Jumping on the mobile hotel bandwagon today is Hipmunk, known already in the travel world for its flight planning website.
Just like the flight tool sorts by level of “agony” involved in each flight (based on cost, flight time, number of connections, ect.) the hotels tool uses a heat map based on current location and overlays it with data showing price points and proximity to areas like shopping, dining and nightlife. Pretty nifty, hmm?
The tool lets you compare up to three hotels at a time and allows you to book reservations directly through the hotel or via third party provider like Orbitz. If you’d prefer to complete the transaction on a laptop, the app lets you paste a code into your computer that will keep your data and search history ready for you.
VentureBeat spoke positively about the app, calling the user experience “a great one,” but correctly pointed out that, like its flight app, much of the data is dependent on third party aggregators instead of one-to-one partnerships.
The app is available on iPhone, iPad and Android.