Sheradill: A New Social Media Way to Stay in a Nice European Hotel for Cheap (With a 20 Euro Credit to Start)

I’ve been planning for my Europe trip and found an amazing website: Sheradill.  Simply put, Sheradill is the liquidation arm of the HIP Hotel Chain.  HIP is a Kimpton-esque boutique hotel chain with properties worldwide but concentrated in Europe.

Sheradill operates on a flash sale model similar to Secret Escapes but with three distinct twists:

1. Dates are limited and spelled out in advance.
2. Auctions work in reverse: the price goes down to 90% off until someone buys.
3. Not only do you earn referral credits, and credits daily for sharing their sales, but 30% of the credits everyone earns go into a kitty to be shared.

Their system seems a little convoluted but because of this is quite intuitive once you get it- and once you do get it 90% off is definitely worth a bit of work up front! Here’s what I’ve figured out so far:

• Once you sign up you can see the list of properties and dates. The list changes frequently.
• Deals start at the retail price and go down based on everyone’s credit until someone buys or the price hits the min (90% off). The price then resets and the credits go away.
• There are three types of credit: referral credit (20 Euro per “signup”), earnings credit (activities like sharing on Twitter or liking the hotel), and community credit.
• If you have friends (who you trust not to snatch the deal from under you) you can ask them to share and like the deal as well. If your friend does a ten Euro activity (like retweeting the deal), the deal gets 3 Euro cheaper for everyone.
• Some earnings credit activities (like visiting the website) can be repeated daily on the same deal!
• Earnings credit is only valid on a specific package (which can mean more than one available date at a property).
• Community credit is only valid until someone buys one deal. It then resets to full retail (minus your earning and referral credit). Earning credit is attached to that package till it ends.
• Referral credit is good until you spend it, but if you get to 1,000 Euro it will stay there until you spend some.
• THIS IS IMPORTANT: Do not perform any of the “general tasks” (updating your profile, liking Sheradill or HIP Hotels on Facebook or Twitter, getting the newsletter) until you have located a deal you want to try to buy. You can only get credit for each task once!
• Deals are non-refundable.

 

How Sheradill works in real life

• I saw the deal at the Marseille hotel and double checked that the dates I wanted were available.
• The deal retails at 410 Euro and was down to 116 with Community credit.
• I was able to do 60 Euro worth of activities (liking the hotel on FB, Twitter, retweeting, etc) which gave me 60 Euro earnings credit (which is actually 78 since 30% are added to the community pot).
• The deal went down to 41 (90% off).
• After I bought it the deal went back up to 410.

There’s a definite “know when to hold ’em” aspect to Sheradill: you have to decide if  you can afford to wait the deal out till it gets to 90% off or if you think someone else will reset the till.

HT: The Deal Mommy