Personalized travel search engine Room 77 has partnered with major travel booking sites like Expedia and Travelocity to now let you book rooms at 120K hotels worldwide directly through Room 77.

Room 77 leverages the data it has collected and indexed on 500K+ hotel rooms in 2.5K properties to provide travelers with details on rooms such as room category, size, bed type and elevator proximity. Travelers can also compare Room 77 prices with other online travel services, including Kayak and Orbitz, from within the site.

"In terms of price comparison, our motivation was to empower consumers with maximum transparency into pricing," Room 77 General Manager and VP of Product Kevin Fliess tells LAUNCH via email. "Where as most single supplier sites provide a 'best rate guarantee', we said 'forget that' -- let's just show the consumer all the prices from the major travel sites, and let the traveler decide where they want to book."

You can refine hotel search results by criteria, such as free Wi-Fi, breakfast, pets, neighborhood and more. For thousands of hotels, Room 77 offers insider tips the team has "Heard in the Lobby." Room 77 also provides crowdsourced reviews and ratings from travelers.

Room 77 also now offers a Room Concierge service for three- to five-star hotels that uses its RoomMatch technology to identify the best room for you. For some rooms, Room 77 generates a virtual Room View that simulates the actual view from a room's window using Google Earth technology.

"Our tests have shown that customers who book with Room 77 dramatically increase their odds of getting a good room in the hotel," Kevin says. "Of course we can't turn a hotel full of bad shag carpet into the Four Seasons - but we can make sure that in a given hotel that you are in the front of the line when room assignments get handed out."

According to a survery conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Room 77, 93% of people who book a hotel room online today feel like they get a bad or average room in the hotel.

"There is a reason for this - hotels generally assign the last rooms to people who book at an online agency - you get the bottom of the barrel, Kevin says."

Room 77, founded by Brad Gerstner, launched in February 2011 at the LAUNCH Conference where they won Best Overall. The company has raised $13.5M in funding to date. Room 77 will eventually add booking functionality to its mobile apps for iPhone and Android devices. The company also has plans to partner with additional online travel agencies, in addition to offering deals.

SCREEN SHOTS AND VIDEO

Clicking on a hotel name in the search results (or click on the room views link on the results card) to see every room in the hotel and details such as location, size, bed type, the view and more. You can refine the search based on Wi-Fi, parking and other amentities.

Click "Book by view" to see a preview of the different rooms available in a particular hotel.

Click "see room views" to see best matching rooms.

Hotel overview provides photos, rooms and rates, amenities and more.

For three- to five-star hotels, Room 77 offers a room concierge service that finds and requests rooms on your behalf. You can request individual room numbers in the "Any other requests?" box.

Room 77's presentation at LAUNCH Conference 2011.

CONTACTS & LINKS

Room 77
Twitter: @Room77
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bestrooms
Website: www.room77.com

Kevin Fliess, GM and VP of Product
Twitter: @kevinfliess
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kfliess
Google+: https://plus.google.com/105261757644176051157/posts

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