
Show HN: Scout – See lower direct hotel rates as you browse online travel agents - manicminer
https://www.roomkey.com/scout/
======
manicminer
Nine months ago, an article "For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online
Travel Agencies" sparked some interesting discussion on HN [1]. Many of the
topics discussed informed the development of our new product, Scout.

The perception of many travelers is that the best hotel prices are to be found
at the big online travel agencies.

The hotel chains have recently been attempting to alter this perception by
offering lower prices when you book via their own websites. This usually
requires membership in a loyalty program but they have streamlined sign-up so
that you can become a member during the checkout process.

This channel shift is really important for the hotels because they lose so
much in commission to the OTAs, not to mention market relevance and a direct
relationship with the customer.

Room Key is a joint venture between six of the largest hotel chains in the
world and has unique access to these lower direct rates.

We have just launched a new product called Scout, a Chrome browser extension
that activates whenever you view a hotel at major OTAs.

Scout looks at the lowest rate being advertised by the OTA and then searches
in the background to see if it can find a lower direct rate. If it does, it
automatically displays a notification along with a button that takes the user
to the hotel's own site to book the lower rate and get additional perks of
booking direct (e.g. points, free wifi).

For now the hotels Scout works with are mostly limited to brands belonging to
larger chains (Marriott, Hyatt, Wyndham, Choice, IHG). E.g. try looking at a
Holiday Inn on Expedia and you're very likely to see a Scout notification.

The OTAs are currently limited to the major players (Expedia, Orbitz,
Priceline, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Travelocity) but we hope to grow this list
to include metasearch engines (Kayak, Trivago, etc) in the near future. We
also hope to introduce the extension on other browsers.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14443291](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14443291)

~~~
ceejayoz
I'd appreciate a "how we make money" section on the site. It's not clear how
(if?) you do, and that scares me a bit when considering an extension that'll
run on sites that take my credit card.

~~~
starchy
I would also want to see a privacy policy before installing something like
this.

~~~
blunte
Regardless of whether a privacy policy makes you feel comfortable, their
ability to observe all of your browser activities is difficult to ignore.

A rogue employee spying on people (happens a lot, we read), or the company
accidentally saving your data and then being hacked, or any number of other
potential privacy issues... probably isn't worth the small amount of money you
might be able to save sometimes. At least for me it's not.

On the other hand, all but the most careful internet users are probably giving
away nearly all of their personal information and records of their activities
anyway, so maybe it's a moot point.

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eldavido
I've spent the last three years building a hotel property management system. I
hate OTAs. They are gross middlemen who charge criminally high commissions to
hotel operators. And as much as I philosophically support what you're doing
here, both Roomkey in general and Scout in particular, you're barking up the
wrong tree.

At the point where a customer is searching on Expedia or booking.com, you've
lost. These sites have aggressive reward programs and are tuned machines to
get people to buy.

The better approach is actual property-level differentiation that makes people
want to stay at a particular hotel. If your customer sees hotel inventory as
essentially fungible, which is what most of the undifferentiated inventory on
booking/expedia is, they're going to pay commodity prices for it.

The chains need to step up and market directly to consumers, and GIVE ME A
REASON TO LIKE THEM. Right now it's all sort of meh. Hilton, Hyatt, Rodeway,
whatever, I just don't care, give me the lowest price and I'm there.

~~~
degenerate
What I completely don't understand is, I have tried calling hotels directly
when looking at the hotels.com/expedia price, and asking if they can give me
that rate directly or even a little cheaper. They never can. They always say
"you'll have to book it through them" to get that rate. I've tried this at
least a dozen times, always with the same answer.

Do these chains have some kind of written agreement with the websites where
they are NOT allowed to undercut those prices, ever?

~~~
eldavido
Yes, it's called a MFN clause ("most favored nation") and is a standard deal
term the channels negotiate with the hotels. They accept it because they have
no choice.

Hotels play all sorts of games with this, including throwing in free stuff if
you book direct ("it's the same rate") and doing "non-advertised" rates
through loyalty and reward programs.

If you can't book directly with the hotel, it's very likely they don't have
technology sophisticated enough to do a direct booking. You'd be surprised how
bad hotel tech is. And the thing is, none of the independents want to spend
anything to improve the situation. It's honestly madness.

~~~
smueller1234
Except the MFNs were significantly weakened or struck down entirely by a
number of the largest European countries. For better or worse: I think OTAs
have brought many good things to consumers (efficient comparisons, more
competition amongst accommodation for example) and they depend somewhat on
being able to offer the best prices. After all, the point is to make the
search easier and more efficient.

Disclosure: used to work for an OTA.

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jamesshamenski
The widget showed me the same price as the hotel. I was asked to click through
in order to see if a lower rate was available.

So no, I cannot ' _see_ lower direct hotel rates as I browse online travel
agents'.

The marketing messaging is completely disjointed from what the product
actually does.

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whitepoplar
You may want to reconsider the design of your logo:
[https://scoutapp.com/](https://scoutapp.com/)

~~~
jermaustin1
This seems impossibly similar to be an accident.

~~~
GoRudy
Seriously. Whatever discount design firm they used they should probably just
go ahead and charge that one back. facepalm.

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Eridrus
So, installing an extension which requires "Read and change data on all
websites you visit" to save a few bucks isn't going to happen.

~~~
degenerate
If instead it said "Read and change data on Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline,
Booking.com, Hotels.com, Travelocity" then I would be OK with it. But
unfortunately they want full access!

~~~
manicminer
Thank you for pointing this out. We'll look at this and see if we can
enumerate the OTAs on which Scout works as you suggest.

I can assure you that the extension collects only what it needs to do in order
to function.

~~~
helb
It is possible to enlist websites you want access to:
[https://developer.chrome.com/apps/permission_warnings#warnin...](https://developer.chrome.com/apps/permission_warnings#warnings)

I don't know if/how is it compatible with Firefox and other browsers…

