Edinburgh business travel · NovaBid
How to book three to eight hotel rooms for a work trip
A small block sits in a gap. It is too small for a hotel's group desk, which usually starts at ten rooms, and too big to book one room at a time without losing an afternoon. This is the order of operations that works, whether or not you ever use NovaBid.
NovaBid is signing its founding independent Edinburgh hotels now. Businesses join the list and post first, the day the fifth hotel is live. What opening depends on.
What is the best way to book three to eight hotel rooms for a business trip?
Write the brief before you open a browser, then send that one brief to a handful of independent hotels and ask each for a single rate for the whole block rather than a price per room. Independents price a small block by hand and will often sharpen the number for five rooms in a quiet week, while chains route anything under ten rooms back to the standard nightly rate. NovaBid does this in one step: a business posts the trip once and independent Edinburgh hotels reply with private offers for it, free for the business.
Written and checked by Thomas Mellot, founder of NovaBid, who has worked in hotels and bars in Edinburgh, Amsterdam and the Alps. About Thomas.
Last reviewed . We correct these pages when the facts change; tell us if something here is wrong.
What gets in the way
Group desks at most chains start at ten rooms. At five you are told to book online like everyone else, which means five separate reservations, five confirmation emails and five cancellation policies to keep track of.
Rates move while you are deciding. The number you saw at nine is not always the number at eleven, and by the time your director has approved the budget you are starting again.
The things that decide whether a trip works, parking, breakfast, a room to meet in on the Wednesday, an early check-in for the person off the first flight, are the things a search filter handles worst.
Finance wants one payment and a proper VAT invoice. Eight card transactions across three properties is a reconciliation job that lands back on your desk a month later.
How it works
01
Settle the brief before you search
Dates, how many people, whether anyone shares, budget per person per night, and the two or three things that actually matter. Most of the pain in a small block comes from deciding these halfway through a search and having to start over. Write it in five lines, the way you would tell a colleague.
02
Ask three independents for one rate for the block
Send the same brief to each and ask for a single rate covering all the rooms and nights, plus what is included and the cancellation terms. Ask explicitly whether the Edinburgh visitor levy is inside the price, because hotels answer that differently and finance finds out on the invoice. Independents price by hand, which is exactly what a five-room midweek block needs.
03
If nobody comes back inside a working day, put the brief somewhere hotels answer it
That is what NovaBid is for. A business posts the trip once, independent Edinburgh hotels see it and reply with private offers built for that brief, and the business compares them side by side and picks one. It is free for the business, and the booking is paid once with one booking confirmation. Posting is not open yet: NovaBid is signing its founding Edinburgh hotels now, and businesses join the list and post first the day the fifth hotel is live.
Pricing
Free for businesses.
No markup on the rate, no subscription and no per-booker fee. The hotel pays a published commission on a paid booking.
Frequently asked
How many rooms do I need before a hotel will give me a group rate?
At most chains the group desk starts at ten rooms and below that you are pointed at the public rate. Independent hotels have no such threshold: a person prices the block, so five rooms across a quiet Tuesday to Thursday is a conversation worth having. That is the main practical reason to ask independents for a small block.
Should I book the rooms myself or ask the hotel to hold them?
For three to eight rooms, ask for a held block with a release date rather than booking them one by one. It gives you one point of contact, one set of terms and one number to change if a traveller drops out. Booking individually is faster on the day and more expensive to unpick later.
Is the Edinburgh visitor levy included in the rate I am quoted?
Sometimes, and that is the problem. Ask the question directly and get the answer in writing before you approve anything. On NovaBid the hotel ticks whether its offer includes the levy, and the business sees that line before it pays, on the booking and on the confirmation.
What if someone drops out after I book?
Ask about this before you commit, not after. On a block booked directly with a hotel, the hotel usually lets you reduce the room count up to a release date. On NovaBid each hotel sets its own free-cancellation window, from 48 hours to 30 days before check-in, shown on the offer before you pay: cancel before it closes for a full refund; after it closes there is no refund and the hotel is paid for having held the rooms.
Try it for one trip
Join the list to post an Edinburgh trip the day the fifth founding hotel is live. Hotels then send private offers, and nothing is charged until you confirm one.
Join the list