Fan of the hooch?
What if we told you that you could score a cocktail a day for $24 per month, and in the process score access to exclusive travel discounts, and a concierge you can message for all your booking needs? Apparently – it’s really a thing. Hooch entered our radar last year offering a “free” cocktail a day for $9.99 per month. All you’d need is a single cocktail per month to extract value, let alone 30. But the app is now taking things to an entirely new level, with members only hotel discounts and seamless VIP concierge.
Hooch reeled us in with a cocktail a day for less than the cost of two cocktails per month. That still exists, it’s still expanding and that offer alone is exciting if you live in a Hooch city. The app has now launched “Hooch Black”, which takes membership to a higher level. For $295 per year, members receive their “free” daily cocktail, but also receive substantial discounts on hotels and other travel experiences. But in our eyes, the kicker is that you receive a concierge, with whom you can “chat”. Rather than having to pick up the phone, as you would with many credit card concierge offerings, Hooch allows you to simple, easy message requests. Like, “I need a dinner reservation at 7PM at XYZ restaurant, can you also look into LA hotel deals for Sunday?”. Hooch Black members also receive an instant $100 Postmates credit, which is fantastic.
You pick the spot from a selection in the app and when you turn up, you get to enjoy a free cocktail upon arrival. Hooch is now also able to secure unpublished hotel rates because unlike sites such as Expedia, Travelocity and other top booking brands – it’s completely private. The travel deals are never made publicly available, which allows hotels and other travel brands to undercut public rates. According to Lin Dai, the Hooch app’s founder, Hooch is then able to negotiate extraordinary discounts and benefits, based on the active, aspirational travelers who naturally use the Hooch app. The app claims to offer discounts up to 60% off hotel standard rates. Whatever the real number, savings is savings if it can undercut the competition. In addition, the app uses its demographic to gain user benefits such as comp’d dessert, champagne or other gratis treats at top restaurants around the world.
The hooch app is free to download, and the basic $9.99 a month membership will still get you up to more than $300 of value per month via their “cocktail a day” offering. But for just $24.99 a month, the potential upside becomes exponential as valuable perks, conveniences via concierge and discounts via private sales are unlocked. When the app launched earlier this week, we quickly became subscribers of Hooch Black. Cocktails alone unlock more than the annual membership fee if you’re in a Hooch cocktail city such as Hong kong, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Miami, San Diego, Austin, Dallas and Northern New Jersey and time saved by having a concierge handle daily requests and needs could prove invaluable. You can download Hooch Black in the Apple or Android App Stores.
