My last vacation could be described, at best, as satisfactory. It was great to get away with the family, and we got quite a bit of time both to go sightseeing and to relax. But we were limited by our tight budget. We chose cheap activities, and the hotel we stayed in was not comfortable enough to truly unwind.
And so, when planning our next vacation, I started searching for alternatives. While searching through Kayak, I found some deals on hotel rooms that were too good to be true. They were offered by a service called Roomer, a self-termed travel-marketplace.
But despite their suspiciously low prices, Roomer’s offers was proven as legit and I’ve found that what they do is pretty clever.
Making the most out of hotel rooms cancellations
Hotels around the world face the risk of cancellations at the last minute. It happens more often than you can imagine. 220,000 trips are cancelled every day in the US alone! The industry stands to lose an enormous amount of revenue on a daily basis.
Hotels therefore have strict “no refund” policies. But while this saves the hotel industry from financial stress, it deflects the problem to the frustrated traveler, who is stuck with a booking he or she can’t use.
Thus, when you have to cancel a reservation, you lose the hefty price you’ve already paid, and the opportunity to reschedule for a later date.
Fortunately, there’s an upside to this all-too-common occurrence.
Your perfect hotel room is now empty
The idea is perfectly intuitive. Someone who can’t get a refund from a hotel would be willing to sell their reservation at a discounted rate. At least they’ll make some of their money back. And since this happens to millions of people every day, there’s a good chance one of these people has the hotel room you want.
Roomer recognized this inevitability, and also foresaw the tricky details involved to make it work.
How do you find this perfect, vacant hotel room? And how do you know you’re not being conned? Even if the reservation exists, it may be completely different to what you thought you ordered. Roomer’s hotel-marketplace accounts for all this and more.
A hotel-marketplace for discounted hotel rooms
The “hotel-marketplace” is simply a platform where buyers and sellers can meet. It’s really easy for sellers to post a listing – all they need to do is punch in the details and set their price. Roomer recommends at least a 50% discount.
This is how I came across quality hotel rooms at a fraction of a price. Some of the gems I found had discounts of over 80%, and these were not mediocre hotels. The biggest discount was on a 5 star hotel room.
Interestingly, some of the listings were offered by the hotels themselves. It turns out that the hotel industry is also invested in finding solutions to this problem. Even though they don’t give discounts, the revenue they would have garnered during the person’s stay is lost. They also lose on reviews and returning customers. It’s important to them that their hotel rooms are occupied. For this reason, hotels and travel agencies actively partner with Roomer, offering exclusive discounts even on hotel rooms that have not yet been booked.
Reliable verification system
Roomer, is that they take care of the logistics for you. This includes verifying that the hotel reservation actually exists and is what you’ve been promised. This perk is an incentive to use Roomer for all bookings, as it guarantees that hotels won’t mislead you on what you’re getting, or even give your reservation away, which happens surprisingly often.
Payment is straightforward. Roomer ensures that buyers and sellers never need to exchange details. They take care of getting the payment and keeping it safe until the vacation is over and has gone off without a hitch.
Money will no longer compromise my vacations
Tight budgets have always managed to dampen my enjoyment of vacations, but this creative solution means that no longer has to be the case. Instead of keeping activities to a minimum, and compromising on comfort, money is freed up to take the trip I want.