What it is
HotelScout is a small, mobile-first tool on leej.uk/hotelscout that finds the cheapest public Google Hotels stays in pounds for a place and your dates. You enter a city or area, set check-in and check-out, adults, children and rooms, choose lowest price or highest rating, then tap Find.
Results show nightly and total prices when Google has them, rating and review counts, star class when present, and an Open in Google Hotels link so you finish booking on Google Hotels or the booking site. HotelScout does not take payment.
Who it's for
Anyone who wants a quick “cheapest first” phone tool for hotel stays — the same job FlightScout does for flights. Useful when prices for the same city and dates scatter and you want a sorted shortlist with a clear book-out link.
What it does
- Place + datesCity or area, check-in and check-out.
- Guests & roomsAdults, children and rooms (multi-room occupancy enhancement later).
- On-demand onlySearch runs when you ask. No background jobs or scheduled scraping.
- Open in Google HotelsEach result links out to finish booking.
- Short cacheAbout five minutes for the same place, dates and guests.
- Rate limitedAbout 20 searches per hour per IP.
Why I built it
Hotel prices for the same city and dates scatter widely. Google Hotels already compares public rates, but most people want a quick cheapest-first phone tool with a clear book-out link — same idea as FlightScout for flights. I built HotelScout as an independent Lee Johnson tool on leej.uk, not affiliated with Google.
Prices change — always confirm on the booking site before you pay. Credit Google Hotels as the public source of listed prices.
How it's built
The front end is static HTML, CSS and vanilla JavaScript (leej palette, flat background, viewport locked against pinch-zoom, light/dark via the site pull cord). Luggage/suitcase mark for the icon.
On Find it calls a Cloudflare Worker at /hotelscout/api/search, which fetches public Google Hotels results via batchexecute (same path as the google-hotels library — no official Google API key), normalises prices to GBP where possible, sorts them, and returns JSON with Open in Google Hotels links.
Results are cached for about five minutes. The Worker rate-limits to about 20 searches per hour per IP. Rooms is in the UI; occupancy is adults + children on one room for now (true multi-room next).
Where it is now
Live since 6 November 2026 at https://leej.uk/hotelscout/. Search runs only when you ask; production does not rely on demo mode. Privacy: on-demand searches via our API — we don’t store your trip for marketing.