Hotel at airport night before flight

1spiral

I've been following the prices for a couple of weeks now and yesterday saw the best price over those few weeks. The price was with vio.com. Now they gave me the option to lock in this price without paying anything so my question is what is in it for both vio and the hotel? If the price goes up I get the hotel at my locked in rate. If the price goes down, I just book with someone else. It seems like a "too good to be true" offer. Today, the hotel is £6 dearer than my locked in rate.

eskbanker

Do you need to make an actual booking to secure the price, and if so, is it definitely cancellable for a full refund?

If you're looking for a catch, review sites will probably help you!

saajan_12

Potential reasons - no comment on vio specifically but just potential things a company might do. 
- hoping people will be more inclined to book given it feels less risky and then will forget or not bother to cancel
- plan to make it difficult to give the refund
- won't actually book the room with the hotel if it ends up being dearer

DullGreyGuy

Never used them and not going to just to try a feature... to be honest I struggled to find cases where they weren't just passing you over to Expedia etc let alone one that will allow you to freeze the price. 

My assumption would be they are just booking a room with a cancellable condition and just terminating the booking before the end of the cancellation period.

1spiral

@eskbanker As far as I can see, I have an email that says "You froze this price", confirmation that the room is reserved for me and the price including the fact that I have currently paid nothing and total price to complete the booking. A button to complete the booking. I have up to 1 week before to complete, so I don't think I need to complete to secure the price.

Looking on trustpilot, although there are many 1 star reviews (despite a 4.2 overall rating) I cannot find any regarding not honouring a locked in price.

@saajan_12. This isn't a free cancellation (as far as I can tell). With those you pay up front and cancel after if you don't want it. As far as I can tell with this one, once you pay there is no cancel option. You just don't need to pay until you are sure you want it. This is where it's seeming too good to be true.

I've never seen this option before and was hoping someone on here will have experienced it.

1spiral

DullGreyGuy said:

My assumption would be they are just booking a room with a cancellable condition and just terminating the booking before the end of the cancellation period.

That was my thought but it would only work if vio don't have to pay for the room otherwise they'd be handing over 1000's only to claim most back. I might try and contact the hotel to see if they have a "soft" booking in my name or see if they can throw any light on it.

DullGreyGuy

1spiral said:

DullGreyGuy said:

My assumption would be they are just booking a room with a cancellable condition and just terminating the booking before the end of the cancellation period.

That was my thought but it would only work if vio don't have to pay for the room otherwise they'd be handing over 1000's only to claim most back. I might try and contact the hotel to see if they have a "soft" booking in my name or see if they can throw any light on it.

For a traditional refundable room you nor the agent pay nothing up front, you pay on checkout and the agent then gets a credit. 

No doubt there are intermediary arrangements too where nothing is paid up front by either party and it becomes billable X days before the booking hence they auto-cancel if you haven't confirmed the booking before the cut off point. 

A hold may only be in the agents name rather than the customers, in the same way that tour operators pre-book rooms in blocks and then allocate the individual rooms as customers buy. Its also why you get last minute deals where the operator has failed to sell the rooms they pre-booked and so selling them for something is better than having to pay for empty rooms.

twopenny

Probably being incredibly dense but what is the difference between 'locking in a price' and booking a cancellable room?

One thing for sure if you do have a problem you could be dealing with a 3rd or 4th party and all the hassle that contains.

1spiral

twopenny said:

Probably being incredibly dense but what is the difference between 'locking in a price' and booking a cancellable room?

One thing for sure if you do have a problem you could be dealing with a 3rd or 4th party and all the hassle that contains.

In essence they are the same but for one you pay up front. Although I have booked cancellable rooms, I've never tried cancelling once paid for so would have similar concerns with those. From my perspective though, once I've paid for a room, I feel happy with what I've got. In this instance I still think there's possibly wiggle room on price. I've never actually studied airport hotel room price movements before this. The airport concerned is Birmingham and the hotel prices there are further complicated by the NEC. I've seen room prices (for the same hotel) range from £50 to £280 depending on what is on at the NEC. Over the couple of weeks I've been watching, the prices have been fairly static but the room is not wanted for another few months yet so it is probably too early to see cutting of prices. Also because I don't know how the NEC book events, it is possible they announce something for the date I want in the coming weeks and the room rate sky rockets.  I do like @DullGreyGuy 's explanation though, it makes sense but I still can't get over the concern about the deal not being real.

1spiral

I got a reply from the hotel who have confirmed there is a booking in my name for the date in question. The next question is whether the room rate would be honoured but the fact the room is reserved makes me a lot happier in that respect.

DullGreyGuy

1spiral said:

I got a reply from the hotel who have confirmed there is a booking in my name for the date in question. The next question is whether the room rate would be honoured but the fact the room is reserved makes me a lot happier in that respect.

Thats how bookings work, generally. You lock into a price even if you haven't paid for it yet. Obviously you get the occasional story when Oasis or Black Sabbath announce a comeback gig in the city on the date of your stay and hotels cancel prior bookings because prices spike but they are outliers. 

Stay in any hotel and there is highly likely a vast range of prices being paid by you and your neighbours based on when you booked, how you booked, any other promotional aspect. There is no singular best rate either... £2 more on the rate but a free breakfast in principle is great but not if you are leaving 2hrs before breakfast starts serving its £2 waisted.