Priceline has rolled out two new short-term features: A searchable display of winning bids for their Name Your Own Price hotel product, and an increased payout on its best-rate guarantee. Both are visible on the same page of their site, called the “Big Deal Guarantee.”

The display of winning bids is nice, but given that the BetterBidding or BiddingForTravel message boards exist to catalogue winning bids with greater precision, it’s not all that useful.

The best-rate-guarantee promotion — which expires March 31, 2010 — is potentially more interesting: Just like Priceline’s normal best-rate guarantee, the new offer only applies to their name-your-own-price product. But the terms and conditions of the deal are more generous.

While the normal best-rate guarantee was only valid for 24 hours after purchase, the new “big deal” guarantee is valid up until the day before check-in. That’s a much bigger window in which to find a better rate.

If you do find a lower publicly-available and -visible rate (i.e., no AAA or convention rates) for your hotel room on a website (it has to be via a website) and phone it in to Priceline, you’ll get a full refund, a $25 credit, and a $50 coupon for a Priceline vacation package.

But finding that better rate will be really tough. Priceline rates are deeply discounted because the name of the property isn’t revealed until you commit to purchase. But for a best-rate-guarantee, you’ll need to find a lower price for the specific hotel you won. And let’s be honest, it’s hard to beat a Priceline rate with a conventional publicly-visible rate. Priceline knows it’s not going to see many claims here, so this promotion is all bark, no bite.

On the other hand, they do introduce a portly new pimp character to be William Shatner’s sidekick in the ads. Tradeoffs.

In a world of a-la-carte pricing and fees for … everything… it’s always been an irony of sorts that economy hotels have continued to be as all-inclusive as they are.

Free internet, free local calls, and free breakfast are commonplace at the lower end of the hotel spectrum, while at the luxury end, you’re paying for each of those. (The sweet spot may be the mid-range hotels and suites which improve the comfort level over the Motel 6’s but throw in the freebies.)

Given the success of Ryanair, EasyJet, and their ilk, it’s actually a surprise that the a-la-carte model hasn’t been more widely tested at the economy tier. But that’s changing.

EasyHotel, from the folks who brought you EasyJet, EasyCar, EasyCruise, and their ilk, opened its 12th hotel yesterday. The most recent property, in Berlin, follows other properties in London, Luton, Basel, Budapest, Larnaka, Sofia, and Zurich.

The pricing concept is (unsurprisingly) similar to the airlines: You pay a base price for the (small) room with spartan private bath. (Berlin seems to start at 25 euros per night, though some reports mention 12.50. The earlier you book it, the lower the price. Then, the add-ons.

Want to watch TV? That’ll be 5 euros.

There’s a single towel per guest. Want another? That’ll be 1 euro.

Wi-fi? Another 3 euros per 24-hour period.

Housekeeping? Only on request. Additional charge: 6 euros.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that comfort is something you can buy as an add-on. And the decor is extremely orange, branded just like the airline. Which is fine if you’re decorating in order to appeal to the Dutch Olympic team, or taking your interior design inspiration from a 1979 Burger King. But for a hotel, it’s rather jarring.

This particular configuration doesn’t appeal to me personally, but I can see the draw for those who aren’t interested in hostels (…or camping) but are looking to keep lodging costs near rockbottom. Why pay for stuff you don’t need?

The pay-as-you-go model for hotels and motels isn’t new. This just takes it to a different level. And while luxury travelers have ironically accepted this model for years, it’s an innovation at the low end. Expect to see others follow suit in coming years.

What’s your take? Are a-la-carte economy hotels a good idea or another step backward for travelers? Vote in the poll below and hit the comments with your thoughts.

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I was getting ready to write a scathing post about Starwood Preferred Guest’s point levels for the coming year, but Gary Leff has beaten me to it. I’ll just add to the chorus:

Hotel-point redemption rates vary, based on the “tiers” of the property. And those tiers are tied to the average room rate at the property. Roadside motel? Low tier. Ultra-luxe resort? Upper tier. Seems straightforward.

And when the rates go up, the tier typically goes up, and the points required for a reward room go up, too. But when the rates go down, the tier typically goes down too. (This is perhaps how hotel points differ most from airline miles.)

