Today Google rolled out Google One worldwide. As part of that update they are now offering Google One subscribers (starting at $1.99 for 100 GB of storage) discounts on hotel reservations made via Google search.
Google claims that users will be eligible for discounts of 15% to 40%, if you’ve ever booked a hotel before then you will have likely seen stated similar discounts when in reality those prices are found across all booking platforms. I’m not sure if this is the case with Google, or if they are actually providing real discounts. I wasn’t able to get any discounts to show, so it wasn’t possible to check.
Twitter user @adonazriel did see discounted pricing (see below).
Anyone ever seen the member’s price for on the Google app before? @rustybrick @googlemaps#seo pic.twitter.com/OH7t4aKDB2
— Az Respes (@adonazriel) August 13, 2018
I did a search for Yotel New York for September 3-4th and other sites were showing the $116 price (showing it discounted from $224) where as the Google One price is $57 so it does appear these are real discounts rather than ‘fake’ discounts that are sometimes displayed. It’ll be interesting to see how many hotels decide to participate and what sort of discounts we see. As Google One is a subscription required service, it won’t be possible to use these rates to price match. We obviously need a lot more data points to see if the discounted pricing is real, but it seems positive so far. It’s also worth considering that paying the full sticker price for hotels is never a good idea, we recommend stacking discounts with Hotels.com for example if you don’t care about hotel chains/elite status.
Deals Vs 1 Member Price
It seems that Google will show two different types of discounts. One is ‘deals’ and this is basically just the fluff discounts you’re used to see on other sites. The other is 1 Member Price and these are real discounts when compared to other booking sites. You can select to only search for ‘deals’ and this shows a mixture of the deals fluff discounts and 1 member pricing, unfortunately no option to only see 1 member price.
Hat tip to reader A M & Anameofaguy for additional information
Actually found a great deal (over 50% off) on a Hong Kong hotel using this, but it was really through LastMinuteTravel, and ultimately booked through TouricoHolidays when the confirmation email arrived (those are all part of HotelBeds Group).
Maybe Google deals use other sources too, but there’s one data point for you.
But ya, it’s for real. Just seems like they’re throwing a wider net now when it comes to hashing all the different booking engines and discounter options is all…
Plz clarify:
In order for me to these discounted prices, I just search in google and itll show the discounted price?
Or do I have to subscribe to Google One first for me to see these prices?
You need to be subscribed
Just as important as what discounts actually appear is what merchant code will the transaction use. If these hotel stays get stuck as something other than travel, there’s no reason to use the service. That would kill any opportunity for extra point earnings on the various credit cards that earn bonuses for travel, which should be factored into the opportunity cost of the transaction.
So, which guinea pig will figure this out for the rest of us. 🙂
40%+ off can make up for the losing 1-3x points.
Lost points, but if you cannot redeem points/miles on something like an Arrival+ or Altitude Reserve then it does make a difference.
Lol “No I don’t want $75 off, cause I only get $2 cash back instead of $6”
This.
I actual Tried booking these about a month ago .all prices changed to similar prices(on other ota’s) after clicking thru…it said checking prices and “oh the price went up a little” then I would search the same hotel again and same thing happens…
Was this for deals or the 1 member price?
1 members price
Upon checking again after seeing this , I do see some hotels that it actually works (it takes you till the last page without changing the price)
The “deal” pricing isn’t actually a deal. It’s just prices that are lower than similar dates. The actual discounted hotels will show a “1 Member Price” icon and say in absolute $$ how much cheaper it is than the next cheapest rate.
Not sure I understand, in the example I listed I price checked and it actually was much cheaper?
It has the “1 Member Price” icon rather than the “Deals” icon, so it’s a legit discount rather than fluff.
If you know the hotel/dates you’re looking for already, looking for the right icon makes it easier to browse through the noise for any potential good deals.
Sorry, I should have re-ordered the sentences in my first post. The point is @adonazriel’s deal doesn’t appear to be a real deal but some of them, with the “1 Member Price” icon as in your example, are.
Ah, makes sense.
But that is actually what @adonazriel’s tweet shows for Yotel NY, so I’m not sure what point you were trying to make. You can clearly see “1 Member Price” in the tweet.
Maybe the post could have explained it more clearly, I guess?
Edit: I see the post was indeed updated to explain it more clearly 🙂
Ah you’re right 🙂 In the post, the bottom half of the Twitter pic is cut off so I only saw the “deals” icon for the Lexington and not the Yotel discount below it.