Six of the largest hotel companies in the world have partnered to launch a hotel search engine of their own, dubbed Roomkey.com.
Choice Hotels International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International and Wyndham Hotel Group teamed up to start Roomkey.com to, in their own words, “provide travelers a search and book experience tailored for ease of hotel shopping through an uncluttered and trustworthy site”.
Roomkey.com users can look for and book properties at all six hotel chains involved, including their affiliates, but not competitors of the six chains. Later on the site will also offer independent reviews, and the ability to compare, plan and share with friends and family.
The site is limited as it only offers hotels, no flights, no car rentals, no activities. But we think the biggest downfall will be the plethora of hotel search websites they are up against such as Bing, Google, Kayak, Hotwire, Groupon Getaways, Hotels.com, so it remains to be seen whether it will get much action of the marketshare.
For now, it’s focused on serving travelers in the United States, but it should be expanded to include other English-speaking regions soon. Roomkey.com is still in the Beta stage of design and works great if you only need a hotel room.
We did a search for Dallas staying January 26 through the 30. Upon hitting the search key all the possible hotels from these six chains and their affiliates came up. You can then narrow the search by changing the price range, star rating and can sort by price, distance, hotel name etc.
We found rates as low $35 a night for the 1-star Knights Inn at Market Center, and the way up to the 5-star Ritz-Carlton for $409 per night plus tax. The rates are listed per night, but is not clear until you book that it is a per night rate, plus taxes.
Upon booking you are directed to each hotel chains main booking engine; your dates have already been entered and the list of available room types and prices comes up. These prices are the exact same as if you were to go on Marriott.com and book the Ritz-Carlton for the same dates, so there is no advantage of booking on this site for an upfront discounted rate.
You will get the cheapest going rate the hotel is offering, if the hotel happens to have a save 20% off your stay promotion you will get that rate, if the hotel is offering a free full breakfast as a bonus promotional special, you can book that room type and get the free breakfast, but the rates are the same since you are booking on their main booking engine.
The advantage of this website is that you have the option to look at all the major chains rates and then book. Places like Hotels.com require pre-payment upfront.
With Roomkey.com, you can reserve the room and rate, but you don't have to pay for it in advance, and if you belong to AAA, AAPR, or other membership or business association that gives a discount, and you can get those rates, but otherwise you are given the best available rates.
The site doesn't have reviews on the hotels yet, so it's buyer beware as far as if the 2-star hotel is a dump, or if it is great discounted buy. The site is easy to use, but once you go to book you get directed to the Wyndham, or the Marriott homepage. Each company is operated and owned individually, and each has a different layout of their website so it does get a tad tedious navigating each website's booking engine.
This is a great site for people who have points with Marriott, InterContiental Hotel Group, Hilton, Hyatt etc., because they can use this site as a tool to see which hotel will cost them less in points.
When we checked the amount of hotels they have for sale on roomkey.com we found that they list 85 properties in Orlando, Flordia, we have 241 proprties for sale. When we looked at Las Vegas, our number 1 destination, we have 145 hotels, roomkey only has 40, this means you are at a disadvantage of getting to see three times the amount of hotels, special offers and discounts in Las Vegas alone!
But overall, the site won't become an overnight sensation because they are not offering airfare, or last minute bargain basement deals like Hotwire. People like being able to get a better deal than the regular hotel rate, they like being able to use a discount promotion code to snag a better rate than the next guy.
So if you are looking for a discount promotion code to use on the major airlines, or are looking for a great last minute weekend getaway we have you covered at Bestfares.com
