Edinburgh business travel · NovaBid
NovaBid opens on Monday 12\u00A0October\u00A02026
Here is what that date actually means, what you can do before it, and what we are deliberately not promising. We would rather you knew exactly what you are signing up to than found out in October.
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When does NovaBid open, and what happens on launch day?
NovaBid opens for Edinburgh business travel on Monday 12 October 2026. From that day a company can send us a trip, we put it to independent Edinburgh hotels, and we come back with private offers to compare and book. It opens as a service run by a person rather than a fully self-serve platform: you tell us the trip, we do the running around. The self-serve version follows once our founding hotels are contracted and set up to take payment, and we will name that date when we can stand behind it rather than guess at it. Before 12 October you can already post a trip on the site to see exactly how it works, and you can leave your email to be told when we open.
The booking pattern we hear about
Most companies announcing a launch date are describing software that is already finished. This one is a date we can hold, for a service we can actually deliver on the day, which is a different and smaller promise.
You have probably been burned by a "launching soon" page that never launched, or one that launched into something half working. Fair.
You may have a trip in October or November that you need to sort now, not when it suits us.
How NovaBid fixes it
01
Today: post a trip, or leave an email
The trip form works right now and you are welcome to use it. Write the dates, the people and what matters, and you will see exactly what a hotel would be answering. No card, nothing charged, and an account only when you send. If you would rather just be told when we open, leave your email on the home page and we will write once a fortnight until then, with what we have built and who has joined. If you have a trip that cannot wait, reply to any of our emails and we will put it to hotels by hand before launch, which is what we are already doing for the first few.
02
Monday 12 October: we open, as a service
From that day, you send us the trip and we take it from there: we put your brief to independent Edinburgh hotels, collect what they come back with, and give you private offers side by side to compare. One booking, one payment, one receipt. It is deliberately hands-on at the start. A person reads your brief and chases the hotels, which is slower to scale and considerably better at catching the things software misses in the first month of anything.
03
After that: the self-serve version
The platform where hotels submit offers directly and you book without us in the middle is built and is what everything is heading towards. It goes live when the founding cohort is contracted and set up to receive payment, and not before, because a marketplace that cannot pay its hotels on time is worse than no marketplace. We will name that date on this page when it is a date rather than a hope.
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
Why is the launch a service rather than the finished platform?
Because the honest sequence puts the customer first and the software second. Hotels can only send offers through the product once they have signed our partner agreement and completed payout setup, and that work is with a solicitor and with the hotels rather than with us. Rather than let that decide when a business can use NovaBid, we open on 12 October with a person doing the work, and swap the person out for the product one piece at a time. Every brief we run by hand teaches us something the product should do differently.
What can I actually do before 12 October?
Three things. Post a trip on the site and see how it works, with nothing charged and an account created only when you send. Leave your email to hear when we open. Or, if you have a trip that will not wait, tell us and we will put it to hotels by hand now. We have already done that for a company needing twenty beds for five nights, so it is a real offer rather than a polite one.
What are you not promising?
We are not promising how many hotels will answer your brief, because that depends on the week and the hotel. We are not promising a saving, because we have no completed bookings to derive one from and you should distrust anyone who claims otherwise this early. And we are not promising the self-serve platform on 12 October. What we are promising is that on that day you can send us an Edinburgh trip and we will come back with real offers from real independent hotels.
Which hotels are on board?
Independent Edinburgh hotels and independently owned groups, never chains. We are signing a founding cohort of ten properties and are part of the way through it. We do not name a partner until they have told us in writing that we may, so the partners page will fill up as those permissions come in rather than all at once.
What will it cost me?
Nothing. No booking fee, no subscription, no markup on the offer price, before or after launch. The hotel pays NovaBid a commission on a paid booking, 10% for founding partners and 12% standard. That does not change on 12 October.
What happens if you miss the date?
We would tell you, on this page and in the fortnightly email, with the reason. The date was chosen because it depends on us rather than on anyone else, which is why we are willing to put it in writing.
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 9 September 2026. We correct these pages when the facts change; tell us if something here is wrong.
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