New App Recharge lets you rent hotel rooms by the minute

Business travellers are often early adopters of new technology.  We just cant get enough of the ever expanding library of apps that make life on the road significantly easier, more efficient, more instant and more convenient.

They say all the best business ideas solve a problem. The problem with business travel is inconvenience - long-haul layovers with 16+ hours to spend in a city, not being able to check into a hotel room before a specified time, not being to refresh before a meeting after being on the redeye, needing a workplace and having to pay 24 hours for a hotel room when all I want is a few hours.  For the weary business traveller convenience is everything.

Enter Recharge, a new app which lets you rent hotels rooms by the hour or by the minute, if you prefer.  But why would I want to rent a room by the minute?

“People most commonly use Recharge as they use Starbucks,” co-founder Emmanuel Bamfo told Fortune, referring to people’s use of coffee shops as place to sit down, catch up on some work and use Wi-Fi when available. The idea is similar to short-term office rental services like Breather, which lets customers rent out private space, mostly in offices, for anywhere between 30 minutes to a full day to rest up or do some work.

How it works!

Recharge automatically selects the nearest available partnering hotel to you. Guests have 15 minutes after booking a recharge before the company starts the clock. The guests then check out when they leave the hotel by simply pressing a button on the app. This means that guests cannot schedule a stay in advance, unless they are willing to pay for it. In addition to a private room, Recharge offers access to hotel amenities, such as the gym and business center.

Once you click "Book Now," you're given 15 minutes to arrive at the hotel Recharge has matched you with and check in. You don't have to indicate how long you plan to stay. After 15 minutes, your booking time begins, and you're charged $0.66 for every minute you remain at the hotel.

When you're ready to leave, just press the "Check Out" button on Recharge's app, and your payment will stop. There isn't any surge pricing on Recharge at the moment, although that may change as demand for the app rises.

In a rare development for a sharing-economy company, Recharge claim they have not experienced any pushback from regulators or entrenched interests. Contrasted with hotel chains’ opposition to Airbnb and other home-sharing platforms, this seems to be a case of clear progress that also benefits established players in the hotel industry.

Currently, the only place Recharge is available is San Francisco, but it plans to launch more cities soon.

Great idea and I look forward to using Recharge on my next trip to San Fran.

For more information contact www.recharge.co