The Debut of Two New Hotel Booking Websites

Just when you thought no more clowns were going to emerge from that tiny car...

Yes, there are two new players in the overcrowded hotel booking space, each with a unique take on cost cutting.

The first, Tingo sounds like a brand of vibrator, but is actually a category of rebator (and that may be the dirtiest sentence I've ever used in this blog). It takes its model from AutoSlash, a car rental website that contacts travelers if the cost of their rental drops, allowing them to rebook at the lower rate. With Tingo, users search for hotels and gets an extensive list, including some  hotels that carry a price guarantee. A booking is made, and if the price drops, the consumer gets money back. In fact, Tingo rebooks automatically and guarantees there will be no switch in room category. The customer gets a refund after their stay for any price drops.

It sounds like a nifty idea, but at this stage there seems to be one hitch: when I searched Tingo, I found fewer low cost options than I did on such rival sites as Hipmunk. To give one example, I did a search for a Parisian hotel room for early May and Hipmunk was able to give me 28 options under $100 a night (including some full apartments through AirBnB, a fab option). Tingo only came up with 17 choice, of which only 8 came with the price guarantee. And when I checked one property, called the Amarys, it came up a few dollars higher in the initial search on Tingo than it did on other engines. Granted, it was a difference of $3, but heck, it adds up. Sure, it could drop below rivals costs theoretically, but I prefer to book the engine that's getting me the lowest prices at the start.

Whether or not the actual guarantee works...well, its a wait and see. I'll try them in the coming months when I have a trip planned and see if I get any cash back (I certainly have in the past with AutoSlash.com).

Backbid.com,  is just what it sounds like: a site that allows hotels (really hoteliers) to bid for your business.You make a reservation somewhere (and it has to be a refundable reservation for this to work), input it on Backbid, along with your dates, and then wait. Soon, other area hotels contact you, suggesting you abandon your initial choice and making that advice sweet with some serious discounts. In some cases, the new bids are hundreds of dollars cheaper than the original reservation.

Its an interesting concept, though I have to wonder why consumers even have to take the step of making the initial reservation. Why won't Backbid just let them input their dates and preferences and have hotels bid? My guess is that many would-be users will be turned off by this extra step.

As I said, these sites are brand-spanking new. If any of you have tried them, I'd love to hear how it turned out for you.