Engine (it used to be Hotel Engine) is a big booking platform, and it’s good at what it does. Your people search, pick a hotel and book it at Engine’s rate. Your company pays nothing, because the hotels pay Engine a commission. We get paid the same way.
The difference is what happens before anyone books.
How Engine handles a crew
Engine’s own pages describe two paths. Up to eight rooms, your people book it themselves. At nine rooms, or for an extended stay, the request goes to Engine’s Groups team, which sources and negotiates the block for you.
What Engine doesn’t say is which hotels get your request, or how many. You see the proposals that come back.
How we handle a crew
You send us the site address, the rooms and the dates. We send one written request to every hotel within driving distance of the site. That includes the independent motels in small towns that don’t show up on booking sites, and the extended-stay places off the highway exit. Then we call them.
Each hotel bids on the same request: the rooms, the dates, truck and trailer parking, laundry, an early breakfast, and the per diem you need to stay under. Each hotel can see where its bid ranks, and it can lower its rate before the deadline. This is what that looks like on a sample four-room job.
You get the best two or three, side by side, and you pick. Two rooms for three weeks gets the same treatment as twenty rooms for a year.
Side by side
| Engine | Turndown Audit | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to your company | Free | Free |
| Who pays | Hotels, by commission | Hotels, by commission |
| Under 9 rooms | You search and book | We run the bid |
| Which hotels are asked | Not published | Every hotel within driving distance, and you see the list |
| You see every bid | Proposals from Groups | Every bid and every revision, live |
| Hotels compete on price | Groups coordinates bids | Hotels see their rank and can beat it before the deadline |
| Book tonight in a big city | Yes, this is its strength | Not what we’re for |
When Engine is the better pick
If your people need a room tonight, or you’re booking a lot of one-off trips to cities, use a booking tool. That’s what Engine is built for.
If you know where the next job is and when it starts, give us the job. Three weeks of lead time is plenty. Even a few days is enough to get bids from the hotels near the site.