Budget Accommodation Offer Extended

Ubid4rooms now shows an extended budget accommodation offer of 28 days and has added a much requested multiple room bidding/booking function...

The rapid growth of the world’s first flexible rate budget accommodation website, Ubid4rooms.com, has prompted the Australian site to double its booking window from 14 to 28 days and allow the corporate and groups market to make offers on multiple rooms for the first time.

The move will assist advance planning for the growing number of travellers chasing bargain deals and companies scaling back their business trips and meeting plans.

“With more than 100,000 hotel rooms around Australia now empty every night, properties are ultra keen to put bums in beds via the controlled discounts we facilitate, while travellers are now seeking bargains more aggressively than ever which is why traffic on Ubid4rooms.com has surged in recent months,” said Ubid4rooms.com founder and veteran hotelier, Gary Berman.

“The tourism industry is hurting and is seeking innovative new ways to build business and that’s where we can help,” Mr Berman said.

The number of Australian and New Zealand properties featured on the unique travel website has grown to more than 500 - a seven-fold increase since Ubid4rooms.com opened its novel bidding system in November 2007 - and bookings have swelled in recent months as tough economic conditions force both the leisure and corporate markets to seek the lowest accommodation deals possible.

Mr Berman said an anticipated 1000 properties would be open to the “revolutionary” bidding system on his site by the end of 2009 and he was also planning to add cruises and car hire to the bidding stock to help jittery travel operators move inventory.

Ubid4rooms has also launched its own bid to encourage travellers to make hotels compete for their business via the site’s ‘Linked Bids’ system which allows offers to be made on three different properties at once, with all three hotels competing for the business, boosting the savings. The first property to accept the offer gains the booking.

Mr Berman said the opening of the booking window from 14 to 28 days and new mechanisms that allow businesses, meeting organisers and large families to bid for multiple rooms at once would help travellers plan trips in advance, particularly during peak periods like Easter and school holidays.

Unlike eBay-type auctions, Ubid4rooms.com allows travellers to make their own offers direct with hotels for rooms at rates much lower than advertised discounts and lower than most other online rates. The result can deliver four to five star hotel rooms for three star rates and confirmation is provided within three hours, often within minutes.

“The economic meltdown means more consumers are sniffing around for extra special hotel deals and instead of travelling overseas, more Australians are choosing a domestic holiday, which has really helped Ubid4rooms.com grow over the past 15 months,” Mr Berman said.

He said a recent co-branding agreement with Octopus Travel meant Ubid4rooms had expanded its bidding only concept to include year-round, buy-now accommodation at more than 20,000 hotels around the world, making Ubid4rooms.com a one-stop shop for budget accommodation. Integration with channel managers such as Siteminder, EZ Yield and Channel Direct had also helped hotels load and manage rates quickly and easily..

Tired of paying overpriced hotel rooms? Bid on them! Ubid4rooms indeed offers to compare accommodation tariffs and bid on hotel rooms in one single place. Looking for cheap Melbourne accommodation or Sydney hotel deals; then name your price and you’ll receive an answer from the hotel in 3 hours. Finding that cheap Brisbane hotel or Gold Coast hotel deals has never been easier!