Except this year. Starwood left its tiers where they were for the coming year, despite hotel rates’ incredibly deflationary record this past year. And then they try to spin it as a great thing they’re doing for their customers. It’s like telling an American traveler to Europe that you’ll cut them a great deal by charging him the USD-EUR exchange rate from December 2009 on a visit in February 2010… when the euro has dropped from 1.50 to 1.35. Gee, thanks.

Pitching it over to Gary:

Rates were down close to 20%, Starwood members expected points prices to fall, too. But Starwood apparently had other plans, and tried to spin not raising prices as a huge win for members. ‘We expect hotel prices to go up, but we aren’t going to sock you for that now. Because we love you.’
[...]
Some of [last year's] increases should have been reversed — based on the value proposition as Starwood has articulated it — after the worst hotel revenue year ever. But they weren’t. Starwood Preferred Guest is swallowing the difference. And telling you to thank them for it.

Starwood still has a large number of lovely properties, place I actually want to redeem to be at. But their points are relatively hard to earn through stays, and those points are worth less as hotel points prices remain the same but rates have fallen. They seem to be taking the wrong competitive approach, when Hyatt seems to be doing nothing but adding value to its program.

Amen.

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I received an odd message today from the general manager of a Crowne Plaza Hotel. She asked me to delete a hotel review I left on TripAdvisor nearly five years ago, well before the current management took over the property.

Putting aside the author’s horrible, HORRIBLE grammar and spelling, I can sympathize and understand why a hotel manager might want to have old reviews deleted. When I stayed at the property, it was a Radisson. Today, it’s a Crowne Plaza. But on their site, TripAdvisor has simply renamed the hotel listing and incorporated into the reviews.

I’m torn here. Despite my sympathy for management who’s stuck with their predecessors’ bad reputation, why would I delete an old review? It was accurate when I wrote it. There’s clearly a date on the prose, so a reader can opt to dismiss it for its age. And the review wasn’t even that bad: while it was a middling review for a middling hotel, I’ve certainly experienced (and written) worse.

I’m also slightly skeptical of the request, because I’ve lost a lot of faith in TripAdvisor over the last few years, as some suspiciously enthusiastic (shill?) reviews have piled up. I used to trust the site; I no longer do, because it’s seemingly being gamed by hoteliers. Call me cynical, but getting old reviews deleted is a possible precursor to a positive-review blitz by management.

So what would you do? I’m putting up a poll at the bottom of this post, and I would love to hear what you think. Vote, and hit the comments!

The text of the hotel manager’s message is below, with the poll below that. And while it’s probably identifiable for determined googlers, I’m editing out the name of the property and the manager. The rest of this message is all hers, though…

Good Morning,
My name is B****** ******** and I am the General Manager for the Crowne Plaza **** ******, we became a Crowne Plaza in October of 2008, when you stayed with this property it was not under the same owenership nor franchise, it was a Radisson Hotel managed by Remington Corporation, can you please contact Trip Advisor.as our Hotel the Crowne Plaza **** ****** truly works extremely hard to provide excellt Customer Service l we have called and emailed Trip Advisor and are working on eliminating all of the emails prior to our obtaining ownership, we would also love for you to return so that you can enjoy the great customer service we are known for in this area, we are the winners of the 2009 Intercontinental Hotels Meetings and Excellence Award for North America and our team is extremely proud of our customer service.

Many thanks
B****** ***********
General Manager

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(Reading via the RSS feed? Trouble voting? Can’t see the poll? Click here to visit the site to vote and/or comment.)

This may be the dumbest marketing/PR gimmick I’ve seen in a while. Via Barbara de Lollis, the Telegraph reports:

A hotel chain is employing human bed warmers to help guests get a good night’s sleep.

The walking electric blankets are dressed in special all-in-one sleeper suits and are sent to warm the beds of guests staying at the Holiday Inn before they get under the covers.
[...]
Holiday Inn spokeswoman Jane Bednall said the idea was ”like having a giant hot water bottle in your bed”. The five minute free bed warming sessions are being tried out in London and Manchester at the end of January.

This is so dumb it hurts. If you’re not looking for, umm, a casual encounter… why on earth would you want a stranger hanging out in your bed??

I guess the labor cost of hiring people to warm beds is lower than actually buying electric blankets and hot water bottles?

