Hotel Tonight lets you stay warm during the Midwest blizzard with iPhone room reservations

Last week, we wrote about iPhone hotel app “Hotel Tonight”. When we first mentioned it, hotels could only be booked in New York, San Francisco and Hollywood. Just in time for the big Blizzard of ’11, Hotel Tonight has added Chicago, Boston and Washington DC.

Like the other cities, these new options let you pick a hotel room for tonight, and results display several price categories.

For tonight in Chicago (and our upcoming 22 inches of snow), you can spend the night for as little as $59.

Best of all, sign up and book a room, and you’ll get $25 off your first reservation. Invite friends from within the app, and you can earn an additional $25 each time one of them makes a reservation.

The app is free, and is available in the iTunes App Store.

HotelPlanner.com gives away free hotel rooms for each day The Jets are in the NFL playoffs

Everyone gets a little excited around playoff time, and why shouldn’t travelers who happen to be football fans capitalize on the fun? Clearly claiming their preferred team, HotelPlanner is giving away $500 in free hotel rooms every day at 2pm EST this week to its Facebook fans while their team travel partner, The New York Jets, are still in the NFL playoffs.

The secret to free hotel rooms can be found at HotelPlanner’s Facebook page. Anybody can win, even if you’re a not a Jets fan. If the Jets continue to win, HotelPlanner will continue to give away $500 in free hotel rooms every day until The Superbowl.

Yesterday’s lucky clue from their fan page: “Today’s random number is 50! If your billing zip code ends in 50 then be the first to book $500 worth of free hotel rooms online at HotelPlanner.com!”

Seems easy enough… even if you’re a Ravens fan.

The rooms can be booked at any hotel, for any time, length of stay, star rating or number of rooms, as long as the total reservation cost adds up to $500 or less and the rooms can be booked on HotelPlanner.com.

Stockholm hotel starts cellphone check-in and room unlocking trial

Swedish lock maker Assa Abloy may not be the first to develop a cellphone based hotel room key system, but with their live trial this month, they are the first to actually get a system in place.

Their technology allows hotel guests to check-in to the hotel, and use a special mobile phone to unlock their room. The system relies on a Samsung mobile phone with a built NFC chip, which uses the same kind of technology found in RFID credit cards.

During the trial, select customers of the Clarion Hotel in Stockholm will be given one of the phones, and after four month test period, the results will be evaluated.

The idea of completely keyless entry is interesting – but I’ve also had very good results with ATM style room key dispensers, especially since they can provide a key in under 30 seconds. As with all mobile phones, I’d hate to arrive at night, only to discover the the app has crashed, or that the battery has died. After the jump, you’ll find a video clip showing the system in action.

[Via: Engadget]

Hyatt hotels offer hypoallergenic rooms

While down pillows and duvets add a plush decor to hotel beds, allergy sufferers find this added perk a nuisance and not a luxury. Hypoallergenic pillows and non-fragrant amenities can be requested from any hotel guest, but would it be easier to just designate a few rooms in the hotel as “hypoallergenic rooms”?

Hyatt thinks so, which is why the hotel company announced their “allergy friendly rooms” across its brand of hotels.


The rooms will be priced at an extra $20 to $30 per night, but will be free of dust mites, which live and multiply in bedding, carpeting and upholstered furniture. The move comes as Hyatt and other hoteliers look to capitalize on the growing number of allergy sufferers. According to the National Institutes of Health, about 54 percent of Americans are sensitive to at least one allergen, which results in sneezing, itching and in some cases, asthmatic attacks. The presence of odors, mold, dust or animal dander can be harmful to those with severe allergies.

To help alleviate the suffering for some travelers, Hyatt is relying on Pure Solutions, a privately held New York-based company that claims it can remove 98 percent of bacteria and viruses from hotel rooms. With this new partnership, Hyatt plans to designate a total of 2,000 rooms at 125 Hyatt Resort, Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt and Andaz properties across the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean as hypoallergenic rooms available by the end of 2010. If the rooms prove to be popular, Hyatt will pay to expand the program.Just how will Pure rid the rooms of allergens?

“Pure’s technicians first take apart the air-handling system in the room, disinfect the parts, treat them with an agent to ward off moisture and add a tea tree oil cartridge that releases a natural anti-microbial agent. After disinfecting every surface in the room, Pure “shocks” the room for two to three hours with highly concentrated ozone to kill mold, bacteria and other unwanted organisms. They then spray carpets, curtains and surfaces with a bacteriostatic shield, Brault said, which lasts up to two and a half years and bonds with bacteria on a molecular level.”

The rooms are also equipped with medical-grade purifiers that eliminate dust, odor and small particles; beds and pillows are encased in microfiber that is impenetrable to dust mites, and allergens in the pillow feathers are removed.

The idea and effort behind these rooms are worthy of accolades but I have to wonder: Why not just do it for all rooms? Surely, everyone would appreciate breathing a little easier at night.

To find a hypoallergenic room, visit pureroom.com.

New Wisconsin hotel smoking ban: big fines, no choice

Wisconsin has just cracked down on smokers from out of state. It’s only the second state with a smoking ban that applies to every hotel room in the state. This differs from most smoking bans, like the one in Kansas, in which the properties can allow smoking in a certain percentage of guestrooms. Michigan is the only other state with a hotel smoking ban this severe.

The hotel business in Wisconsin wasn’t thrilled about the legislation and did push against it. The greatest challenge, however, seems to be convincing the guests that it’s not a scam – that the ban is actually the law. It’s a lesson worth learning, for guests, because the consequences are severe. Notes USA Today:

Wisconsin’s roughly 2,000 hotels post signs declaring their building a non-smoking facility. They’re also requiring guests to initial a statement promising to comply or face paying a fee. Hotels are charging penalty fees anywhere from $100 to $300, she said.

[photo by ell brown via Flickr]