IntFF

HotelRatePRO at https://www.hotelratepro.com
provides services that I missed as a frequent traveler.
It went from an idea to a startup to a system in one year, and we have plans for many additional services.

Our services are focused on the needs of travelers staying at Top Hotel Brands of top hotel groups such as Hilton, IHG, Marriott, etc.

My problem as a Hilton Diamond member was that I wanted to book directly with Hilton to get Member-Only rates, collect points, and get other benefits. But I had no automated way to check if the price went down after I booked. This gave birth to the idea.

The services already offered are:
1. Hotel Rate Tracking for booked and un-booked hotels with an option for BrandSearch, which also tracks same-brand hotels near the booked/requested hotel.
2. Track Member-Only rates or Public rates.
3. Track Refundable or Non-Refundable rates.
4. Track Sold-Out Hotel for room availability, with BrandSearch option.

We send a RateAlert as soon as a lower rate is found. We send a RoomAlert as soon as a room is available.
For booked hotels you can set the minimum price-drop for an alert, so we do not send you an alert for a small drop in price.

We currently support the 48 brands of Hilton, IHG, Marriott and Starwood. Hyatt (with its 9 brands) will be added this month, followed by Wyndham (top brands) and Best Western. We plan to support almost 100 brands in about 12 hotel groups.

We plan to offer additional services geared towards elite members and the ability to do SearchMore - track near-by hotels of 3 brands.

Any feedback and suggestions will be appreciated. Thank you.

Answers to questions asked / comments made elsewhere:

1. "I worry about a service requiring personal info" - We understand this concern with new websites and this is the reason we do not collect ANY personal info from our customers. Sign up requires your email only, so we can associate confirmation emails you send us with your account and send you rate alert emails.

2. Many wondering "how do they make money?" - thanks for the concern. We have a road map with many additional Premium services that will require subscriptions and versions for specific biz market segments.

3. Special rates: Senior rate, AAA, Gov, etc. will be added in April-2017, together with specific room selection and additional hotel groups like Hyatt and Wyndham.

4. "I can do same on Yapta" - Yapta is geared to Corp market. We are very different than Yapta. With us you can track for lower prices booked hotels on Any website and UN-booked hotels. Focus on hotel brands with ability to track same-brand hotels near booked/requested hotel, to fit Loyalty members preferences. AND we are Unique with ability to track Member-only rates.

Mary2e

Looks very promising... Do you plan on adding Hyatt?

C17PSGR

Intriguing ...

Do you have the ability to track when a particular hotel opens up a particular rate?

For example, I often travel on the government rate but have hotels that I prefer to stay in. Depending on demand, they open and close the government rate option so I need to keep checking the Marriott site to see if I can catch it.

IntFF

Hi - Very good question about tracking special rates.
Right now we support tracking only of Member or Public and Refundable or Non-refundable* rates (4 combinations).
* that we call AnyRate = lowest available.

Support for tracking of special rates as Senior, AAA, and Government will be added in April, 2017.

IntFF

Hi Mary - Thanks for the interest in HotelRatePRO.

Hyatt hotel group is our next group after the Big-4. We plan to release it in April. If you signed up to our system, you will receive an automatic notification by email.

I also noticed that you are a member in Fairmont. It is also in our plans (work started). It will be released as a brand in the Accor hotel group, since Accor bought Fairmont (at the end of 2015) together with Raffles and Swissotel.

Thanks.

Mary2e

Thank you very much! I look forward to seeing Hyatt on the list. I've already registered.

mahasamatman

Do you plan on supporting popular discount rates like AAA or AARP?

TravelinSperry

He answered that above.

IntFF

1. "I worry about a service requiring personal info" - We understand this concern with new websites and this is the reason we do not collect ANY personal info from our customers. Sign up requires your email only, so we can associate confirmation emails you send us with your account and send you rate alert emails.

2. Many wondering "how do they make money?" - thanks for the concern. We have a road map with many additional Premium services that will require subscriptions and versions for specific biz market segments.

3. Special rates: Senior rate, AAA, Gov, etc. will be added in April-2017, together with specific room selection and additional hotel groups like Hyatt and Wyndham.

4. "I can do same on Yapta" - Yapta is geared to Corp market. We are very different than Yapta. With us you can track for lower prices booked hotels on Any website and UN-booked hotels. Focus on hotel brands with ability to track same-brand hotels near booked/requested hotel, to fit Loyalty members preferences. AND we are Unique with ability to track Member-only rates.

yosithezet

I forwarded a reservation and it was correctly processed. But then I got an alert that a lower rate was found which had a change in bedding. The original rate was a king bed and the lower rate returned was two single beds. While that is in fact a room at the same hotel with a lower rate, it isn't a valid response to the alert that was set.

I imagine that smoking/non-smoking may have similar issues though I haven't tested.

Xeno

I sent in 5 hotels and all were rejected: Marriott in Rome, Marriott in Leipzig, and Fairfield Inn in Cleveland, TN. The Residence Inn in Ontario, CA was accepted.

So what is in play here?

Edited to say that I got an immediate alert about a lower price at the RI in Ontario.

Edited again to say I sent an email to support to which they responded and we are making slow but hopefully certain progress.

Xeno

I have now saved I think close to $200 on three reservations. I normally check reservations on occasion but today's results have been better than expected.

HotelRatePro

Thanks for your feedback.^ We do have quite a large number of requests processed in our system forwarded by email so there are glitches from time to time... The issue with the Marriott reservations is related to the way outlook/ms emails are being forwarded and is non specific to Marriott. We don't have this issue with other providers like gmail, yahoo etc.
Nonetheless, we will solve this issue soon and report back. We do appreciate your patience.

As for room type and bed type it is most certainly an important feature that is being developed as we speak and will be entered to our next release.

One additional thing worth mentioning is that in some Marriott rates even if the rate type shown is "advanced purchase", clicking on the rate condition actually reveals it can be cancelled for free until 1 day before check in. We don't know if this is a Marriott bug but we do identify it as a Refundable rate. Let us know if you see other anomalies like that.

/D. Costa

HotelRatePro

Glad to see our services are utilized well
The Outlook issue is now resolved but we strongly recommend using other providers like gmail, yahoo, etc.

As always for any issue please ping me or send an email.

/D. Costa

HotelRatePro

We invite you to try our latest release including the following features:

• Hyatt Group is supported for tracking (9 brands)
• Special Rates - Senior, AAA and Government rates are now supported
• Exact Room Type - For forwarded confirmations track exact room type
• Auto Reactivate requests - The new alert price becomes the new tracking price
• New Search tool - Search ALL brands in one place with direct booking links
• More Profile options to preconfigure your tracking
• CancelAlert - For forwarded confirmations set a friendly reminder 1-7 days before cancel date

Next in the pipeline (next release):
Wyndham and Best Western
Easier use on cellphone (no apps yet)

As always we would like to hear your feedback/comments.

/D. Costa