HotelChatter

VoyagePrive / Paris Hotels / Flash Sales / Private Sales / Hotel Booking Sites / → All Tags

VoyagePrive's Latest Sale Has Us In A Parisian State of Mind

Flash sales: they've changed the landscape when it comes to snagging the best hotel room rates. And when that landscape looks a lot like Paris in the Springtime, what's not to love? One of the latest sales on VoyagePrive will even fly you there and back.

Here's the skinny: The sale includes a flight-only deal, departing from New York City or Las Vegas, with the NYC-Paris trip starting at $419 round-trip. That's a 55% discount off the regular fare of $748.

And it gets even better when you opt for the flight-plus-hotel option. The round-trip airfare and a two-night stay at Hotel Magenta starts at just $579 per person. Not bad for a package that would usually set you back over $1,100.

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Private Sales / Accor Hotels / Sofitel Hotels / A-Club / Paris Hotels / Hotel Deals / → All Tags

Sofitel Launches Private Sale Discounts for A-Club Members

More good news for hotel bargain hunters--Private sales have now made their way over into existing hotel loyalty programs as Accor Hotels A/Club has just announced its own private sale for Sofitel Hotels from November 26 through the end of February.

The sale is pretty straightforward--If you book two weekend nights at a Sofitel, the second night will be 50 percent off and it will include breakfast and a late check-out of 3pm. However, this sale appears to apply only to European properties and select ones at that.

For instance while the Sofitel Paris La Défense could be had next weekend for a giddy $426 for two nights, the Sofitel Paris Le Faubourg (where Hermes toiletries can be found in the bath) was $1,150--about $575 a night and no breakfast included. Funnily enough, this hotel was being advertised on the private sale's landing page. Hmph.

Lastly, there's a reason this sale is private--because it's only for existing A/Club members. But you can go about getting access by joining up here. You better hurry because the sale ends in five days.

Hotel Sales / Private Sales / Quikbook / Manhattan Hotels / Thompson Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags

Quikbook Delivers the Deals with Its New Invite-Only Sale

We've long been fans of Quikbook's secret sales which are open to anyone and work very much like a Hotwire or Priceline in that you don't know what hotel you're booking until after you've made the reservation, typically at a steep discount. But now, Quikbook has introduced another secret element--Invitation Only Sales.

Invitees will receive dedicated emails that allow them access to unpublished Quikbook hotel deals and which can only be accessed through the email. The deals are limited, usually lasting for about 72 hours and are first come, first serve. So if you see a cheapie rate at a cool boutique hotel, you better jump on it.

In the inaugural email today, Quikbook has some great deals on NYC Hotels like the The Strand Hotel for $295 a night, the new Cassa Hotel for $296 a night, a studio king suite at 6 Columbus for $376 a night and the just-opened Gansevoort Park Avenue for $395 a night. The deals are valid for stays from October 5 through November 30 and you must book by 5pm EST this Friday, October 10.

But are these really deals that Quikbook is offering? Come along with us as we find out.

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Private Sales / Hotel News / Hotel Booking Sites / Hotel Deals / SniqueAway / → All Tags

New Private Sale Site SniqueAway Kicks Off Today

So you're now in the habit of checking Jetsetter, Tablet and Kayak before you book your next getaway. Private Sales can save you a fair whack of money on your hotel room, after all. Have you had time to get used to VoyagePrive yet?

Yes or no, ready or not, it barely matters--because nothing is stopping the steady march of newer sites joining the private sale ranks. The latest addition? SniqueAway, which launches with sales on hotels including Greenbrier Resort and Reefs Bermuda today.

Like with many of its predecessors, you must be a member to use SniqueAway but you can easily become one via invitation from another member.

Standard rooms at the Greenbier start at $112.50 a night on SniqueAway (down from the listed rate of $225) and when you click on the booking calendar, little icons tell you which nights have "a few left" or which nights offer the lowest rates. (When we checked, that was Nov 1-3 for the Greenbier, FYI.)

It looks like there may be the occasional SniqueAway exclusive extra, too--for the Greenbier, the deal includes waiving the typical daily resort fee.

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Viceroy Hotels / Hotel Names / Bali Hotels / Tablet Hotels / Private Sales / Hotel Deals / → All Tags

The Viceroy Bali is Now On Sale at Tablet Hotels (But It's Not a Viceroy Hotel)

Where: Jin Lanyahan, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

We keep pretty good tabs on Viceroy Hotels but we were stunned today when we opened our weekly Tablet Hotels private sale newsletter to see The Viceroy Bali was on sale through December, starting at $292 a night for a garden view villa.

Just as we were getting all worked up about this (how could we not have known about Viceroy Bali? @&#*@!!), the Tablet description essentially handed us a brown paper bag to blow into:

No relation, apparently, to any other Viceroy, in Los Angeles or anywhere else — the Viceroy Bali is a one-off, a family-owned hotel, a rarity at the high end of the resort market. The location is increasingly familiar, as more travelers discover the charms of inland Bali — the Viceroy is minutes from Ubud, high on a hillside overlooking the lush (and steep) Lembah Valley.

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Private Sales / Hotel Booking Sites / VoyagePrive / Hotel Deals / → All Tags

VoyagePrive, Another Hotel Private Sale Site, Comes to the US

Well, looky what we've got here. It's another private sale hotel site! This one—VoyagePrive—isn't anything new, however; it's been around for awhile overseas, bestowing travel deals on its 5 million members in Britain, France, Italy, and Spain. They've just opened up the site to the US, and so far, we're liking what we see. Too bad it's getting difficult to keep all the private sale sites straight.

