The Site: Hotwire.com
- Hotwire Hot Rate hotels – prices guaranteed* lower than any other travel site, through unsold hotel rooms (extra hotel inventory)
- Claims that airline suppliers use Hotwire.com to sell their unsold seats at wholesale airfare prices, sometimes at savings of 40% off*
- Hotwire Guarantees you won’t find a lower price, or they will double the difference*
- No payments for 90 days on bookings over $250 with Hotwire ‘Bill Me Later’
- Flexible date searching for flights – search for the lowest rates within a 30 day time-period
- Two airfare types: Limited and Retail. Limited (wholesale) airfares can save you up to 40% or more, but you don’t see the airline name and exact time departure times until after you book. Retail Fares show flight details before you book.
Search Hotwire You can defer payments for 90 days with ‘Bill Me Later’.
The Good:
The cheap hotel prices. Okay, we admit the Hotwire travel site is different. When you search for a hotel, you do not see the actual names of the hotels. You will be provided with a “price”, a “location” (an exact neighborhood), and a “star rating”. So, you need to be a little flexible here, and not too picky about the hotel brand.
We highly suggest booking only “4 star” hotels or “5 star” hotels on Hotwire, because there have been reports that their “star rating” is not at all consistant with what you would find on other hotel reviews. For instance, if you book a “3.5 star” hotel room, it could be a Holiday Inn, Radisson, DoubleTree or even less “fancy” than those well-known hotel brands. Whereas, a “4 star” on Hotwire is supposed to be more like a Hyatt, but the prices are still lower than we found elsewhere. Do not count out the “3.5-star’s”, especially in areas where 4 star hotels do not exist, as some smashing deals can be found here (we’ve seen $26* a night). Keep in mind, the quality of a Hotwire 3.5 star hotel may not be what you typically would expect of a 3.5 star hotel as rated on another travel site.
The Hotwire travel site is easy to navigate and fast…”git-er-done” fast. Since Hotwire’s search engine doesn’t pull up 100’s of hotel names and reviews to search through, you generally only have a few choices based on star rating and neighborhood. Hotwire is by far the quickest travel site to get a hotel. We are also fans of Hotwire’s 30-day flexible airline search. You can quickly find the cheapest days for airfare to your destination, and the wholesale clearance prices are tough to beat.
The Bad:
It is a little more difficult to book a hotel on Hotwire in a city that you are unfamiliar with, as you may not know which neighborhood to book your hotel in. Always check the “map & details” feature to help pin-point the location. Don’t try to book a “vacation package” on Hotwire if you are from a small town. Hotwire’s list of “origin” cities is a little short, and your hometown may not be listed. Finally, keep in mind that hotels booked on Hotwire are never refundable, so you really need to make sure of your travel plans before you book.
The Fees *:
- No booking fee for airfare.
- Variable booking fee for hotels (based on the amount and location of the reservation), which is not refundable.
- “Limited Rate” (clearance) Flights: Completely non-refundable and non-changeable.
- “Hotwire Rate” (retail) Flights: $35 fee by Hotwire.com to change a flight (when allowed by airline), plus any applicable airline charges and penalties.
- Hotels are completely non-refundable and non-changeable.
- Hotels booked with “Book with Assurance“, are cancellable within 60 minutes of booking the hotel. The refund will be in “Hot Dollars”, which are good for any future Hotwire.com purchase.
*Based solely on research done by TravelSiteCritic.com. May be inaccurate, or subject to change. Verify on Hotwire prior to booking. Reviews disclosure
The Deals *:
Rental cars from $13.95* a day. No hidden fees
Las Vegas – 5-star – from $79* per night
New York City – 4-star – from $112* per night
Chicago – 4-star – from $59* per night
Rome – 4-star – from $39* per night
London – 4-star – from $49* per night
San Francisco – 4.5-star – from $109* per night
Hotwire is such a disaster you have to wonder who runs it. You can get good prices on car rentals, but hotel bookings are a total disaster and customer service is a site out of Russia where all they are allowed to say is “No”.
Hotwire is a complete scam at times and has been targeted by a variety of consumer complaint agencies. Not sure how they stay in business.
Used hotwire.com to book a hotel in the Florida Keys. During booking, it promised a 3.5 star hotel, stating “You’ll always get instant confirmation at a brand-name hotel”, followed with “Our 3.5-star hotel suppliers include: Hilton, Millennium, Crowne Plaza, and other respected hotel brands”.
