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Score 4-star hotel room for $1

Posted by Paul Makishima, Globe Assistant Sunday Editor  January 13, 2009 09:07 AM
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Here's the deal: Lastminutetravel.com has just launched its World for a Dollar promotion.
Starting in late January, visitors to the website will get a chance to book a room for up to seven consecutive nights for $1 per night at any of the 15,000 hotels in the site's worldwide inventory.
What kinds of hotels? To give you some idea, in Boston you could pick the Onyx Hotel, Nine Zero, or Boston Park Plaza, among many others.
The catch(es)?
Reservations can only be made during one 15-minute period each day, Monday - Friday, over 2 weeks. And they won't reveal in advance what day the promotion will begin or which 15-minute period in any given day. The only way to find out is to keep checking the site.
There are a few more conditions: You can only score a cheap room once during the campaign; the booking must be made online and must be completed within the 15-minute time frame.
Sound hard? You can register on the website for clues to help you out.
Why is Last Minute Travel doing this? The idea is to promote the site's transition to becoming an "opaque" one, like Hotwire, in which you make an offer for a hotel stay, car rental, air flights etc without knowing what specific hotel or company you are dealing with. Thus their interest in having you return to the site multiple times to check things out.
A hassle, yes. But a cool hotel room for $1? With a deal like that maybe you can afford a winter vacation, even in a lousy economy.


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