BackBid could turn the hotel industry hypercompetitive
BackBid is a Canadian web startup designed to fetch you the best hotel deal—not just the cheapest, like most competitors, but the best suited for you overall. Described as a “hotel booking website that revolutionizes how travelers book hotel rooms,” BackBid has users post their current hotel reservation and then has nearby hotels compete for your business.
BackBid takes advantage of the hotel industry’s generous refund policies, which often allow travelers to cancel rooms without a penalty as long as they give enough advance notice. Guests register with BackBid, adding their reservation and lodging preferences. That information is sent to BackBid’s hotel network.
Travelers that are not currently holding confirmed reservations can receive bids from hotels by posting their needs, preferences, and travel plans on the site.
The company explains how their system works:
1. Travelers book their hotel stay as they normally would through their channel of choice.
2. The traveler posts their confirmed reservation and travel preferences on the site as a BackBid Traveler.
3. BackBid provides hotels with instant access to the database of all BackBid Travelers traveling to their destination. Hotels can then submit bids to encourage travelers to abandon their current reservation and book with their property instead.
4. BackBid Travelers are notified of all hotel bids via email and can access the details by logging into their BackBid account.
5. Once the BackBid Traveler accepts a bid, the reservation and the payment are processed by the hotel.
“It’s empowering the consumer to say, ‘This is what I’m looking for,’ and the hotel to say, ‘This is what we can offer,’ ” Chris Patridge, BackBid’s executive vice president of marketing and the company’s co-founder, told the Washington Post. “It turns the tables on the traditional way of booking a hotel room.”
Denver-based information security company, Accuvant, has recently deployed BackBid’s Travel Manager looking to reduce costs on thousands of room nights booked on an annual basis. Using Travel Manager, existing hotel reservations from Accuvant’s own travel booking engine, powered by Concur, flow seamlessly to BackBid. Competing hotel bids are then displayed and available for reservation on the Travel Manager Dashboard. Once a reservation is made, the corporate traveler is alerted via email of the new booking.
Unlike other travel sites who offer discounts without telling you any info about the hotel that you’re booking, BackBid gives you all of the details about the property, the amenities offered and the specific bid being offered before you confirm and process the reservation. This helps you to save money but also to ensure that your hotel stay will meet – or even exceed – all of your expectations. The best part about BackBid is that there is absolutely no risk to you; if you don’t like any of the bids that you receive, just keep your existing reservation.
Users of the popular app TripIt can sync their TripIt account with your BackBid profile to automatically post upcoming reservations.