sbm12

Searching one chain for hotel awards is easy enough: Go to the site, enter your destination and hope something comes up. But what if you have points in lots of programs? That's a lot of searches. And how do you compare the points required to know which award room is the best deal relative to the cash price being asked? Let Hotel Hustle handle those details for you.



Put in a destination and dates and the tool searches multiple programs to determine both revenue and award availability and prices. It also maps the options out and calculates the "value" of an award booking relative to the nominal value of those points. So a 1.5cpm redemption in program A might actually be a better deal than a 2.0cpm redemption in program B. Right now those values are fixed but I'm building in the ability for users to specify their own point values or to just go with the average results the system calculates over time based on search history.



I'm looking for feedback and user input so give it a go and let me know what you think. Currently supported programs are:

• Club Carlson
• IHG Rewards Club
• Marriott Rewards
• Starwood Preferred Guest
• Wyndham Rewards

Choice Hotels should be online pretty soon and I'm working on Hyatt and Hilton as well though ETA for those is unknown at this point.

n.b. The link above is to my blog or to one which I am a regular contributor. FT rules require that I disclose that in the post.

emkay

Looks great. I have been waiting for something like this.
By international is the only way to search If its near a airport. For example it cant find jerusalem Which is popular though not near an airport

st1575

Overall, I think this is a great tool.

A suggestion: when searching by airport, it would be nice to see a pin drop for the airport in the initial view so one get a general idea of relative location. If you think that would add too much clutter, an option for the pin as a checkbox would be a nice addition.

sbm12

I'll see what I can do about adding the airport POI pin into the view.

Also, Choice Privileges is now active on the site as well.

SanDiego1K

I love the concept but am getting quirky results.

I put in Marrakech and intially had the choice of four locations such as Madrid, Manaus, but no Marrakech. I tried a second time and the drop down menu came up with the correct airport. Adding dates gave me a choice of 10 hotels. Only one was in the country of Morocco. Others were in Illinois and Indiana.

sbm12

Some international destinations are wonky as the translation from airport code to what you're actually searching for can have strange results. I'll look at the RAK parameters on the server and see if I can get that one tweaked to be more reliable.

ETA: Turns out Marriott doesn't have any properties in Morocco but it does have a few near Morocco, Indiana so it is being "helpful" with those results.

sbm12

Hilton just launched about 30 minutes ago. Official announcement comes out in 90 minutes but if you search now you'll see the data.





I am currently collecting cash+points info from HHonors and have the code in place to collect it from SPG as well. I'm just not sure how to render it in the UI with all the other information, especially when it comes to assigning point value. Any suggestions??

n.b. The link above is to my blog or to one which I am a regular contributor. FT rules require that I disclose that in the post.

sbm12

Hyatt should be working now.

You can also set custom point values and it will give you "hints" based on what the overall average CPP is for all prior searches when you go to set those values.

TravelGuy1965

This is a great idea and will be quite helpful....

sbm12

Lots of changes in the past few weeks:

• Completely reworked the UI: It is almost modern now. Still looking for a web UI/UX person to help me out on that front.
• Award Alerts: Now available for all 8 chains covered in the program. If a hotel doesn't have award rooms available when you do a search you get a prompt to "create alert" rather than book it. The system will keep checking and email you if the room opens up.
• Cash & Points: It is now displaying C&P rates where they are available. I've not yet introduced a CPP calculation on the C&P rates but I'm working on it.
• Complex filters: Filter out by distance, brand or points value. And I finally got it so it filters on all three combined (e.g. All hotels in the SPG or HH or IHG programs less than 20 miles from the search point and a value rating fo 4 or 5 stars).
• Custom point values: Set what you think points are worth in one or all programs and use those numbers in the Hustle Hotness calculations.

sbm12

Some interesting new data now available from the tool.

SanDiego1K

This is a great tool. I really liked being able to see the value of a property in one chain against another chain. I had to go off and find a zip code for a town with no nearby airport, but that only slowed me down a few seconds.

sbm12

I need to adjust the ZIP bit to allow lookup by name; that's on the roadmap.

sbm12

New feature announced today: "Got Enough Miles?"

You can now integrate Hotel Hustle with Award Wallet, TripIt or Traxo (securely, via oAuth so I never see your credentials) and Hotel Hustle will filter the results to only show you which hotels you can afford to book on points based on present account balances.



Read more.

Link your accounts.
n.b. The link above is to my blog or to one which I am a regular contributor. FT rules require that I disclose that in the post.

SanDiego1K

This put a big smile on my face:

Well, that's a fail, kale with a picture of a robust kale below.

I was checking to see if any hotels were available during a major trade show, so actually would have been surprised to find any availability.