Seamless Business Travel With Book. Stay. Go. and Uber

May 26, 2016 / Global

This is a guest post from Book. Stay. Go. by Viko Bhakta

More often than not, business travel is hectic and costly. Trips are often booked at the last minute, resulting in higher prices and less time to manage all the logistics that come with a business trip.

Book. Stay. Go. is a travel app built with last-minute business travel in mind. We look across corporate rates and last-minute deals to show travelers the most affordable hotel rooms, 365 days a year. We also help make managing hotel reservations more efficient: travelers can check in and select their own room prior to arrival, and even skip the front desk by using their smartphone as a room key.

Uber is a leading travel option for business travelers. In fact, Certify published a study showing that Uber on its own had overtaken rental cars as the most frequently expensed form of ground transportation (43% vs 40%). So when Uber announced Trip Branding for API partners in late March, we saw an opportunity to make a our app even more vital to our users.

With our Uber integration, busy business travelers can focus on work instead of spending time manually entering travel details. For example, if a traveler lands in San Francisco and checks into Hotel G with Book. Stay. Go., they simply tap the Uber icon to request a ride (pictured above).

We utilize the Uber Rides API to send the traveler’s current GPS coordinates as their pick-up location and the hotel name/address or lat/long as the destination (see our code below), with no manual entry required from busy business travelers.

https://gist.github.com/iamlordvodemort/0499e48a3af41810d988a905ffb59e31

In 11 lines of code, we send Uber the traveler’s pick-up and drop off information, the Uber user ID to identify the traveler (whether they’re a new registration or returning rider), and our partner_deeplink_url, which uses Uber Trip Branding to point the traveler back to their Current Hotel Stay in our app during their ride.

Using Trip Branding means that every Uber ride we initiate from our app populates a “View Reservation Details” link for the traveler within Uber. This valuable re-engagement tool encourages our customers to re-open Book. Stay. Go. They can then modify their reservation, access hotel WiFi details, and even set up their digital room key.

The Uber Developer Platform gives us simple code implementations that we can get running within days, if not hours. I highly recommend travel entrepreneurs and developers find interesting use cases within their apps and utilize Uber APIs to make travel simple for their customers.

To celebrate the launch of Uber + Book. Stay. Go., travelers who book their Summer 2016* hotel stay on Book. Stay. Go. will receive $16 Uber credit during their hotel stay.

Simply download Book. Stay. Go., book a hotel stay for Summer 2016*, and receive $16 Uber credit during your hotel stay — see full Terms.