AutoSlash for Hotels Monitors Prices and Upgrades
Point Hacks writes about new pay service Stay Angel which will:
- Keep checking your hotel reservations for price drops
- Compare your bookings against better rates at online travel websites to identify opportunities for best rate guarantee claims (and submits the claims for you)
- Identify when prices of suites drop to close to your room rate in case you want to buy up.
They monitor Hilton, Starwood, and Hyatt. And they also flag big price movements, letting you know when hotels that they track are at least 50% below their normal price. (See also How to Find Airline and Hotel Mistake Fares.)
There’s a free membership and a free trial for their premium service. The free account only tells you when your reservation has been upgraded, and alerts you to hotel promotions. They have two paid plans at $99 and $199 per year.
While they offer an affiliate program I am not including any affiliate links for their service. This offering sounds great, for frequent travelers who stay in hotels often and don’t want to spend the time managing all of this themselves it could be a great time and money saver. But I can’t yet endorse it through direct experience.
HotelUpgrade Gets You Perks for Reservations You’re Making Anyway
Meanwhile HotelUpgrade.com promises upgrades and amenities like free parking, drinks, and room service as throw-ins for hotel bookings.
Here’s the trick: you actually just book your reservations through the hotel chain’s website. Then you send them your confirmation number and they apply the perks each hotel has negotiated with them.
You can only see what perks are available through their iOS app [Android not presently available], although you can submit your confirmation numbers through the app or via email.
And since you book direct with the hotel chain, you still get points, elite status credit, and loyalty program benefits for the stay.
They start off with a limited number of hotels in a limited number of cities, and the official launch won’t come until later this month.
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Tip: I have used YaPta for tracking hotel price changes.
HotelUpgrade would be great if you can get increasing benefits for overall increasing stays (not just per chain). I stay over a hundred nights but get treated like dirt at a chain I don’t stay as much. I mean that is their decision but I would be more inclined to stay at their properties if I got better treatment, something they may be interested in providing? Not looking for royal VIP treatment just not worst room etc. This would be the benefit of such a program as I see it. While chain loyalty has some value to me, I’m not actually very loyal. So there may be some value to gain just from being a valuable or potentially valuable customer.
StayAngel is governed by the laws of Singapore and to use all the features you have to enter your hotel program membership #s AND passwords. NOT!
Hi Nick,
Thank you so much for your comment and feedback! The way our program is setup, guests get better upgrades anytime they can confirm multiple room nights, especially 5+ at a time (this can include multiple reservations as well as colleagues and friends).
For example, one of our hotels, the Residence Inn Manhattan, offers our guests a guaranteed high floor room for a 1 to 4 night reservation along with 1,000 additional Marriott Rewards points. If you can confirm 5+ nights, they will bump you up to a guaranteed high floor city view room, not to mention also give you 2,500 additional Marriott Rewards points.
Thanks!