Recipe · Hotels API
Rate-parity check with Claude Desktop
Identical calls except price_as_seen_from (the REST field is proxy_country), a two-letter code that prices the stay as a shopper in that country would see it. Ask each market more than once: in a controlled run on 2026-08-28, Germany and Japan answered with the same number every time while the US market moved between identical requests. The agent compares the ranges and calls a gap real only when one market’s whole range sits below the other’s.
Free tier on RapidAPI. No card to try.
Step 1 · Connect
Add to claude_desktop_config.json
Settings → Developer → Edit Config, paste the block under mcpServers, restart Claude Desktop. On a Mac the file is ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json. The key lives in that file, never in the conversation.
{
"mcpServers": {
"hotels": {
"url": "https://hotels.flightpowers.com/mcp",
"headers": { "x-rapidapi-key": "YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY" }
}
}
}Bring your own RapidAPI key: every request is billed to your own subscription, never ours.
Step 2 · Ask it
The prompt
Verbatim: paste it, or anything shaped like it. The agent maps it to the call below.
“Price the Rixos Sungate in Antalya for Oct 5–10 as seen from Germany and from Japan. Ask each market three times.”
Step 3 · Under the hood
What the agent calls
No glue code: the agent reads the tool schema, picks the tool, and fills these parameters from your prompt.
// find_hotel_by_name
{
"hotel_name": "Rixos Sungate Antalya",
"checkin_date": "2026-10-05",
"checkout_date": "2026-10-10",
"price_as_seen_from": "de"
}Step 4 · Read the response
Fields your logic reads
The response is flat JSON. These are the fields this recipe branches on, with what each one means.
availablebooleanFalse means sold out for the dates: the response keeps the same shape with nulls, so parsing never branches on an error format.
price_stringstringThe total rate for the stay as Booking.com displays it: “US$2,434”.
pricenumberThe same rate as a plain number, for comparing quotes across markets or dates.
room_typestringWhich room the rate belongs to: compare like with like across markets.
Questions, answered plainly
- Is my key billed to me?
- Yes. The MCP server is bring-your-own-key: Claude Desktop sends your RapidAPI key with each call and usage meters against your own subscription on RapidAPI. There is no FlightPowers account and no second bill.
- Does this need a server of mine?
- No. The MCP servers are hosted at flights.flightpowers.com and hotels.flightpowers.com: you add a URL to Claude Desktop, not a deployment.
- What does it cost?
- The Booking.com Live API's free tier is 10 requests/month with a hard cap: enough to verify your key works, not to evaluate. The PRO plan is $10/month for 2,000 requests, and every plan includes every endpoint.
Also works with
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Free tier: 10 requests/month. No card to try.