Tech Tuesday :: Hotel Tonight {+ Canada!}

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In September 2011, we told you about Hotel Tonight, an app for iThings and Androids that allows people to book hotels at the last minute---so last minute that booking only becomes available at noon the day-of. To say we love this app in all its spontaneous glory, is an understatement, so when we learned about the latest development, we had to share it with you! Previously, only hotels in major US cities were bookable, now they've added Vancouver and Toronto into the mix.

Taking a look at the hotels available in Vancouver on May 3rd, I see the Pan Pacific for $203 and the Granville Island Hotel $182. To compare, on Expdia.ca for the same night, the Pan is $247 and the Granville Island Hotel is $265. Hotel Tonight offers a respectable savings for both. Being a total travel geek, I peruse Hotel Tonight for fun {even when I'm not traveling} to see if the prices are "all that." Most of the time, they are a decent savings. {I just realized this must sound really sales-y, but TS isn't like that AND I'm just really passionate about this subject.}

I know we're not all comfortable with the last minute-, throw-caution-to-the-wind-approach, but if it's a Friday night and you decide you want to do an overnight trip starting Saturday morning, remember your friend Hotel Tonight. If you don't find what you want, you can always book via a hotel's website, Kayak or Expedia! Get more juicy details on the Hotel Tonight app by reading our previous post about it.

{Trip Styler Tip :: Discounts may grow as the sun sets. At the time of writing on May 3rd, I saw some good deals at noon. Checking back around 6pm some updated, amazing deals, were offered. In this scenario, it pays to be late for a very important date!}

PS - Just last week I booked the Thompson Beverly Hills---a hotel I've been eyeing and will write about tomorrow---on Hotel Tonight. I got it for $153 and the whole 'transaction' took less than one minute via my iPhone.

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[photos = screenshots of Hotel Tonight offers on May 3rd]

Tech Tuesday :: Hotel Tonight

[trip style = weekend getaway + budget conscious] If you travel to or within the US and like to A} save on hotel stays and/or B} procrastinate, then you need to know about this travel app. Its name pretty much sums it up. Hotel Tonight allows users to book hotels at the last minute---after 12pm to be exact---for that evening until 2am. Some hotels can be booked for one night, others will allow a five-night stay.

Hotel Tonight came about in late 2010, but I've been waiting to feature it until the functionality, number of cities and offers were robust enough to make it worthy of your screen's precious space. This is now and the app holds a permanent position in my iPhone's travel folder.

With 22 cities and counting, Hotel Tonight offers three hotels per city unless it's a large and/or major vacation destination like New York or San Francisco, in which case there will be three hotels per "area." Each hotel is categorized as hip, modern, elegant, classic, boutique or basic and includes the price after tax as well as photos, a map and info {essentially, a short review written in bullet points for the time-starved, spontaneous booking!}. If you think the last-minute savings will only be offered on tired, 2-star airport hotels, think again. Even 4-star hotels need to fill space.

Are the eleventh hour savings actually cheaper than Kayak, Expedia or Hotwire? Would Trip Styler's editorial team use it? Yes and yes. On Saturday I played around with a few cities and compared Hotel Tonight's prices to other major online travel agencies, and in every case Hotel Tonight's prices were better. The best part: it's not even a blind booking scenario, you know what you're going to get and don't have to scroll through a zillion hotels to decide which one you're going to book. FYI, book early on weekends, as in, between noon and 4pm, because deals can sell out.

We love this free app so much that we've added it to Trip Styler Recommends.

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