Look out HotelTonight. Oh, and Booking.com, Expedia, Skyscanner, Hopper and a few others. Coming out of LA there is a new kid on the block. FinalPrice, a new subscription-based travel app, has today both launched and announced its $4 million fund-raising from Almaz Capital, Sistema VC and private investors.
For an annual $99 charge, the offer here is that users get access to “the best hotel, flight and rental car deals out there”. But why on earth would anyone pay to book this stuff? Well, by levying a subscription FinalPrice does not need to make money on every sale (unlike other free providers), which should mean users get access to lower prices for higher quality travel options.
The startup also claims it is applying AI to its curated list of offers based on each person’s preferences and travel history, but then doesn’t everyone claim that these days? That said, users can send previous itineraries to FinalPrice and it will instantly learn their preferences.
FinalPrice founder Peter Kutis says that since most of the U.S. market is moving to a subscription plan, from Netflix and Spotify to Amazon and dry cleaning: “We want to become the Amazon Prime of travel. A subscription approach to travel offers better prices and better loyalty. No more ‘spend more to save more,’ last minutes deals, or excluded taxes. You don’t have to be ‘Genius’ traveler to get fair prices. All the commissions we get from the suppliers are returned to customers as a discount or cashback.”
FinalPrice claims that users who spend $10,000 traveling with it will save around $2,500 in comparison to the best available public price via other services.