Privacy & Cookie Policy

Last updated: April 2025  ·  HotelMonitor (hotelmonitor.co.uk)

1. Who We Are

HotelMonitor is a free hotel price monitoring service operated at hotelmonitor.co.uk. We watch the price of your existing hotel booking and alert you by email when a cheaper rate appears — so you can rebook and save money. When you contact us about privacy matters, please email privacy@hotelmonitor.co.uk.

2. What Data We Collect

We collect only the minimum data needed to operate the service:

• Email address — so we can send you price-drop alerts
• Hotel name and location — so we know which hotel to monitor
• Check-in and check-out dates — to search for the right price
• Price paid — to calculate whether a new rate is genuinely cheaper
• Cancellation fee (optional) — to calculate your net saving after fees
• Board basis and guest count (optional) — to improve price matching
• Consent records — to record whether you opted in to marketing emails

We do not collect: payment information, passport details, phone numbers, or any sensitive personal data.

3. How We Use Your Data

• To check hotel prices on your behalf on an automated schedule
• To send you a price-drop alert email when a saving is found
• To send you occasional travel deal emails (only if you separately consented)
• To display your bookings on the dashboard when you return to the site

We do not use your data for profiling, targeted advertising, or any automated decision-making that affects you.

4. Affiliate Links & Third-Party Platforms

When you click a "Book at lower price" link in our emails or on our site, you are taken to a third-party booking platform (such as Expedia, Hotels.com, Booking.com, or TripAdvisor) via an affiliate link. If you complete a booking, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

These platforms have their own privacy policies and cookie practices which we encourage you to review. We do not share your personal data with these platforms beyond what is embedded in the affiliate link (typically a session identifier).

5. Data Sharing

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data. We share data only:

• With price-checking APIs (e.g. Google Hotels via SerpAPI, Hotels.com via RapidAPI, TripAdvisor Scraper) — we send your hotel name and dates to these services to retrieve pricing. No personally identifiable information is included.
• With email delivery services — your email address is used solely to deliver alerts you requested.
• If legally required — in response to a valid court order or legal obligation.

6. Data Retention

We retain your booking data for as long as your monitoring is active. Once monitoring stops (either because you cancel it, the check-out date passes, or you request deletion), your data is marked inactive. You can request permanent deletion at any time — see Section 8.

7. Cookies

We use only essential cookies required for the site to function:

• Session / email memory — a cookie that remembers your email address so you don't have to re-enter it on return visits. This is stored locally in your browser.

We do not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or third-party analytics cookies. We do not use Google Analytics or Facebook Pixel.

Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts. Google may set a cookie or log your IP address when serving font files — see Google's Privacy Policy.

8. Your Rights (UK GDPR)

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation you have the right to:

• Access — request a copy of the data we hold about you
• Rectification — ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Erasure — ask us to delete all your data ("right to be forgotten")
• Restriction — ask us to stop processing your data temporarily
• Portability — request your data in a machine-readable format
• Objection — object to processing based on legitimate interests

To exercise any of these rights, email us at privacy@hotelmonitor.co.uk. We will respond within 30 days. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

9. Security

All data is transmitted over HTTPS. We store data in a secured database on private infrastructure. Passwords are not used or stored — you access your bookings via your email address. We do not store payment information of any kind.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The "last updated" date at the top of this page will always reflect the most recent revision. Continued use of the service after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

11. Contact

For privacy questions or data requests: privacy@hotelmonitor.co.uk