Review: HotelQuickly App – Last minute deals on Hotels in Asia and Australia

There’s a fine line between being spontaneous and unprepared when traveling. We like to have a layout of the city we are going to — know where the hotels, restaurants, and main attractions are. Unless we are traveling at a busy time, or there’s a place that we really want to stay, we don’t book a room ahead. Usually, we just have a list of 3 or 4 places that sound good, and then take the chance that at least one of them will have an opening. Most of the time, we end up at the first place on our list, but there have been a few times we were brought to the edge of craziness, running around like headless chickens, sweating profusely, yelling obscenities at each other, as we carried our heavy bags from hotel to hotel, eventually staying in a room that could be confused for a bus station bathroom. Now that we’re in our 30s, this isn’t allowed to happen anymore. I’ve been given strict orders from the higher up (ie. Sara). Luckily, the internet is always at my fingertips and there are really smart ambitious people out there.

HotelQuickly is a free app that allows you to book hotels last minute at a discounted rate. It includes hotels from 14 countries in Asia and Australia. By selling last minute (maximum one day ahead of time), they’re able to offer a best price guarantee. Let’s try it out and see how much we can save.

A search for a hotel today, for 1 night in Ho Chi Minh City, brought up 10 options ranging from just over 2 million dong/night to 417,000 dong/night. The app may have more hotels, but it only shows you the top ten options. By default it sorts it by “Best Deal”. In this case, it’s the Rex Hotel, a famous hotel known for it’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The first guests in the hotel were American soldiers. The military’s daily conference was held there during the war. It’s a hotel with a lot of history and prestige. Normally, a night there would cost you around 2,880,000 dong ($135). HotelQuickly is offering it for 1,925,000 ($90). I’d love to stay here, and this would be a great opportunity to do it, but the whole “on the cheap” part of our website is saying, “no dude, no”. That’s alright, the app allows you to sort by “Budget”. There I find the Boss 3 Hotel for 417,000 dong (about $22) a night. That’s more like it, but is it actually cheaper than “the other guys”? Boss 3’s website shows me a price of 574,482/night. Agoda is quoting me 511,688. Booking.com says 630,000 dong. Expedia – 468,000 dong. It looks like HotelQuickly is offering the room for 51,000 dong cheaper.

But what about those pesky taxes and fees? I click “Book Room” and HotelQuickly adds up the total – 480,000 dong. Expedia, the second cheapest option I could find, comes to a total of 550,800 dong. Whoo-hoo, even more money saved! HotelQuickly came through with the cheapest price. I kiss my phone. It tastes like money. I pretend it’s the money I’ve just saved using HotelQuickly (it’s actually the money I was just handling before I picked up my phone).

The app allows you to look at photos of the hotel, check out information about the facilities, and view it’s location on a map. The cost of the room will depend on how many nights you plan to stay, if you are booking the same day or one day ahead, and how late in the day you book it. That’s right, the longer you wait to book, the cheaper it’ll get. In fact, since I started writing this article the price of the Rex Hotel has dropped from 1,925,000 dong to 1,477,000. I love this, it makes hotel booking into a sport. I can see myself slowly making my way to the hotel of my choosing, as I update the app over and over again to see if the price drops, then booking literally 5 seconds before walking in the door (that might not be a good idea In fact, I tried this and it worked out. Although the hotel didn’t have my booking on file yet, they simply asked me to forward them my confirmation email and we were good to go).

It’s important to note that this app doesn’t allow you to choose how many people are staying in the room. It guarantees a standard room with double or twin sized beds, so it’s really only good for 1-2 people, otherwise you aren’t guaranteed a bed for your 3rd homie (although many hotels can offer a cot at an additional cost). Of course, it doesn’t cover every inch of Asia, so be sure to check to see if your next destination is available on it (they’re expanding quickly). Overall, I found it to be smooth, easy, and intuitive — perfect for a last minute hotel scramble. It uses GPS, so you don’t even have to type in your location, and you can sort by proximity. As I get older, my hotel finding strategy is changing. HotelQuickly has made this transition easier as it allows me to still not book ahead, but it takes away the worry of getting stuck in an overpriced dump-hole.

To save even more money use our promo code after downloading the HotelQuickly app. Go to “Credits”, click “Redeem”, and enter RNEMU. You should get 400,000 dong in credits. Note: you must spend at least 15 real dollars on your first booking, so the credit will only be applied to any costs over $15. That’s for the first booking only.