

Show HN: HotelSaver – Save money on your existing hotel reservations - matttah
https://www.hotelsaver.io

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dack
I think this is a great idea, and it would be a no-brainer for me to pay if
you only charged when you save me money.

I think customers (thinking of myself) have a huge aversion to paying money
for nothing, in the event there isn't a better deal. If there's any chance I
am going to pay for a service that returns no value, I am going to be
hesitant.

Part of the problem is I didn't see any "success rate" metric, so I don't know
what my chances are of saving money. If you knew it was almost 100% given
enough days before the trip - then you could even give someone a money-back
guarantee, which would kill the "pay money for nothing" objection as well.

~~~
atourgates
I recently read a discussion of evaluating unsolicited vendor proposals that
are supposed to save you money, by making the vendor take on the risk.

For example, say a company promises that by using their product, you'll save
$500 per month, for an initial investment of $5,000. Only take them up if
they're willing to front the initial cost and pay themselves back with the
savings, or at the very least guarantee the savings.

This will quickly show you how much confidence the vender hasin their claims
of savings.

HotelSaver's pricing model screams, "We're not confident we can offer you any
savings."

If you're not confident enough in your skills or business model to risk $20
worth of effort on my behalf, why should I be confident enough to risk $20 on
your skills and business model?

My guess is that there's a wide variation in available savings, depending on
things like how far in advance the hotel is booked, where it's booked, what
hotel/chain the booking is at. While you might need some manual effort to find
the best deal possible, I'll bet you could filter out "good" vs. "bad"
prospects pretty quickly in a completely automated manner.

For example, someone submits a reservation that's 40% below average rates for
a stay in a week, at a hotel that doesn't typically price match? It should be
possible to develop an automated system that says, "Sorry, we can't offer any
savings on this reservation." Your staff doesn't spend any time, and your
customer doesn't spend any money.

Someone on the other hand submits a reservation at 10% above average rates at
a hotel in 4 months? You can fairly safely take that bet and save them some
money.

Find a pricing model that lets you do this. Maybe it's a percentage of the
savings, maybe a flat-fee that's refunded if you can't save them more than the
fee. Maybe it's something else. Either way, you need to show your customers
that you're confident in your ability to save them money.

Another great service would be automated re-booking. Partner with a service
like FancyHands, so that you can call and request price-matches/adjustments
for your customers. For people like me that hate picking up the phone, it'd be
a huge benefit. It would also let you verify/confirm the savings.

~~~
capsule_toy
I think your idea is fine for HotelSaver, but your example, $500 per month
savings on $5,000 initial investment, is flawed. When you flip the script
around, it's not just the vendor's confidence in your savings, but now the
vendor takes on the following risks:

\- Risk of nonpayment because of the client

\- Risk of nonpayment because the client disputes that the saving is a result
of the product

\- Payment is delayed until claims can be verified

\- Payment can be further delayed because of the client

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downandout
You should definitely charge a percentage of the amount saved instead of a
flat, non-refundable fee. You have created value here but very few people are
going to use it if they have to risk $20 up front. I have killed a few of my
own otherwise viable projects with unnecessarily restrictive revenue models,
and that's the worst kind of death because it is entirely preventable.

------
somberi
I, too, will gladly pay $20 success fee, but not if you cannot find me a
better deal.

On a separate question, where do you get the hotel inventory and pricing data
from? I only ask because you had mentioned that this was a small side project.
Which makes me think there are structured data sources for hotel data.

Thanks.

------
matttah
Thanks guys for all the feedback. Didn't want associate this with a specific
comment but here is what we're hearing:

* Look at how to make this a risk free opportunity, money back guarantee, etc.

* Play with pricing, percentage of amount saved vs flat fee. Our biggest worry with that is trying to get someone to pay later on. As right now we aren't rebooking it, if we sent you an alert "go rebook on XYZ.com and save 500 bucks" we have no way to force you to rebook or verify if you actually got the deal we found.

We'll definitely be taking in all the feedback here and hopefully trying to
work it all into the next version of this.

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late2part
$20 to see if you might be able to save me money? You are joking. No way I'd
pay this unless I knew you could do it, and in 30 seconds of looking you
didn't convince me. Shut the front door.

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languagehacker
Too many exclamation points in the copy, especially when apologizing for
taking $20 from a customer without promising they'll get anything out of it.

------
tfe
The only way I would pay a fixed price without guarantee of savings is if it
were pitched as a monthly or yearly subscription, and then I just run all my
reservations through it.

~~~
dack
Yeah that might work for me as well. The only problem I would have with that
is that it's more loosely tied to customer success - so there's a chance
people won't get enough value out of the service. By just charging per
reservation, they sidestep that possibility and perfectly extract more money
out of those that get more value.

~~~
tfe
Maybe some plan tiers based on number of reservations processed? I can't see
myself paying anywhere near $20 each on average though.

------
craftkiller
Tingo.com does the same thing but doesn't have a $20 fee

~~~
matttah
We saw this before, but we're not tied to a specific data source or
affiliation. We're hoping that by having a broader range of sources, we'll be
able to find more savings.

Also - I haven't used Tingo.com specifically in the past, but I haven't had
much success in sites which say "book with us and if others book lower you can
get a refund." Have you had good experiences with Tingo?

~~~
craftkiller
I've only used them once because I don't travel much but I got $63.68 back on
my trip to Portland.

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justgottasay2
You may want to look at how CruiseFish.net does their revenue model... They
have an up-front fee, but it is very low relative to the price for the tracked
cruise reservation. That takes a lot of the sting out of the 'You have to pay
up front and you might not actually hear about a lower rate'. They also use
their forum to provide 'evidence' that their site works for its users.

------
matttah
This is a small side project I made after finding I could make hotel
reservations far in advanced and then get price matches or resubmit new ones
if the prices fell. Figured there must be others who would like to save money
on their reservations and threw together this MVP.

Let me know what you think and any feedback you have.

~~~
Nowaker
"We spend the time and energy searching all over the web for cheaper
reservations for you", are you really spending time on searching things
_manually_? If so, I wouldn't pay anything for such a service, because you may
apparently go on holiday and don't care about my reservation. If all is
automatic, then I could go for it. However, then "spending time and energy" is
a lie.

I believe anyone should be able to submit their reservation, along with credit
card details. If you do find the cheaper rate somewhere, you charge them at
that point and present with the offer.

BTW, A typo: we can try to _ehysave_ you money.

~~~
matttah
Typo fixed, thanks!

As for the automatic it is partially automatic. As we're gauging interest
right now we haven't fully automated it.

For the pricing we're looking into different options such as taking only a %'d
of amount saved, only charging if we save you money, etc. We'll be doing some
testing in the very near future on different pricing models.

~~~
adam
Congrats on shipping. :) As others have mentioned, I was turned off by the
pricing model. Your idea of taking a % of amount saved, or charging me after
you've achieved savings would be much more palatable.

That said, if you have the data for it, it would be awesome to show some proof
that this is a widespread thing - that prices do fluctuate regularly and there
are these drops in price people can take advantage of - if they are using your
service. I think that would help your case.

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f292
This is an awesome concept- I always find myself trying to get the best deals.
The biggest issue for me is the upfront fee. A percentage of final savings
would be far preferable.

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drcoopster
Most of my reservations are just for a single night, so $20 each isn't
worthwhile.

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fishnchips
Do I understand correctly that there is no refund if a cheaper rate is not
found? IMO this sounds really shady.

