Travel 2.0 Review: HotelCalculator.com

Posted on 11. Feb, 2011 by jess in Accommodation, Product Reviews, Travel Technology

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We were recently contacted by the hotel search engine Hotel Calculator and asked to put together an objective review of the website. As long-term (if not, possibly, life-long) travelers, every penny we spend on travel counts. We are absolute geeks about online travel comparison shopping, so we gladly accepted. In fact, as we are headed off to Europe in the spring and the US in the summer, we killed two birds with one stone and tested Hotel Calculator while planning trips to Venice, Italy and New York City.

What is Hotel Calculator?

Hotel Calculator is a hotel search engine which searches through multiple travel websites and providers at once. The site focuses on providing an efficient and intelligent search, aggregating results from over 20 providers for users to search, compare and ultimately book accommodation all on one user-friendly site.

Five star functionality

First impressions of Hotel Calculator were excellent. The site is clean, easy to use and inspires trustworthiness, key for a site competing with well-established competition booking sites such as Hotels.com, Booking.com and Expedia.com. Working through the initial searches was a breeze, and Hotel Calculator returned over 700 results for Venice whereas the competitors resulted in considerably fewer. In terms of location choices, Hotel Calculator allows the search to be restricted to super specific location choices not available on competition sites. During our Venice search, for example, we found that not only can users choose between Historical Venice (the actual island city) and Greater Old Venice, it is possible to tick boxes for specific neighborhoods in downtown Venice (San Marco, San Polo, Santa Croce, Castello Dorsoduro, Cannaregio). Even more helpful is the option to categorize by very specific location and lowest price first, which is not possible on Expedia.com or other sites, where you can only narrow your search one criteria at a time.

Equally for New York City locations, the search could be narrowed not only by Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Airports, but also within each by all the different neighborhoods in each borough. For those who know their way around the city, a few spots in Brooklyn, one in Queens and all of Manhattan might be acceptable options, so ticking the specific sub-categories makes it possible to find hotels in the exact preferred locations. For first-timers, results can be organized by distance to the city center, and the best part here is that the map opens up automatically in a new tab (or window, for those who somehow are still not using tabbed browsing). This way, you do not lose your place during your search, result in loads of open windows, nor is it necessary to unblock a pop-up blocker, install some software you have missing you didn’t know about or any other complicated glitches that can distract you from your search.

Other search categories and sub-categories include searching by number of stars, by a long list of amenities and accommodation type. We like that the choices of accommodation include hotel, hostel, apartment and B&B, for experienced travelers to find exactly the type of accommodation they want. Our only complaint about the categories is that it is not possible to search LGBT-friendly accommodation, a very useful feature we like on Expedia for gay and lesbian travellers.

As we searched, we ticked each possibility we liked as we went,  adding  it to our ‘shortlist’ in a similar way to shopping with Amazon and adding each hotel to your basket to view later. At the end of your search, you can view the shortlist and compare all the choices even further and can send a link of your shortlist to yourself by email to review later as well, eliminating the need to re-research the destination.

Once we shortlisted our preferred hotel choices, it was time to roll up our sleeves and start comparison shopping using the ‘Compare Prices’ button next to the hotel results (which have excellent information, though could be better with user-reviews).  Most of the time the prices offered by Hotel Calculator either matched or were lower than the competition. A few times, however, when searching the exact same criteria directly on the other sites, the room rates that showed were lower than those shown through the Compare Prices button.

But we’re on a budget…

Finding budget accommodation on Hotel Calculator was no more difficult than on similar hotel websites. Just like Expedia and booking.com, the Venice and New York room rates were steep for anyone on a budget. That said, while putting together this post, we happened to come across apartments for $40 a night in Manhattan though Hotel Calculator, which is a great rate! Other budget results including camping options or up to 45 km from the city centre. Hotel Calculator does not claim to focus on budget accommodation, so the results here are perfectly viable (especially if that apartment in Manhattan is available for our New York trip, ha!).

Finding accommodation in some of the world’s biggest and most tourist-friendly cities is one thing, but what about the site’s usefulness while searching for accommodation on the path less traveled? The results here were limited. As we are currently in Central America, we did a few quick search of accommodation in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. The results were almost exclusively popular international hotel chains above our budget and outside the city limits.  Panama City, Panama, which has a plethora of the international chains, offered up the most search results.

Additional features we like about Hotel Calculator

A great feature of the site is the ‘Towns near (your search)’ section on the bottom of the left side bar. This feature not only lists the nearest towns and their distance to your preferred location, but each of these locations is a clickable link, which allows you to search nearby towns for more choice that you may not have known were options.

Hotel Calculator offers a free iPhone app and is as functional and easy to use as the site itself. This is a great tool for the on-the-go traveler, and assuming that the ‘Compare Prices’ button turns up correct price comparisons, allows shoppers to compare and book all in one app.

The Verdict

Hotel Calculator follows through on all of its promises – to provide one clear, well-organized list of accommodation options, and taking care of the boring and time-consuming task of checking several websites for you at once.

Hotel Calculator works as a viable, more functional alternative to other sites like Expedia and booking.com, and is worthy of joining the greats in this arena of the travel industry. The site is not going to be of as much use for travelers looking for cheap hostels, or those in search of mom and pop hotels in off the beaten path areas.

In terms of  functionality and ease of use, Hotel Calculator far surpasses the  competition, and the search criteria allow users to find exactly the type and price of accommodation they are looking for. Though we haven’t yet booked anything through the site, we will certainly be adding Hotel Calculator to our top trip-planning sites.

Check it out for yourself at www.hotelcalculator.com

Hotel Calculator kicked in funds to encourage us to objectively review their site.

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