It launches with a full-scale distribution partnership with Wall Street Journal Asia that will see it offer a co-branded site on asia.wsj.com.

Said CEO and founder, Steven Gong (pictured below), “We’re excited about the partnership, Wall Street Journal Asia is a massive brand that reaches millions of affluent users that are broadly spread across the Asia Pacific region.”

He declined to give details of the partnership.

The main site, ImpulseFlyer, and the co-branded site will offer the same deals. For Wall Street Journal Asia, the partnership “introduces their user base to a brand new service that caters to their demographic”, said Gong.

“There is no online travel brand that exists for affluent customers – sites like Agoda and Expedia are mass market brands,” he said. “They exist in Europe and the US, but not in Asia yet.

“We are the first private sale site to cater to the emerging affluent market in the region, offering stunning luxury and boutique hotels at members only prices. We will offer a site that consumers in Asia have not seen before.”

The user interface will be visually arresting, and friendly to use. It uses the badge system to identify different features of a hotel – such as free Internet, spa, or any awards it has won – so that customers will be able to quickly identify the property that suits their needs. Each sale will last seven days. Impulse Flyer works on a commission basis.

Asked if he had met resistance from hotel brands who fear such sites compromising rate parity, Gong said, “Yes we have but we tell them we are different.

“One, we are a private sale. Two, the type of customers we are able to deliver. Three, we don’t do coupons – coupons are problematic and inflexible for customers and create admin issues for hoteliers.

“We have a real time booking engine – guaranteed availability, instant confirmation – just as you would buy from an OTA.”

Gong added, “Most of the rate parity problems come from public deal sites. We fence in the deal and people have to apply for membership.” He declined to reveal membership criteria.

He shares a personal anecdote as to why his business model will work. “I love to travel and I love staying in luxury boutique hotels. I went to one in Phuket once, it was a fantastic deal, 40% off. The deal was so good I stayed in the penthouse – stunning. I came back, told my friends about it. When I returned to Phuket, I chose the same hotel, stayed in the same room category and paid full price – I had done it before and I understood the value of what I was getting.

“I am not cost conscious but the deal was the carrot – and they captured me as a customer for life.”

Gong said the aim is to be supplier friendly and he intends to work with both branded and independent boutique hotels.

“We will never buy branded keywords on search engines – how can u call yourself a partner and do that? We are completely against that – we want to give you incremental customers, not those who will book directly with you.”

The site will open with deals in Thailand, Hawaii, Vietnam and Cambodia. Most of the deals will be in Asia Pacific destinations since most of the travel is intra-regional.

He doesn’t see ImpulseFlyer as a channel for distressed inventory but “another marketing channel, based on conversion, that exposes the hotel to a very specific affluent audience base”.

It’s also not to displace OTA bookings or direct bookings but “it’s all about filling the rooms that they haven’t been able to sell”.

Self-funded thus far, ImpulseFlyer was built from the ground up with a team of developers in Singapore. “We thought of outsourcing but it would have been a large trade-off. To manage that team remotely would have been incredibly difficult especially when we are building a brand new product.”