REMINDER: Exclusive HotelTonight discount code – save up to £30 on your first booking

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• James Ward says:

  11 Nov11 November 07:23

  They seem to be struggling to make their model work and laid off 20% of their staff yesterday (http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/10/hoteltonight-cuts-20-percent-of-its-workforce).

  I hope their funding lasts long enough for them to figure out how to get sufficient last minute bookers to sustain the business. Personally, I almost never find myself in the position of needing a hotel at such late notice. The one time I did use the app (because I won the first competition you ran with them!) was for a weekend in London and I really didn’t like having to leave my booking until the last seven days. For planned trips I like book well in advance.

  • Rob says:

    11 Nov11 November 09:29

    It is handy if you have a redemption which you can cancel if a good deal comes up. My £30 code may mean it makes sense to get points back in your account and use cash.

    The coverage gaps are annoying though – nothing in Helsinki where I am typing this, nothing in Abu Dhabi (where I will be in 2 weeks) even though they have Dubai.

    The company will survive but, once established (and so when they don’t need big sales teams knocking on the door of every hotel in the world) it will end up being run as a relatively lean operation I think. They don’t need huge numbers of staff to run it.

  • wetboy1uk says:

    11 Nov11 November 09:31

    That could tie in with them significantly reducing the befeits of their referral scheme in the past few weeks – all without any notification to their customers. I had referred a significant number of friends only now to find out that teh referral bonuses are almost worthless.

  • Rob says:

    11 Nov11 November 13:07

    If 37 people is 20% then it was employing almost 200 staff. That is w-a-a-a-y too much. Instagram employed 13 people when Facebook paid $1bn for it. HFP employs 1 …..!

    • James Ward says:

      11 Nov11 November 13:56

      I had the same thought – seems they were pretty bloated to me (and I speak as the founder of a web startup too)

• Mbrun says:

  11 Nov11 November 08:25

  I have really enjoyed using their service and managed to get some amazing last minute dead in London!

  Perfect for a spontaneous trip.

• Dave says:

  11 Nov11 November 09:11

  My friends that commute to london use this app often if they fancy drinking after work and staying up. Living outside of london there doesnt appear to be much, I can get a £6 discount on a best western and thats about it within 40 miles

  • Lady London says:

    14 Nov14 November 18:13

    Sounds like maybe they should advertise in bars and places people go for a drink in London on night people are likely to go for a drink in London, say on a Thursday night. Or perhaps, around transport strikes in major cities. They could give bartenders codes that would pay them a small commission.

• Zild says:

  11 Nov11 November 13:33

  HotelTonight is a dangerous name for an app. If my wife sees it she wil innevitably assume the worst!

  Sounds like they are struggling with a catch 22 – customers disinterested due to lack of hotels on the app, whilst selling their business model to hotels is hard until they have a significant amount of market traction.

  For this reason (and from their recent recruitment efforts being focused on sales staff) I imagine the lion’s share of their staff are on the sales side (selling their service to the hotels) as they desparately need to hit critical mass of both customers and hotels; if they are cutting staff on the sales side it will be a very big gamble.

  From a quick look at their app I would never drop the money they are talking about on a last minute hotel booking. Perhaps they need to target lower-end hotels for people on a tighter budget, who I presume are the ones more likely to care about saving a few quid at the expense of booking at the last minute anyway.

• Liz says:

  11 Nov11 November 22:09

  No last minute hotels with Hotels Tonight in Thurso tonight – travelling to Orkney in the morning earlier than planned to beat Storm Abigail tomorrow afternoon! It’s going to be a bit breezy over there tomorrow.

  • harry says:

    11 Nov11 November 22:23

    Get some scallops in!

    Fond memories of Orkney, distilleries, golf @ midnight in midsummer, 5000 YO artefacts etc.

• harry says:

  18 Nov18 November 22:42

  MISSEDYOU for £30 off £100, I think that beats yours, Raffles

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.