Once booked, it revealed the hotel to be Ocean Pointe Suites Key Largo. I’ve never heard of Ocean Pointe before, so I dont count that as a brand name. It turns out that there is only one of them, in Key Largo, so I fail to see how that makes it a “brand name” hotel. Up the road from where we stayed was a Hilton, and a Marriott – so high level hotels were in the area.
Our room contained a queen bed and a pull out sofa. Technically, that is enough for the group of 3 we had. However, the pull out sofa was in a state of extreme disrepair (I would guess it had been used as a trampoline by many children) as the matress supporting canvas was stretched and was missing half its springs. The mattress itself was thin and full of wires – it was even uncomfortable when placed on the floor seperate to the unsleepable sofa.
I would think that the Hilton hotels would not like to be compared to a similar level of quality as to what we were sold.
I wrote to hotwire.com to explain the problem and received a response no better than a copy-paste of their terms and conditions.
Don’t use hotwire.com!
Have had a very good run with Hotwire. The exception was recently when I was given a hotel which had atrocious reviews. Called them and they rebooked me at another property. Some of the hotels I have been given have been around half the price I could get elsewhere.
I had an awful experience with Hotwire. I will never use them again and I suggest you don’t either. I needed to find a hotel room in Seattle with two days heads up. I didn’t have many options, and location was more important than comfort so I went with a 2*. The hotel was fine except hotwire booked me into a SMOKING ROOM WITHOUT EVER TELLING ME. I double checked my confirmation email and there was NOTHING alluding to a smoking-ok room. I’m sure there was something hidden in the fine print during the booking process, but my god how sleazy. I felt like I took a few years off my life sleeping in that musty room. I talked to the hotel about it and they said hotwire does it to people all the time. They couldn’t move me because the hotel was full… of course. I will never use hotwire again.
Twitter: Pamela_Jones
says:
Yep, sounds like your experience is not unique. If you use a site like Hotwire or Priceline, I recommend that you only book hotels rated as 4 star hotels to avoid a horrible situation such as the one mentioned here. Hotwire does still have cheap rates on 4 stars compared to the competiton, but they are not always available at your destination. Remember that you get what you pay for.
We booked a room through Hotwire.com in Williamsburg, VA. Arrived at the hotel at 11:15ish pm with three adults and three children and upon arrival we found out there was no reservation. Hotwire cannot rebook you after 11pm and every hotel was full. What a lousy night thanks to Hotwire.com. Hotwire had three days to notify us that the room was not booked. That would have saved us a ton of stress. We had just driven over five hours and needed our hotel room. Never use Hotwire.com! And triple check your current reservation with the hotel. Hotwire.com took over thirty minutes to answer our phone call and they were helpless!!
Do not ever, EVER, book a hotel through HOTWIRE. You may read one thing in the details of the hotel and when you find out which hotel it is, you are given something else. It’s like pulling teeth to get a refund, but it can be done (after contacting the hotel and speaking to a supervisor so that they can approve your cancelation and then calling Hotwire’s corporate office). The representatives that work for Hotwire, know how horrid their company is. No one can actually help you. Here is a side note…. most of the hotels that the website use are for business class travelers. So if you are 2 grown people that need separate beds, don’t be surprised if you are given one bed big enough for two people. Hell no!!! Just pay extra for another website, where you can see which hotel you are actually booking for. And, if they tell you that they don’t/can’t do refunds… don’t believe it. It can be done!!!
We booked a hotel room on Hotwire and had to change due to the noise and lack of cleanness! Never use Hotwire! We try to contact them and they don’t do anything!
I wish I had checked Hotwire out before reviewing. I got charged an additional 25% in “fees and taxes”. And funny enough, these fees and taxes don’t count for the low price guarantee! Because of that instead of a $14 dollar rebate, Hotwire gave me $2. Then I got stuck in a smoking room because there weren’t any non-smoking available. Oh yeah, and Hotwire’s price was $1 less than if I had purchased at the hotel desk.
Don’t ever book a package with Hotwire! I know I never will again! I booked a Hotel Room because it was listed as being located in Scottsdale. Surprise! It wasn’t. It was 30 miles from Scottsdale! I figured, “Oh, they just made a mistake, I’ll call and they’ll fix it.” No they wouldn’t. And, they were rude and unprofessional. Disconnected me three times just because they didn’t want to deal with it. NEVER AGAIN FOR HOTWIRE!!!
Don’t book with hotwire. They will not help you after they get your money. They DO NOT HAVE THE LOWEST DEAL. USE EXPEDIA. I have always used expedia and they are much better and you know what you are getting.