Score a Swanky Hotel Room with Hotel Tonight

The rise of sites like AirBnB may be drawing young travelers away from the often costly hotel market, but one site is looking to make it easier for those on the road to afford swanky rooms at top hotels. Hotel Tonight is a service that allows users to select a room in cities around the world at a deep discount. The only catch: You have to wait and see what’s available each day, as you can’t book ahead.

Here’s how it works: Hotel Tonight’s app allows users to search for hotels around the world, displaying rooms that top hotels release for that night. These rooms are available for way, way cheaper than they usually book, sometimes saving you hundreds of dollars. You book through the app, then head to the hotel for your night of luxury.

Although it’s a fun way to live the high life for a night, it can be tricky. It is first-come-first-serve, and the number of rooms are limited. Since you can’t book in advance, you’re at the mercy of what’s available on any given night. This means that the great deals go fast, so sometimes the discount isn’t quite as great as you might like. If you have a tight budget that doesn’t have much wiggle room, relying on Hotel Tonight isn’t for you.

But if you have a back-up plan (like a friend’s couch) and want to give it a whirl, you can hit it big. Definitely don’t hang all your plans on finding a perfect hotel room every night of your trip, and it’s best to surf the app a few times to get a sense of what’s available in any given location. And one last piece of advice: If you see a room you want, jump on it before someone else does.