers, says they “scour the financial universe to bring you any and every bank and credit union we can find, along with our own unbiased take on what various rewards programs or deposit accounts are actually worth,” on their website.

Now, Nerd Wallet’s Search and Compare Airline Fee finder, gathers information for pretty much all domestic airlines quickly and efficiently. Users can compare, say, the baggage fees of all airlines or find out all the details about one airline in a speedy and easy search.

The results at Nerd Wallet also are intuitive and consistent with predictions made earlier this year; new technologies may create changes for our future travel planning methods.

“Today, we stand at the forefront of a technological evolution in travel that we refer to as Online Travel 3.0, which recognizes the power shift from suppliers to retailers and to end consumers,” Stephane Durand, Director, Online & Leisure at Amadeus, a major provider of advanced technology solutions for the global travel and tourism industry told Gadling earlier this year.

That was just back in February when Gadling covered how travel search was becoming more personal, focused and nosy.

Then, we told of a global study that identified the online shopping behavior and future motivations of trend-setting travelers: micro-targeting information to specific consumers offering products that are actually relevant for the buyer.

Today, sites like Room 77 and Nerd Wallet’s Airline Fee Finder are delivering on that promise.

Up next, look for sites that learn from our online behavior over time and become interconnected, sharing information about us among each other.

[Flickr photo via Viernest]

Room Key launches first international sites

Room Key, the hotel booking venture backed by six leading hotel brands, announced on Wednesday that it has expanded to include hotel inventory in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Partner hotels will be searchable on the RoomKey.com website and four new country-specific sites: www.roomkey.co.uk (UK), www.roomkey.ca (Canada), www.roomkey.com.au (Australia) and www.roomkey.co.nz (New Zealand).

When RoomKey.com launched in January 2012, it included only U.S. hotel listings from its six hotelier founders: Choice Hotels International, InterContinental Hotels Group, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Marriott International and Wyndham Hotel Group. Within two months, Room Key has developed partnerships with Best Western as well as Preferred Hotel Group and Worldhotels, two hotel companies with a roster of hundreds of independently-owned luxury hotels, resorts and residences.

Room Key’s super simple hotel search remains the same across all five of its portals. Though users can now view search results in the currency of their choice.

Photo courtesy RoomKey.com

Google’s Hotel Finder to help you find the perfect hotel

On Friday, Google introduced Hotel Finder, which promises to help users find the perfect hotel. Hotel Finder utilizes Google Maps as well as a Google Reader-type interface to display hotels according to photo, class, user rating, rate, and “compared to typical,” a useful metric that displays a percentage of how much more or less the rate is off the typical price from the past year.

Google calls Hotel Finder an “experimental” product, a disclaimer that excuses this tool from being perfect. For example, one feature of Hotel Finder is the “shortlist,” which allows users to bookmark hotels they find interesting. Unfortunately, the shortlist only works for the current search and can not be saved for future hotel searches. (I’d love for the shortlist to become more like Foursquare‘s “To Do” list, thereby allowing you to save your shortlist in your Google profile.)

While Google has yet to venture into the business of booking your travel, look for that to change given Google’s acquisition of ITA in July. In the meantime, should you wish to book a hotel via Hotel Finder, click on the blue “Book” button and you are given options to make your reservations via third-party sites like Travelocity and Expedia or on the hotel’s own website. Click on “book” and you’ll see the base price of the hotel as well as the price after taxes and fees for each third-party site.

Although it is a fun tool, Google’s Hotel Finder is not quite ready to be the web’s go-to site for hotel bookings. In fact, Hotel Finder is currently only available for U.S. hotel searches. But I look forward to seeing how Google will integrate Hotel Finder into its current suite of products, particularly as it rolls out ITA-integrated travel product and as Google + grows in popularity and usefulness.