Hotel Sales Blog

Do you Tingo with Backbid?

May 16, 2012 at 10:32 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Tags: hotel revenue management, hotel sales, hotel sales training, independent hotels, social media, social selling

Tingo and Backbid are both discount channels that work somewhat differently.

Tingo, owned by Trip Advisor, guarantees to refund the difference in rate if the hotel where you booked drops its rate on the same room for that date. Backbid, will take your reservatiosn and try to find a similar hotel with a relatively similar room type that will take yor reservation at a lower price. They then send your reservation to the lowest bidder and cancel your original reservation.

What’s wrong with this picture? In Tingo’s case, Orbitz has tried this promotion for years and still hasn’t taken the world by storm. Most hotels I know have not refunded one check to Orbitz for a customer who found you quoted a lower rate for the same date on a room type like the one they booked.

There is something snarky about Backbid that makes many of us uncomfortable no matter how competitive we are. There is something wrong with ‘stealing’ a reservation from a competitior after it is already booked.

This may be a moot point since niether of these platforms are becoming major players and barely make the list of minor players. In the current economy, hotels are more likely to raise rates as demand increases which renders the business model of these two players ineffective for the most part.