VoyagePrive offers up a selection of approved hotels for 5-day sales, with room rates slashed up to 75% off. Looking at this week's sales, featuring $59 rooms at New Orleans' Hotel St. James, $135 junior suites with free WiFi at DC's Capitol Hill Suites, 2 nights with breakfast for $259 at Barcelona's AC Hotel and more, we'd say the average discount is 50% off. But then VoyagePrive goes a step further to offer multiple night packages at each hotel, so that the longer you stay, the higher your discount and lower nightly rate.

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OpenThread / Private Sales / Hotel Booking Sites / → All Tags

Have You Booked a Hotel Room Through a Private Sale?

Private Sales, Private Sales, Private Sales, Private Sales. This year has been the year that Private Sales took over the hotel booking industry. From Jetsetter to Tablet, Rue La La, Kayak and even Leading Hotels of the World, hotel guests have been given so many new opportunities this year to book stylish hotels for less.

The upside is to private sales are, obviously, steep savings. Just yesterday we found the soon-to-open James New York on Jetsetter for nearly $100 less than the hotel's going rate. The downsides, however, are the strict no cancellations, no refunds and no changes policies that the sites employ.

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Hotel Collections / Leading Hotels of the World / Private Sales / Hotel Deals / Hotel Loyalty Programs / → All Tags

Why You Want to Follow The Leaders Club

This year we've been gaga for private sales and blind booking but sometimes we're not always in the mood to play hotel roulette and sometimes our wishy washy travel plans can't handle those strict payment policies-- fully paid, no refunds, no changes and no cancellations--that often come with private sale and secret hotel bookings. But that doesn't mean we want to pay full price.

Now, we're slowly starting to see that there's a definite advantage in belonging to hotel collections--members only deals!

Our newest membership is with The Leaders Club of The Leading Hotels of The World. Right now, they are offering their own private sale of 30 to 50 percent off hotels around the world for stays through the end of October. We spied 40 percent off at the Hotel Hermitage in Monte Carlo (about 321 Euros a night), 30 percent off at the Hotel Crillon in Paris (still about 600 Euros) and 50 percent off at The Plaza Athenee in New York City (We saw rates for $460 in two weeks.)

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Private Sales / Hotel Deals / Jetsetter / South of France Hotels / Ibiza Hotel Reviews / → All Tags

Jetsetter is Partying It Up for the Rest of the Summer (While Saving You Money)

The swank private sale site, Jetsetter, has taken a new direction as summer begin to wind down (sniffles.) Don't fret, it's still doing private sales but now the deals are up to 65 percent off and are targeted for the world's biggest party destinations, i.e. places you've seen Paris Hilton popping champagne recently.

But these deals aren't selected by throwing a dart on a map somewhere. Instead, Jetsetter has put their associate editor and trendspotter in chief, Jetsetter Farryn, to "work" by forcing her to travel to these party destinations and report back on the must-see sites, restaurants and dance clubs.

The new sales kicked off last Friday with destinations like Cartagena, Colombia, Miami, the South of France and everyone's favorite place for a foam hook-up Ibiza, Spain.

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Travelocity / Private Sales / Hotel Booking Sites / Hotel Deals / Interviews / → All Tags

Travelocity Talks 'Top Secret Hotels' With HotelChatter

Travelocity's Top Secret Hotels officially launched on Wednesday and while we are excited to have another option when going hotel deal-hunting, we're hesitant to try something new, especially when it involves opaque booking.

But Travelocity wants to change our mind. The booking site's hotel team has told us that they are the only major opaque booking site to show consumers "quality ratings on 10 key details of the hotel" such as staff and service, room quality, bed comfort, value for money and cleanliness. These quality ratings also come from previous Travelocity travelers and not another review site.

Additionally, Travelocity pointed out that they give consumers the option of looking at both the general hotel results and the top secret hotels in one window "without the hassle of the bidding process." See for yourself by clicking the "List View" option on the Top Secret Hotels page.

What this means is you can see both hotels with their names, star ratings, traveler ratings and prices and secret hotels that have star ratings, traveler ratings and prices but no hotel names. You can see both of these options on one page, so essentially you can see all of Travelocity's hotel inventory here. Get it? Ok, we'll let you mull that one over for a bit.

Nevertheless, we still had a few more questions for the Travelocity. Check out what they had to say below.

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Private Sales / Travelocity / Secret Hotels / Hotel Booking Sites / Hotel News / → All Tags

Travelocity Joins the 'Secret Hotels' Pack

Selling "secret hotels" and holding "private sales" have been all the rage in the first few months of 2010 as options for finding a hotel room for less. So far we've got Jetsetter, Tablet Hotels, Kayak and Quikbook. Now we can add in Travelocity to the mix.

Michelle Higgins at the NY Times reports that Travelocity has unveiled its own Top Secret Hotels that are up to 45 percent off the rack rate.

It works very much like Hotwire's blind booking operations in that you don't know the hotel but you do know the location, a few amenities, a star rating and the price. After you pay, the hotel's name will be revealed.

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Private Sales / Quikbook / Hotel Deals / Hotel Booking Sites / → All Tags

Quikbook Gets Into the Private Sale Game with its 'Secret Sale'

The Private Sale trend continues to be hot for hotel booking sites! We can now add Quikbook.com to the list of booking sites giving folk a chance to book further discounted rooms by keeping the hotel names secret until the sale day. It's called...Secret Sale.

But Quikbook is changing it up ever so slightly. If you book a hotel today, within 24 hours Quikbook will email you the hotel's name and details. You can see the hotel's location and the type (deluxe, modern, budget, etc.) but not the name. So it's a bit like Hotwire but with a time-delay.

Here's how Quikbook describes it:

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