Blink App Helps Travelers Book Last-Minute Rooms at a Discount

A new hotel-booking app called Blink helps travelers with last minute hotel booking, according to the New York Times.

There are many ways to save on a hotel booking, but they usually involve enduring some level of inconvenience, such as going off-season, staying outside the city center or sharing a bathroom. However, more recently, booking at the last minute has also become a method of saving money on hotel rooms.

Blink helps travelers take advantage of this method of scoring a deal. By downloading the app to a smartphone, travelers then book the room they need that night on the day of, usually getting the room at a 10 to 40 percent discount.

The app shows all the available hotels on a map, allowing travelers to compare locations. It also saves credit card information, making it easier if you need to book different hotel rooms each day of a trip.

The downside to booking with this method is that it can be time-consuming. Finding an available room at a discount may require travelers to dedicate a significant amount of time from their morning to scouring the available rooms and finding the best deal. An additional problem with this method is that the app doesn't release the deals until 11 a.m., requiring travelers to search at what may be an inconvenient time.

Another potential difficulty is that the app requires users to choose a neighborhood before searching, which may be a problem for travelers visiting a city for the first time that may not know their way around.

The app varies on how many nights a hotel will let you book at a discounted price, leaving the possibility of moving hotels every night, which may be a bigger downside than paying regular price for many travelers.

The biggest downside to keep in mind is that the app doesn't guarantee a deal every day, which means travelers can face the possibility of not finding a hotel to book for the night, leaving the option of advance booking looking better.