HotelChatter

Hotel Ads / Hotel Booking Sites / Travelocity / Hilton Hotels / → All Tags

Is Hilton Paying Travelocity to Pimp Their Hotels in Search Results?

Yes, in a way they are.

We noticed an interesting new tab on Travelocity yesterday when searching for hotels in New York. It was a tab solely for Hilton Hotels and Resorts so that you could filter your options to show only Hilton resorts.

You can already do this on the left-hand side of the page for all hotel brands but this special tab on top seemed new. Also interesting to note, the very first result that popped up was for a Hilton Hotel.

As it turns out the new feature is indeed a clever new ad buy that Hilton has placed on Travelocity. Hmmmmmmm.

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OpenThread / Mobile Bookings / Travelocity / Hotel Booking Sites / → All Tags

Have You Ever Booked a Hotel Room Using a Mobile App?

Before we start declaring mobile booking apps to be all the rage for 2011, we want to get a better idea of just how many of you are booking hotel rooms through your phone.

Certainly, with the advent of apps like HotelTonight, Expedia and the new Top Secret Hotels option from Travelocity, as well as hotels' own iPhone and Blackberry apps, the opportunities for mobile booking are greater than ever before. We will probably even see many more new mobile booking roll-outs as the year goes on.

While Travelocity wouldn't divulge just how many bookings are done through their iPhone app, they did tell us that they've seen a "strong month over month growth in mobile bookings." Beth Murphy, Travelocity’s vice president of product marketing said:

Mobile commerce is in the beginning stages, and we anticipate this trend to continue in an upward trajectory. Now more than ever, consumers want to be able plan, book and mange travel from any device, wherever they are. Given the success we have seen with our mobile offerings, this market will continue to be a priority for Travelocity.

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Mobile Booking / Hotel Booking Sites / Travelocity / Adventures in Blind Booking / → All Tags

Travelocity Adds Top Secret Hotels to Their Mobile Booking App

Travelocity has been enabling guests to book hotel rooms on the go since 2008 when they first introduced their iPhone application. But with all the new apps on the mobile booking scene recently like Expedia and HotelTonight, Travelocity has upped the ante by adding their Top Secret Hotels service to the app.

Top Secret Hotels allow guests to book hotel rooms at steep discounts (up to 55 percent off) but without knowing the hotel name until after their credit card has been charged. We did this last year and stayed at the Planet Hollywood Hotel in Vegas for just $57.

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Adventures in Blind Booking / Travelocity / Viva Vegas / → All Tags

Adventures in Blind Hotel Booking: Planet Hollywood for $57

Where: 3667 Las Vegas Boulevard [map], Las Vegas, NV, United States, 89109

In continuing our running series, Adventures in Blind Booking, we decided to test out Travelocity's new Top Secret Hotels option.

We've expressed a some hesitancy with this new blind booking function before because we're so married to Hotwire and the amenities that Travelocity listed under their secret hotel options were scarce. We were also concerned about the vague location listings and the lack of on-strip hotels for Las Vegas. But we can't truly judge anything without having tried it first.

So we plugged in our date and began our search. We found a four-star hotel on the Strip for $57 and decided to jump on it. After we selected the hotel, Travelocity took us to a ridiculously long page where travelers can customize their trip by selecting show tickets, activity tickets, airport transportation, etc. In theory, that sounds ok but this page had a gazillion options, all practically screaming for our attention.

Once we finally the button to ignore all this jazz and get to the booking page, we clicked it with much relief.

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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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Hotel News / Travelocity / Hotel Booking Sites / Hotel Booking Tips / Price Guarantees / → All Tags

Travelocity Now Offering Hotel Guests a Price Guarantee

The economy may not be feeling back to its old self, but there is more good news for hotel guests looking to get a better deal.

Travelocity announced today that it would not only eliminate change and cancel fees for hotels and vacation packages and offer guests a special $50 discount for travel but that it would also offer a price guarantee, something that other online travel booking sites have yet to do.

A price guarantee is a common feature found on hotel's websites which allow guests who find a lower room rate elsewhere to receive that lower rate instead of whatever the hotel is offering. It's a nifty little way for guests to sort of negotiate with hotels to get a better rate. For hotels, it keeps guests booking directly through their site, rather than with a third-party booking site, with whom they usually have to split a sort of commission.

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Green Hotels / Travelocity / Kimpton Hotels / Hilton Garden Inns / Element Hotels / → All Tags

Travelocity Keeps Tabs on Hotels Keen to be Green

Finally collecting the world's sustainable hotel properties and top eco destinations into one list, Travelocity has launched the Green Directory with the aim of connecting travelers to "options that will help to diminish the footprint their trips leave on the planet."

All we can say is that it's about time a popular booking engine drew attention to these properties working to improve and innovate. Showcasing approximately 250 environmentally responsible hotels on the international list, Travelocity points out some obvious choices like the LEED platinum Proximity Hotel and Element Hotels while surprising us by including affordable chains like Hilton Garden Inn and Kimpton Hotels. The list includes properties doing more than just planting saplings, but serving organic and local cuisine, reducing water usage, recycling, and even going so far as carbon neutrality.

Matching the dedication of these hotels is Travelocity itself as they have joined in the talks for Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria; this means that one day, hotels hoping for the "earth-friendly" label will have to run through Travelocity's eco-gamut first. The Green Directory may be one small step for hospitality, but it's totally one giant leap for the "greenvolution."

[Fairmont St. Andrews photo: Travelocity]

Hotel Gift Cards / Four Seasons Hotels / Hyatt Hotels / Travelocity / Days Inns / Ritz-Carlton Hotels / → All Tags

Hotel Gift Cards: An Easy Hanukkah Gift or Stocking Stuffer

Gift cards may be the easy way out when it comes to gift-giving but c'mon they are so frigging convenient, it's hard to say no. For starters, you can pick most gift cards up in the supermarket--if your local store has one of those "Gift Card Malls" like ours does that features cards from every store imaginable like Toys'R Us, Pottery Barn and Southwest.

Second, the gift card may seem impersonal but have you ever heard of someone throwing away a $50 card to Banana Republic or letting a $25 iTunes card collect dust in the closet? NO. People use these things and we are all about utility here. Anyways, enough of our ranting. Here are some hotel and travel gift cards that you can buy for all the people in your life that you don't care about to make a gift or special order a present.

· Ritz-Carlton: The luxury chain offers gift certificates in its hotel gift shops or online. You can even call it in old school at 1-800-371-GIFT.
· Hyatt Hotels: Hyatt gift cards can be used for lodging or dining and for other services charged to the rooms.
· Four Seasons Hotel: Big spenders here can gift someone with up to $100,000 in a Four Seasons gift card. (Note to self: Make good friends with rich people.)
· Days Inn: Now, back to earth. Days Inn also offer gift certificates.
· Travelocity Gift cards: if you don't want to specify a hotel chain for your loved one, get 'em a Travelocity card so they can pick and choose for themselves.