Many of us might want to stay in fancy NYC hotels but we just can’t afford it. Or, maybe we don’t have the award points to book a room there.
A new company is giving you the opportunity to book fancy NYC hotels for a minimum of $1 per minute.
Recharge has been around for a couple of years. They’re based out of San Francisco. Earlier in the week they debuted their service in NYC.
The company “gives users the chance to book a hotel room for exactly the amount of time they need it,” according to Quartz. The idea sounds a bit crazy and outside the box but one major travel company believes in the idea. Recharge has raised money from JetBlue.
There are 16 NYC hotels so far partnering with Recharge including the W New York, The Pierre and The Knickerbocker. Rates range from 0.83¢ to $2 per minute. When you add in the 14.75% lodging tax, a renter is now looking at a minimum of $1 per minute.
While there’s no minimum stay required, the average stay is a couple of hours.
Booking a room is interesting. They can’t be booked in advance, you book a room close to where you need it. You start getting billed 30 minutes after you make your reservation or when you pick up your key.
Rooms rented on Recharge are geared to those in need of a place to clean up after a tiring flight or a place to get some work done in private. Quartz mentions how rooms have also been rented by “nursing mothers“.
Find out more about Recharge from Quartz here.
And to think New York Governor Spitzer had to rent his rooms by the hour. Think of all the money client #9 might have saved if he could have rented those rooms by the minute.