My worry with both the car rental market as well as hotels is the constant upselling or offers/loyalty programs/etc.
The good part about Uber or Airbnb is that there isn’t any of that. You find what you want, pay the price they ask for and that’s it. I agree that there are other major problems with them but at least the user experience for buying the service is on point.
When it comes to hotels I either have to book direct and fill in my details every time (I don’t have a preference for any brand, so having an account with one particular brand doesn’t solve the problem either) or use sites like Booking/Expedia and suffer the constant upselling or dark patterns.
I don’t need your “loyalty” or “offers” or anything. I need you to tell me what’s available, take my money and get out of my way. I’d gladly pay money if such a service existed (that doesn’t belong to any particular hotel chain so that all the hotels are on there).
Uh? All airbnb does is try to push you to their 'experiences'. And God forbid you ever gave Uber your email address, they'll try to get you on Uber Eats for many rounds of the 'unsubscribe me from yet another list I never realised I never signed up for' dance.
Regarding Airbnb it's been years since I last used it so maybe they changed in which case it's too bad.
As far as Uber is concerned I've used it up to last year and I don't recall ever getting an unwanted marketing e-mail from them (disabled all marketing comms in the app early on when I signed up and they respected that just fine).
That's a good point. At my last stay at the Marriott near SFO I had a hard time figuring out what I could eat in the lobby for breakfast! There was a breakfast area for Ultra-platnum-gold club (or whatever they called it!) And a restaurant, but I wasn't sure how much that would cost me. Same thing with the WiFi, members only.
It has a big enough majority that for all intents and purposes you can rely on it. They have other problems which is why I've stopped using it but at least in the locations I've been to, driver shortage was never the problem.
> You can make an account book direct at a hotel chain
This means I'd either need to find and sign up for all the potential hotels I'd be in the vicinity of in advance, or spend time signing up (and making sure to opt out of any marketing/loyalty/etc) a couple days before I arrive (I travel on very short notice).
That's the problem I'm trying to avoid. I want a single app/service/etc that will give me a big hotel selection (from several brands, and independent ones) with easy booking at a fair price (can be higher than the mainstream websites, I'm willing to pay more for convenience and to make sure the hotel isn't being ripped off) and no upselling.
All the times I needed a hotel it wasn't a planned thing - it was "I'm here in this coffee shop thousands of miles away from home and I need a bed to crash on". An app that can just find me the nearest place and a no-BS user experience would've been lovely even if it means paying a premium for the convenience.
The good part about Uber or Airbnb is that there isn’t any of that. You find what you want, pay the price they ask for and that’s it. I agree that there are other major problems with them but at least the user experience for buying the service is on point.
When it comes to hotels I either have to book direct and fill in my details every time (I don’t have a preference for any brand, so having an account with one particular brand doesn’t solve the problem either) or use sites like Booking/Expedia and suffer the constant upselling or dark patterns.
I don’t need your “loyalty” or “offers” or anything. I need you to tell me what’s available, take my money and get out of my way. I’d gladly pay money if such a service existed (that doesn’t belong to any particular hotel chain so that all the hotels are on there).