Edinburgh business travel · NovaBid
NovaBid for operations teams and growing companies
Somewhere between "whoever is going books it themselves" and a corporate travel programme, there is a company that travels to Edinburgh most months and has no sensible way to handle it. That is the gap this was built for: a repeatable process, without a contract, a platform fee or a travel manager.
Hands-on Edinburgh service opens 12 October 2026. The self-serve platform follows. See the launch plan.
Would NovaBid work for a company that books Edinburgh hotels regularly but has no travel manager?
Yes. NovaBid gives a small company a single repeatable route for Edinburgh trips without signing a corporate rate agreement or buying a travel platform: whoever is organising posts the trip brief, independent Edinburgh hotels reply with private offers priced for it, and the company books and pays once per trip with one receipt. There is no subscription and no per-booking fee for the business, so it costs nothing to standardise on it, and nothing to stop using it.
The booking pattern we hear about
Five people book five different ways. One uses a consumer site, one rings a hotel they liked, one books the nearest chain, and nobody can say afterwards what a trip to Edinburgh actually costs the company.
You are too small for a negotiated corporate rate. A hotel will not commit annual pricing to a company that might send eleven room nights a year, and chasing one is a lot of effort for a discount you may never use.
Enterprise travel tools are built for approval chains, policy engines and reporting you do not need, priced for companies with a travel department.
The requirements are not consistent because the trips are not: three engineers for a fortnight one month, two people and a client dinner the next, a whole team and a meeting room in the spring.
How NovaBid fixes it
01
One place trips get posted
Whoever is organising writes the brief: dates, people, budget per night, what matters. It takes minutes, and the account is created at the point of sending, so it does not have to be the same person every time. The same route works for one traveller and for a block of eight rooms.
02
Independent hotels compete for that specific trip
Instead of a rate negotiated once a year and applied to every trip regardless, each trip is priced by hotels that want those particular nights. A quiet Tuesday in February and a busy week in May are different propositions to a hotel, and this lets them price accordingly rather than pretending they are the same.
03
One payment, one receipt, per trip
The chosen offer is paid once, covering every room and night, and the receipt goes to whoever needs it. Finance sees the cost of a trip as one line before it happens, rather than reconstructing it later from expense claims. No subscription, no per-booking fee, nothing to unwind if you stop.
Pricing
Free for SMBs. Hotels pay commission only on a paid booking: 10% founding, 12% standard.
No markup on the rate. No subscription. No per-booker fee. The hotel covers everything as the cost of winning your business.
Frequently asked
Can several people in our company use it?
Yes. Anyone can post a trip, creating an account at the point of sending, so the process does not depend on one person being at their desk. If you would rather that bookings run through one pair of hands, that works too: the person organising can post and book on behalf of anyone.
Is a negotiated corporate rate better than this?
It depends on volume. If you reliably send enough business to one hotel for it to want your contract, a negotiated rate is simpler and worth having. If your travel is occasional or spread across different kinds of trip, an annual rate is a lot of process for a number that is fixed whether the hotel is empty or full. We would rather you knew that than pretend the answer is always us.
Do we need to commit to anything, or sign up?
No contract, no subscription, no minimum. Nothing is charged until a trip is booked and there is nothing to cancel if you stop using it. Standardising on it costs nothing and so does walking away.
How do we keep control of spend?
Put the budget in the brief. Hotels see the number you have to spend and reply inside it or not at all, so the offers you compare are already within budget rather than needing to be talked down. You approve the actual cost before anything is paid, not after it has been claimed back.
Can we be invoiced monthly?
Not at present. Trips are paid at booking, which is what allows us to pay the hotel immediately rather than weeks after checkout, and that commitment is why independent hotels are willing to be here. Invoicing for approved accounts is something we expect to offer once there is a trading history to underwrite it, and we will say so here when it exists.
What about away days and team offsites?
Same idea, different brief, on the away days page. You describe the day, including bedrooms and meeting space together, and venues reply with comparable priced options. Away-day commission is agreed in writing with each venue before an event booking is confirmed, and it is paid by the venue, never added to your price.
When is NovaBid the wrong choice?
If you need policy enforcement, approval workflows and consolidated reporting across many travellers, you want a travel management company or a booking tool, and you should get one. If you travel somewhere other than Edinburgh, we are not there yet. We would rather tell you that now than have you find out on a trip that matters.
Written by Thomas Mellot, founder of NovaBid. He trained as a chef in France and worked front of house in Edinburgh hotels, as Chef de Rang at the Caledonian and the Balmoral. He built NovaBid after watching independents lose business travel to platforms that never set foot in the building. More about NovaBid.
Last reviewed 8 September 2026. We correct these pages when the facts change; tell us if something here is wrong.
Try it for one trip
Post the next Edinburgh trip your team needs. See what hotels offer. If the bids aren't right, you simply don't accept, nothing's charged until you confirm.
Post your first trip