Upgraded: Some clarity for travelers
Downgraded: 14 countries’ citizens
The TSA has issued new rules (and an accompanying statement) regarding international travel to the United States. The centerpiece: If you are from — or traveled through — Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, or Yemen, you will be subject to pat-downs and carry-on bag checks. But we didn’t hear the actual policy or the list of affected countries from the TSA. Oh no. The official line only specifies that security will be higher for passengers who come from (or through) “nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest.” The details of who that affects were provided (leaked?) by an unnamed TSA official to the media.

Downgraded, again: TSA’s mad Adobe Acrobat skillz
Seth at Wandering Aramean has uncovered yet another TSA redaction error, with the agency this time exposing explosives detection procedures because they can’t properly edit a PDF.

Downgraded: The next generation of airport scanners, before they’re even installed
Full-body scans would not have detected the Christmas Day crotch-bomber, because the explosive powder packets in his underwear weren’t dense enough. In the UK, the Independent on Sunday labeled the push for more full-body scanners “a scam.” And al Qaeda has reportedly already been practicing ways of beating the body scanners, allegedly on scanners they’ve purchased.
Update: And now the Guardian reports that these scanners could be in violation of British child pornography laws, as they create “indecent images” of children. The hits just keep on a-comin’!

Enough with airport security and the TSA! On to lighter fare:

Upgraded: Argentine tit-for-tat
If you are a citizen of a country that charges Argentines an entry fee or visa charge, then prepare to pay that same exact fee when you enter Argentina. For Americans, that means paying US$131. Only Buenos Aires (EZE) is charging the fee for now, but that will expand to other locations.

Downgraded: Hotel descriptions and accompanying photos
This hotel’s five-star description doesn’t match the imagery. WhereToStay.com’s description of the Hotel Nikko Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands takes the reader to a tropical paradise… until you look at the photo. First, here’s the description — painful in its own right, thanks to a misguided obsession with capitalization:

Set Amidst Crystal Clear Pacific Waters Surrounded By Lush Palm Trees, White Sand Beaches, And Alive With Outdoor Fun And Activities Such As Snorkeling, Diving And Water craft Rides, The Hotel Nikko Saipan With Its 14 Floors And 313 Guest Rooms And Suites Provide A Truly Relaxing Ambience For An Unforgettable Experience. Combined With State of The art Facilities And Gracious Hospitality In A Truly 5 Star Deluxe Setting, The Hotel Nikko Saipan Guarantees All Of Their Guests An Ideal Stay. And With Golf Courses Near By As Well As Racketball, Tennis, Scuba Diving And A Host Of Other Outdoor Activities, Saipan Proves To Be A Truly Memorable And Brilliant Destination.

And here’s the photo they put with it:

I’ve heard of hotels changing hands and rebranding, but this isn’t quite what the Nikko is expecting…

The hotel page is here. A screenshot, in case they take it down to make corrections, is here.

Happy New Year!

Upgraded: The notion of a contract in air travel
Downgraded: Airline logistics
The Department of Transportation has revealed sweeping new rules that govern airlines’ conduct, but implementation and enforcement will not be as easy as passing a new rule. Most headlines read that this is a big victory for passenger rights, with the bulk of the attention focused on a new 3-hour limit on time spent aboard a plane, pushed away from the gate. That’s something but this won’t please everybody. (If your flight would be able to take off 3 hours and 5 minutes after pushback, tough luck, you’re heading back to the gate at the 3 hour mark…) Ground delays suck. No doubt. But There will be unintended consequences, and airlines will find ways to address these logistical challenges.

More importantly, in my view, the rules include a provision that airlines can’t retroactively change the contract governing your ticket. This has always struck me as patently unfair: You buy your ticket in January for a March flight, and the airline changes its rules in February; until now, you’ve been stuck with the February contract. Now, the federal government has ruled that you’re covered by the original contract in effect when you made your purchase. Good.

Chris Elliott has pulled the highlights from the actual rules, if you want to review.

Downgraded: Globespan Airlines
Potentially Downgraded: Credit card processors
Scotland’s Globespan Airlines shut down abruptly over the weekend, stranding 4500 travelers mid-trip. For the time being, guidance from the company on rebookings, is available on the former airline’s website. But questions now turn to whether or not the airline’s credit card processor was to blame for the immediate death knell. The processor, E-clear, apparently held back between £30m and £35m due to Globespan. You may recall that Frontier Airlines blamed their credit card processor when they declared bankruptcy in 2008 (though they didn’t halt all operations at that point).

