Tech Tuesday: Tweet Your Way to Serious (Luxury!) Travel Discounts

Add cheap hotel rooms to the list of perks that popular people get (Photo: Thinkstock)

If you’re one of those social media-phobes who think Facebook and Twitter are a waste of time, you probably haven’t heard of Hotelied, a new website that offers travelers exclusive discounted rates at curated, luxury hotels based on your social media standings and travel loyalty points.

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Every customer is not created equal, according to Hotelied co-founders Zeev Sharon and Nick Colletti. Based on the philosophy that “it pays to be you,” Hotelied offers significant discounts on hotspots such as the Crosby Street Hotel in New York City or Dream South Beach in Miami.

“If you’re a New York hotel, someone who comes to New York 10 times a year is much more valuable than someone who comes to New York once a decade,” Sharon explains. “Or someone who is a tastemaker who’s very influential and can tell people about your hotel is more valuable to you. Every hotel gets to target their priority traveler segment.”

If you’re popular on social media — and aren’t shy about sharing your hotel stays — then Hotelied wants you (Photo: Thinkstock)

The site also gives preferential treatment to travelers with a lot of hotel loyalty reward points, especially business travelers hotels can count on for lots of repeat business.

Unlike traditional hotel booking platforms like Expedia or Booking.com, through which all customers get the same rates without any consideration to the value they potentially bring by staying at a property, Hotelied is courting “premium, sophisticated travelers.”

Currently, rooms are available at four- and five-star properties in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, but soon, Hotelied will be adding locations in Palm Springs, Calif., Chicago, and Portland, Ore., as well as international options in Belize, Brazil, Paris, and Tel Aviv, Israel. “We now have hotel partners in six countries and 14 destinations, so we’re going to be adding them on a weekly basis,” Sharon says of their future expansion plans.

Dream South Beach in Miami is one of the hotels where the social media elite can get big discounts (Photo: Dream South Beach)

Setting up your Hotelied profile is quick and easy, and you can link all of your accounts, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, and LinkedIn, right from the website.

For those concerned about privacy, Hotelied says it doesn’t share your details or personal photos. “What’s really important for consumers to understand is that when they share information with us, we’re not sharing that information with any third parties, not even hotels,” Colletti says.

Hotelied co-founders Zeev Sharon and Nick Colletti (Photo: LaForce + Stevens)

But just who exactly is considered influential? Surprisingly, you don’t need to have a Kim Kardashian-sized following to make the cut, they say. “Basically, we look at how many followers people have, as well as connections and friends, and compare it to the average distribution of those networks,” Sharon says. “On Facebook, if you have more than 1,000 friends, you’re pretty much at the top 10 percent of Facebook. It’s much lower than you’d expect.”

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My maximum discount was estimated at 30 percent, but how much you’ll save depends on your own social-media following and frequency of travel. Hotelied says users typically save 15 to 25 percent, with some rare discounts going as high as 40 percent. There’s also no requirement for you to post anything about your stay on social media once you’ve locked in the lower rate, but they hope you’ll share organically about your stay, of course.

So what are you waiting for? Go add some friends, and get busy earning better hotel rates today for your next trip.

Lifestyle correspondent Cristina Gibson contributes to outlets such as SheKnows and Fox News. Speaking of social media, you can follow her on Instagram.

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