Here’s a way to save money on hotel rooms by taking advantage of the fact that room rates are always changing. Just book a room and then a new website called Pruvo tracks price drops for you and helps you re-book the room when the price has gone down. My guest is Doron Nadevi, Chief Marketing Officer for Pruvo. Doron, welcome to Easy Money.
Doron, tell us how Pruvo works. It’s a little unusual in that you book yourself a hotel room first and THEN Pruvo goes Into ACtion. Explain.
1. Book a room
2. Forward your email confirmation to Pruvo
3. Pruvo searches for price drops for the exact same room at the exact same time.
4. Pruvo alerts you to re-book the room at a lower rate.
So you re-book the room at the new, lower rate and then cancel your old reservation. Does this mean your original reservation must be the refundable type in order for Pruvo to work for you?
Yes, Pruvo´s only requirement to “do our magic” is that your reservation be a free cancellation reservation.
Does Pruvo work no matter how you booked your room originally? Through a search engine, an online travel agency or through the hotel’s own website?
Correct. Our system can process ANY hotel reservation ANYWHERE in the world in ANY language, as long as it is a free cancellation reservation.
Pruvo’s entire business model is based on the fact that hotel rooms often go down in price. How common is that? Do you have a statistic for us?
There is a 40% chance of a price reduction after a hotel reservation has been made.
What is the average price drop you snag for your customers?
The Average price drop is 12%, and it can reach up to 67% off the total reservation amount
And what are your greatest hits? The biggest dollar savings you’ve found for people so far?
$950 in a hotel in Koh Samui in Thailand!
How do the savings Pruvo finds compare to what you could get using AAA or AARP or member discounts at hotels?
• Pruvo can process any reservation, even if they were made with special membership discounts like AAA or AARP.
• Many times the prices with these memberships are fixed discount rates. , plus, since we have many price drops of 30-50%, rarely to membership discounts reach that amount.
• So, AAA/AARP members who book their hotel with their rates should use Pruvo as an “insurance policy” to assure that they are getting the best deal available. If not, Pruvo will make sure to notify them so they can get the better deal.
Does Pruvo’s software just scan for posted prices on all the online travel agencies? Or do you go beyond that?
• We monitor prices 24/7 on more than 25 online travel agencies, which would be hard for an individual to do.
• Pruvo´s algorithm also searches hidden deals and membership discounts
• And we check for other things like obscure promo codes that consumers often miss.
When people re-book their rooms, they do so through your “Rebooking Wizard.” What is the advantage of using that?
Great question.
• When we alert someone of a better price and they are directed to the rebooking wizard in our site, they will see there the provider of the better deal, the payment terms (pay now vs pay at the hotel), special conditions (promotional code, coupon codes), final price and a strict reminder that FIRST they need to rebook the cheaper option and only AFTER they cancel the original one.
• When clicking on the offer provided by the OTA, they will be taken to the OTA page with their relevant hotel reservation (Hotel and dates), so all that is left to do is choose the exact same room and pay.
How much does it cost to use Pruvo?
Pruvo is 100% FREE.
How does Pruvo make money?
Pruvo makes money by receiving a commission from some of the main suppliers of the hotels where reservations are usually made, such as Hotels.com or Expedia.
How long has Pruvo been around and how much money have you saved your customers so far?
Pruvo launched in May 2016 and as of the 31st of January 2018, we have saved our customers $650,000 on their hotel reservations.
Doron Nadivi, Chief Marketing Officer for Pruvo thank you so much for joining me on Easy Money. And, thanks also for providing a guest blog post about hotel savings hacks and a You Tube video explaining Pruvo further.
