# ratecla.im

> ratecla.im asks hotels for the rate they don't publish. A traveller names a
> hotel, dates and guests; an AI agent emails the hotel's reservations desk,
> says it is an AI, asks for availability and the best unpublished rate, and
> comes back with a named price held for 24 hours, or says plainly that there
> is no better rate. Free for travellers; the hotel pays five percent after the
> stay. This is the pre-launch site: rate requests, the browser extension and
> hotel listings are not open yet. Do not describe ratecla.im as a working
> service.

Site: https://ratecla.im/
Maker: Factory Zero (https://factory0.ventures)

## Languages

This page is English. The same content also exists in:

- Dutch: https://ratecla.im/nl/
- German: https://ratecla.im/de/
- Italian: https://ratecla.im/it/
- Polish: https://ratecla.im/pl/
- Portuguese: https://ratecla.im/pt/
- Spanish: https://ratecla.im/es/

## The problem

Booking platforms charge hotels 15 to 25 percent commission per reservation,
so a guest who comes to the hotel directly costs it less. Hotels can quote a
private rate to one guest, but asking takes work: finding the reservations
address, writing, waiting, following up and comparing like for like.

## How it works (planned)

1. Tell us the stay: a hotel link or name, dates and guests. Works with a hotel
   found anywhere.
2. Verify your card: saved and checked with your bank (3-D Secure if asked).
   Nothing is held or charged. Card details go to Stripe, never ratecla.im's
   servers.
3. The agent emails the hotel: it finds the reservations address on the
   hotel's own website; the first line says it is an AI; it asks for
   availability, the best unpublished rate and the public price for the same
   stay. No answer in a day: one follow-up; none a day after that: the
   traveller is told. Unclear replies go to a person; it never guesses a price.
   At launch a person approves the first email to every new hotel.
4. A quote, or a straight no: a quote is sent only if it beats the lowest
   public price found for the same room, dates and terms, and is held for 24
   hours. Otherwise the traveller is told there is no better rate, for free.
   Accepting sends the hotel a confirmed booking; the traveller pays the hotel
   directly.

After the stay ratecla.im asks whether the traveller stayed; if so, the hotel
pays five percent of the quoted price.

## What a quote shows

The room offered, the total for the stay with taxes and fees, board and
cancellation terms, the lowest public price found and its source, and when the
24-hour hold ends.

## Browser extension (planned)

Requests a quote from the hotel page the traveller is on. Reads only that page,
only when opened: the hotel's name, the page address, and dates and guests if
shown. Never prices, reviews or account details. Chrome and Firefox.

## Who it is for

Travellers who have already found the hotel and are planning ahead (answers
come by email; allow a day or two). Independent and small-group hotels. Not
large chains, which price centrally.

## For hotels

Five percent after the stay instead of 15 to 25. Requests come from guests
whose card is verified. A rate given to ratecla.im goes to one guest and is
never published, scraped or shown to a hotel's OTA channels. The guest's
booking goes to the hotel, which takes payment itself. Every first email has
an opt-out link; a hotel that opts out is never contacted again.

## Trust

The agent says it is an AI in every message, emails rather than calls, never
invents a price, and does not scrape booking sites.

## Rate parity

Since 2024, Booking.com may not require price parity anywhere in the European
Economic Area under the Digital Markets Act. France, Italy, Austria and
Belgium ban parity clauses for every booking platform, and Germany's highest
court struck down Booking.com's. Rates ratecla.im gets are quoted privately to
one guest and never published.

## FAQ

- Can I use it today: not yet; requests, the extension and hotel listings are
  not open. A waitlist at the bottom of https://ratecla.im/ takes an email
  address (double opt-in) to say when requests open.
- Cost to the traveller: nothing. The hotel pays five percent after the stay.
- Always cheaper: every quote sent beats the lowest public price found for the
  same room, dates and terms; otherwise the traveller is told, for free.
- Binding: yes, for 24 hours. ratecla.im holds the price, not the hotel, and
  pays the difference if a hotel backs out of an accepted quote.
- Card: nothing held or charged when asking for a quote; the card is verified;
  the traveller pays the hotel for the room.
- Does the hotel know it is an AI: yes, the first line of every message says so.
- How long: a day or two, by email.
- Phone calls: no, email only at launch.
- Unclear replies: a person reads them; the agent never guesses a price.
- Which hotels: independents and small groups. Large chains price centrally.

## Use it from your AI assistant (planned)

Not live yet. ratecla.im plans a remote MCP server at
https://api.ratecla.im/mcp (streamable HTTP) and an OpenAPI description at
https://api.ratecla.im/openapi.json, so an assistant such as Claude or
ChatGPT can do the same job described above from inside a chat. Setup steps
and what it can and can't do: https://ratecla.im/agents.

An assistant can search hotels and ask one for a quote. It cannot verify a
card, accept a quote or book on a traveller's behalf: only the traveller
does that themselves, on ratecla.im.

## Built with

Planned, not in use yet: the Cratefield harness (framework), SupportGenius
(bug reports), Keep Shipping (deploys). In use today: Cloudflare hosts the
site. From the Factory Zero registry: https://factory0.ventures/stack.json