The Copley Square Hotel in Boston’s Back Bay area is turning 118 years this week. The Copley Square is a top rated hotel by Trip Advisor, one of my reliable sources for travel info.

In January 2009, Copley Square has been renovated and reopened with modern design and contemporary features. Through a supposed ‘modern and creative’ marketing concept the hotel attempted to once again be brought to the traveller’s attention. The Copley Square Hotel decided that on the exact birthday of the hotel, July 14th 2009, (the day of this posting) guests were able to book a hotel room after 1.18 pm for 118 minutes for discount rates between $18 and $118 that are applicable for bookings between July 14 and September 24th.

The anticipation was building after a few press releases over the past weeks, referring to the website the hotel created a true countdown.

For those who aren’t aware of it yet online hotel bookings have been proven to be more resilient during economic downturn than conventional bookings, due to higher volumes for lower prices. In addition, the shift to online is continuing and it is suspected that of course the volume growth in the online sector will continue to grow as well.

Unfortunately when I booked my $18 dollar hotel, in full anticipation of the confirmation I received an error... within the minutes of the booking process the wizard had first congratulated me with my $18 dollar room, but upon finalizing had realized all the $18 dollar hotel rooms had been given away. As it occurred I wasn't the only one, (many tweets showed discontent with the booking process) I sent the General Manager, PR lady and the communications specialist an email expressing my disappointment with their marketing campaign and the flaws of the booking process. They kindly responded to me with an offer to reserve a room for me at a discount rate, a rate well above the $18 dollars! Of course.



A first time East coast visit for me is coming up; I am going to Boston from August 11 to August 13th for Red Sox, arts, culture and fine dining. Afterwards we will be traveling around a bit in Massachusetts and on our way to New York and onwards to Philly, Baltimore and Washington DC.

Any suggestions on neat places to stay in the area or things we can’t miss out on?