Hotel upselling: a better room, the view and extras
Four ways hotels raise the booking total right in the booking engine, and how much each one brings.
+17%added to the booking total when the guest takes a better room
A direct booking is worth more than just the commission you don't pay. In your own booking engine you can offer the guest more, and guests are happy to pay extra for what matters to them.
A better room, at booking and before arrival
What the guest sees. At booking: what the pricier room gives and what it costs. 2–3 days before arrival: one more offer. ‘A suite with a balcony is free. Move up for +₽2,000 a night?’ Payment by link.
Who does it. Hilton, an Oracle service used by hundreds of hotels, Oaky and Plusgrade.
What it brought. Oracle counted across about 100 hotels: a guest who agreed to a better room pays on average 17% more than the original booking. A ₽10,000 booking became ₽11,700. Oracle does not say how many guests agree. This is vendor data.
A view or a floor for a fee
What the guest sees. ‘City view +₽700 a night, guaranteed.’ The guest chooses what matters to them and gets exactly that.
Who does it. IHG (5,000+ hotels), Marriott. Hilton lets guests pick a room on the floor plan.
What it brought. At IHG, a guest who chose a view or a floor pays on average $22 extra a night, and up to $41 in the chain's upscale hotels. In 2025 Cornell University found that guests who chose their own room are more loyal to the hotel and more willing to recommend it.
Extras at booking
What the guest sees. After choosing a room: cards with prices for breakfast, transfer, parking, early check-in and late check-out. The guest taps ‘Add’ themselves.
What it brought. For Profitroom's clients, almost one booking in three includes an extra, and the average booking value is 11% higher. Transfer and parking are taken most often. Early check-in and late check-out bring about 12% of upselling revenue, according to Oaky.
In Russia, extras may only be offered so that the guest chooses them: pre-ticked boxes are banned.
Three rate options
What the guest sees. ‘No breakfast / With breakfast / With breakfast and late check-out’. The middle option is set so that the top one looks like a good deal.
What it brought. In an experiment with 463 people in the US, 65 in 100 chose the expensive option when this kind of middle option sat next to it. Without it, 35 in 100. Another study got the opposite result, so it is worth testing on your own site.
What not to do
Auctions for a better room, paid price ‘holds’, false urgency and extra charges that appear at the last step: hotels have already been fined for all of these.