Reuse is an idea that never caused anyone harm. And the most logical idea is putting your own place up for rent while you are gone, similar to the model behind the highly successful start up Airbnb. But have you ever thought of putting your hotel booking up for sale?
You wouldn’t think twice about it if you have to give it up anyway. And that’s where Roomer comes in.
Roomer is a peer-to-peer online marketplace for non-refundable hotel reservations. And as far as market demand is concerned, there seems to be a huge demand for the service Roomer offers. According to the Roomer team, there are 81 million hotel room cancellations in the United States every year. Bearing in mind that Roomer functions all over the world, you can imagine how many cancellations may be taking place annually across the globe.
In terms of numbers, the three year old start up seems to be doing rather well. On November 25 th, the start up announced that they secured $5 million of funding in Series A funding from Disruptive, making the total amount of raised funds $7 million. A figure which doesn’t look all too impressive when compared to the $450 million raised by the six-year old Airbnb, putting Airbnb's value at $10 billion. While Roomer allows users to put up their reservations for sale, Airbnb does the same but for your own home or any real estate you own, from castles to villas to lighthouses.
So what’s the catch with Roomer? For now, none that we can tell.
It’s a win-win situation for both buyers and sellers. For a seller who is going to cancel his reservation anyway, it is a last resort to avoid wasting all that money on an empty room. As a buyer, you get a great deal on a hotel reservation you would have otherwise paid twice as much for. Yet, your chances are slim you’ll land a good deal if you’re planning ahead, as any travelers do.
As a user, you get the services for free at first, but then you have to pay 15 percent of the sale revenue to Roomer in exchange for the marketing, payments and transfers.
According to founder Gon Ben-David, their start up isn’t only special because of the service they provide, but also for how they provide it. Whether you’re buying or selling, the process is extremely easy.
If you’re selling, all you need to do is to enter a few details about your booking and list your offer on Roomer. Within minutes, the team handles everything else, from uploading hotel pictures to adding map locations and marketing your offer. Once the offer is sold, you are notified via email and the money gets transferred to a secure payment vault.
On the other hand, if you’re in for a room, all you have to do is navigate the website for the best offers and upon settling for one, you pay upfront and Roomer handles the rest. The team contacts the hotel to change the reservation information and you check in as you would in at any other hotel.
Unlike renting someone’s place, you don’t really have to worry about the condition of the place since the process is very similar to directly booking a hotel room, only you get the room at a pretty good discount.
What may worry some of the users is the money transfer process, but according to the website, “Every transaction that takes place on Roomer is verified and then authorized by Roomer’s secure payment platform. Buyers are charged upfront and sellers are instantly notified of the sale via email. The payment is then held securely in the Roomer Vault using PayPal Adaptive Payments, where it is essentially untouchable by Roomer or anybody else. Payment is released from the Vault and transferred to sellers 10 days after the date of check out.”
As exciting as it is to save up on hotel reservations, we highly advise that you make that decision wisely, because we don’t really think you can Roomer a Roomer reservation.
Watch this funny (and slightly creepy) promo for Roomer below:
