Hotel Calculator – Will it Change the Way You Travel?

Do you Book Ahead?

When traveling, I only book hotels or hostels via the internet if I absolutely have to. Why?

The only reason booking a hotel or hostel ahead of time while traveling abroad is if it’s high season or there’s a big event going on in the city you’re on your way to.

Hotel Calculator is trying to change peoples minds about showing up last minute to a city without prior reservations and they recently asked me to test out their latest hotel booking engine in hopes to convert more of us backpackers into well “prepared” travelers. Will Hotel Calculator change the way you travel?

Design/Layout:

It’s plain and simple. It’s got everything you’d ever want in a hotel booking site. The ability and simplicity of booking hotels teamed with a user friendly layout 100% FREE of advertisements. At least for now…

Features:

HotelCalculators claim to fame is that it’s one of the first online hotel booking engines that checks and compares hotel deals through over 20 travel and hotel sites around the world. With Hotel Calculator, you can price check over 100,000 hotels, apartments, hostels, and guesthouses all at once. Click here to find out which sites Hotel Calculator compares accommodations with.

Instead of wasting your time opening up 8 different browser windows comparing hotel prices, Hotel Calculator allows you to perform your searches all in one window, on one website.

iPhone Integration

More and more backpackers are carrying unlocked iPhones these days as they’re able to just show up in a country, pop in a local sim card, and stay connected with friends and family from anywhere in the world. Not only are they able to stay in touch with family back home, but backpackers and travelers alike are now able to book hostels, research destinations and even track their flight information via their iPhones.

At this point in the game, if you’re a company that is attempting to serve the travelers market and you have yet to release an iPhone App, you’ve been left in the dust. Luckily for us, Hotel Calculator is on top of their game!

The Hotel Calculator App is now available on your iPhone for all you Apple geeks. Just simply search for and download the Hotel Calculator iPhone App in the iTunes store and you’ll be on your way to finding the best hotel deals in town in under 30 seconds.

Test:

In order to do a side-by-side comparison of Hotel Calculator versus my all time favorite booking engine I decided to plug the dates of 2/12 – 2/13 for a hotel in Boston, Massachusetts.

Results:

…And here’s where Hotel Calculator takes out even the fiercest competition.

My search specifics were for the a one-night stay in Boston 2/12 – 2/13 and I sorted the results down to the top 10 hotels that were closest to the city center.

I randomly chose the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel based on the distance from the center and the price that Hotel Calculator quoted me for a one-night stay.

Over at my favorite booking engine, I plugged in the same search and came up with results close to what Hotel Calculator had quoted me but not close enough for me to pull the trigger! See the competitors best price quote for the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel below…

The Breakdown

Here’s the breakdown of my search for the cheapest hotel rates for the Westin Boston Waterfront:

• HotelCalculator (Lowest Price): $140 USD/night via VivaStay
  
• Competitor’s (Lowest Price): $150 USD/night via Orbitz and CheapTickets
  

Final Verdict:

I like the idea of being able to search a bunch of hotel sites at once through the Hotel Calculator site, and their super handy iPhone app but it’s still not enough to take me away from my old ways…

Overall Score:

7/10

Have you had success when booking hotels on HotelCalculator.com? If so, feel free to share your thoughts by leaving a comment below!