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When Nustay approached me and asked that I test their new and revolutionary hotel booking platform, I was thrilled. Finally, my years of experience have paid off and made me the Olympic torch bearer of valuable opinions in the industry. In reality, though, I met their request with a dose of skepticism – how, I thought, can they beat the industry average anywhere from 15% to a whopping 70%? Over the last three years, I’ve become a self proclaimed connoisseur of travel deals. I love a 5-star hotel just as much as I love a 5 digit coupon code and when the two combine, its a jackpot! Nustay doesn’t offer a 5 digit coupon code per say, but it’s algorithm matches you to properties based on your interests and it nets out the largest discount that it can possibly get which leaves you with a very attractive rate.
Nustay Service Value
I felt intrigued. The platform is free and you can search for hotels just as you do on any other website. However, if you sign up with an email address or social account you will unlock the tempting prices – I had no reason to shoot down a potential opportunity to find the hotel of my dreams at a price point deeply rooted in my wildest travel fantasies. To maximize the use of Nustay and its capabilities, you need to sign up and fill out your profile. By answering a short series of questions and ranking your interests, you help Nustay’s algorithm match you to a hotel that best fits your needs. For example, if you prefer a property thats “gay friendly,” then whenever you search for hotels in a given location, Nustay will already show you properties that are gay friendly and on top of that it will give you the biggest discount on those hotels. This is a massive value prop because it eliminates the need for you to do additional research on the accommodation of your choice. If you prefer hotels with pools, Nustay will populate your search results with hotels that have pools. If you like to shop, Nustay will show you properties near shopping centers. You get the point.
Nustay Price Value
So far so good, lets test the booking platform. I searched for Phuket, Thailand – the popular tourist hub has a plethora of accommodation that can fit virtually any budget. Since I picked “luxury” and “pool” in my welcoming questionnaire, Nustay showed me the properties that fit those credentials best. Kata Rocks was first to show up on my search list: beautiful property, beautiful pool … ugly price. Although completely out of my budget, curiosity led me straight to Booking.com where I was almost certain that the price would be significantly lower.
I typed in the same date range, picked the same property and the same room category …
Booking.com, you have some explaining to do – this is certainly no jackpot.
Nustay is a staggering $1,832 lower!
I can’t help but to try one more search for a property that is … well … a better fit for my budget! I search for a hotel in Dubai, one of my favorite cities in the world. The first property in the search results is Jumeirah Emirates Towers which, on my given dates, Nustay can offer me a Deluxe King room inclusive of breakfast for $869 for 5 nights.
On Booking.com the same room type for the same date range is $1,089 and this is excluding 5% VAT, 10% Municipality and the rest of the fine print.
On Jumeirah’s website, the total price for the same room category is a whopping $1,385. To say that Nustay blew everyone out of the water, is an understatement & there is proof!
Nustay Value Prop
Nustay’s service is able to tackle multiple pain points at once and thats why they win. Efficiency is taken to a whole new level when you have everything in one place: the price is right, the portal is easy to use, and most importantly your best interests are accounted for. I invite you to give Nustay a fair shot when you are booking your next trip. I am confident that you will not be disappointed with the results and I look forward to hearing your success stories!
Could it be that Nustay has a different cancellation policy? The Dubai hotel has on Booking a flexible cancellation and I’m not sure about the Nustay policy.
Generally its either refundable / non refundable and you being able to cancel within a certain time period (or not at all). Nustays cancellation policy is very flexible … but of course, it also depends on the property requirements. I think thats a great question – I would assume that it doesn’t impact the price because they are flexible too.