A new app and website has publicly launched today which solves a real travel problem.
Hotels By Day lets you book hotel day-use rooms online.
The problem:
- Day rooms are really hard to book.
- You usually can’t book them online. I’ve booked them occasionally — the Sofitel Heathrow has day space on its website, but people often get confused and book those rates either for the wrong day or in place of overnight’s which are what they really want.
- Sometimes you call the chain to book them, sometimes you have to call the hotel directly.
Hotels By Day — website, and both iPhone and Android app — brings the inventory online.
The app uses geolocation to show the day rooms closest to you for booking same-day easily. But it also lets you book them in advance.
These can be really useful off of a long overnight flight, take a shower, take a nap.
Sometimes I wind up with super long layovers, especially connecting internationally on separate tickets, and a hotel is going to be much nicer than a contract airport lounge.
They suggest it’s great for working remotely while on a business trip (a competitor to Regus offices and Starbucks?) or to enjoy a daycation.
Their initial markets, available today, are New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and DC. Next month they will add day rooms at hotels in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale. Following in the queue are Boston, Charlotte and San Francisco.
They estimate that 11% of rooms that are occupied two nights in a row are available for intra-day bookings due to early check-outs/late check-ins. And that’s the occupied rooms which have this inventory possibility. I love the business model, like Priceline and Uber it takes an underutilized resource and brings revenue to hotels while making a service available to travelers. And it solves a market failure, because it’s hard to book these kinds of rooms now.
And they’re giving away 5 free day rooms in the market of your choice.
- 3 nights drawn at random from comments on this post
- 2 nights selected by me from tweets that mention both @garyleff and @HotelsByDay
For avoidance of doubt, I receive no compensation for running this giveaway, I’m just passing along free day rooms to readers.
Enter to win on this blog.
- Answer the question in the comments to this post: What would you use a hotel day room for?
- Since three day rooms are being given away out of the comments, you may enter up to three times if yo have different uses for a day room.
- Contest is open until Noon eastern time on Friday, February 13.
- Winners (1 day room each) will be drawn with the help of random.org
Enter to win on Twitter.
- Follow @garyleff and @HotelsByDay
- Tweet what you would do with a day room booked through the site/app. Your tweet must mention both @garyleff and @HotelsByDay to be eligible.
- You may enter twice if you wish, because two day rooms are being given away in this fashion.
- Contest is open until Noon eastern time on Friday, February 13.
- I will select the winners (1 day room each) from tweets that (in my sole opinion) express great uses for the rooms/app.
Check out Hotels By Day and their Android and iPhone apps. I’ve download the Android app, it’s something I want handy on my phone for my travels. Readers get free day rooms. I’ll pay for mine. 🙂 Getting commenting and tweeting!
- You can join the 50,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
I’m always flying in/out PHL with really long layovers before/after international flights.
I’d use it for quick nap and rest after 6 hour sight seeing walk around the town and sore feet
It would DEFINITELY be nice to have a place to set your suitcase down! Many times I’ve had a layover in a city and would love to take a tour or see a site or go to a Baseball game while waiting for my next flight, but I can’t because I’d have to lug all my suitcases & business gear with me. Airlines won’t store it for you. The lack of lockers any more is incredibly annoying. It would be nice to use the hotel as a day-base…as long as the hotel has an airport shuttle.
Awesome, I love this idea so I can pop in for a shower during the day, especially in the humid NE summer.
I would use it for a quiet place to work.
I’d also use it if I ever needed a place to put down my “stuff” before check-in time at a hotel
Another great use would be to use it as a breastfeeding room for my wife away from home. E.g. we are sightseeing a bit far from the hotel or from home
Great to rest relax and recharge!
Keep the kids contained on a family tripm with a longer stopover
Take a shower
I’d love to use a day room after a long flight to shower and maybe rest a little bit.
A day room near or on the beach would be nice so I would have a place to change, use the bathroom, and get out of the sun for a little while.
A day room would be nice while touring a city so that everyone could go where they wanted and then meet back up while enjoying a place to rest, use the bathroom, and freshen up.
I would use a day room to rest when flying an overnight flight internationally which connects to a later flight to my final destination. I live in a small town which only has a limited number of flights to the local airport and it is typical that I have to fly overnight to a US airport, arriving early in the morning, but don’t have a connecting flight until midafternoon.
I would use a day room to comfortably wait for our flight when we arrive back from a cruise. We always arrive very early and usually schedule a late afternoon or evening flight in order to avoid an issue of missing a flight in the event the ship arrives back to port mid morning. (which sometimes does happen). This would be a great option!
I’d use a day room to watch the “big game”! Usually don’t get to do this when traveling.
A quickie, if you must know….
That most needed shower before departing on TPAC flight from LAX.
sleep!
Hello everyone,
We just went LIVE with Miami International Airport Hotel – get complimentary WIFI, Room Service and other great amentities just off concourse E.
Three time plans for your flexibiltiy – midday 10am till 6pm ($95), morning 10am till 2pm ($55) and evening 2pm till 4pm ($55).
Now there are great options while waiting for that evening flight.
Nathan, Co-founder Hotelsbyday
@Frank – thanks for looking into the app. We appreciate your interest. We are working with our hotel partners to get rates to an affordable price point – the LGA Marriot is a case in point. What is your sweet spot for price? What is your ideal time window(s)?
We want to get this right for you and be super-responsive to our customers
Very Dissatisfied!
I booked a room for my parents through the online site and was told that the reservations would be sent immediately over to the hotel.
To insure a hassle free check-in, I called the hotel to confirm their reservations and no one could find any information. I called HBD customer service and spoke with two representatives who both told me to have my parents call once they arrive. Really? Does this sound like hassle free to you? I explained that I would like to handle this before they arrive and I was told to book somewhere else if I wasn’t satisfied with their process. End the end, I decided to take their advice and take my business elsewhere.
Not Happy! Booked nearly one month in advance, revived “confirmation” email only to learn the day of my check-in that due to a fully booked hotel (Skyline Capital, 10 I St. SW, Washington, DC) that room not available and likely not available until 12 noon. Have used HBD before and great concept when and if it works…but learned on this trip that ‘confirmation’ isn’t really confirmation… ended up booking on site at same hotel through another service for a lesser rate…would think twice about using HBD in future.