Upgraded, after days of being Downgraded: Eurostar
English Channel rail firm Eurostar had a miserable (and well-publicized) weekend, with a complete shutdown of all their trains, midway through the Channel crossing. And the company handled things rather poorly. For example:

When worried passengers [aboard the trains] challenged Eurostar officials they received a cursory shrug. Some became so desperate for information that they banged on the train driver’s door but could only hear him sobbing inside.

Awesome. That’s the kind of leadership in a crisis I look for… But the company is resuming service and has promised to make it up to the thousands of passengers it stranded, not just in the tunnels, but on both sides of the channel. They’ve vowed that “the company would reimburse them for expenses incurred while they were stranded.”

Upgraded: The number of stars in the Parisian hotel sky
Four stars? Not enough. Bring on the fifth star. At least they haven’t gone the way of the absurdist 6 and 7 star hotel…

Upgraded: Biofuels
A Seattle company has put in motion plans to create a large-scale biofuels operation aimed specifically at airlines. AltAir Fuels has signed up 14 airlines to be launch customers for jet fuel and diesel made from camelina, a mustard-like weed whose seeds can be refined.

Municipalities across the country have been suing the online travel agencies, charging them with cheating the local governments out of lodging taxes. Agencies responded by keeping hotels in those cities out of searches. Until now, it’s been primarily smaller cities like Columbus, Georgia. But last week, the state of Florida got in the game, suing Expedia and Orbitz, claiming that the agencies failed to pay the full amount of taxes owed.

The state’s argument rests on the distribution model of the big agencies. When you book a $150 room with a hotel directly, the rate you reserve is the top-line number the hotel receives. Taxes are calculated on the basis of that $150 price, and submitted to governments accordingly. When you book with an Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline, or Hotwire, you may be paying one price, but the agency is paying another. So you may pay $150, but a Travelocity may be paying $100 to the hotel and keeping $50 in profit. For such reservations, the hotel submits taxes based on the $100 wholesale price. State and local governments argue that they should be receiving the taxes based on the retail rate, not the wholesale. So a thousand lawsuits bloom.

When I visited Orbitz headquarters in Chicago at the end of September, I asked Brian Hoyt, the company’s Vice President of Corporate Communications & Government Affairs, about this legal trend. Hoyt replied that the premise of these suits was fundamentally wrong: The lawsuits presumed that the agency was the hotelier, when in fact they were just the middleman, adding a convenience charge to the booking that they negotiated for their customers. “Orbitz is no more a hotelier than Ticketmaster is a baseball team.”

But the state of Florida has just upgraded Orbitz to the big leagues.

I’ve been sympathetic to the agencies on this front since I first posted about it in May. But the agencies aren’t doing themselves any favors: The problem for Orbitz and their peers is exacerbated by the fact that the agencies don’t break out their prices in a transparent manner. The $150 rate in the example above doesn’t show up as $100 plus $50 in fees. It shows up as $150.

Further, the agencies tack on extra “taxes & fees” (reduced recently, admittedly, but still there) without explaining the breakdown. Since the margins on hotel bookings are fat, and the taxes are based on the lower wholesale rate, there’s some room for profit in those fees, too. (It’s much like the “handling” in “shipping and handling” charges.)

The Florida case is a huge deal for the agencies, and the consumers who book there. Just the Orlando and Miami bookings alone would hurt the companies’ bottom line.

Let’s assume for the moment that the agencies lose this battle, regardless of the merits of the argument. One strategy would be to lobby for a federal solution, in which a national legal standard for tax collection is determined and applied federally. Another strategy would be to reform the ways in which agencies quote hotel rates.

Look at the these two current examples of hotel rate and tax quotation:

Expedia:

Orbitz:

Same hotel, same dates. First off, note the slight variation between the agencies. The difference may be due to variation in negotiated rates, or in fees. But you won’t ever know, because the agencies aren’t telling you what you’re actually buying.

I can understand the why the agencies want to keep their real rates quient. But since the prices aren’t broken out, it’s possible for states like Florida to launch lawsuits. If the agencies can’t get a federal solution, they may need to start quoting the wholesale rates plus the fees.

And if these lawsuits lead to greater price transparency, that’s going to be a huge change.