has anyone booked a "mystery" hotel thru Hotwire?

[raptorfan]

When checking their website their discounted hotels don't give you a name until you have completed a booking. Has anyone done this? What was the outcome? Really nice? Rat trap in the middle of nowhere?
I'm just interested to see if anyone has any experience booking a hotel this way.

[Kalcium]

biddingfortravel and betterbidding have a list of all possible hotels on Hotwire. You can pretty guess the name of the hotel by matching their star ranking and facilities. Personally, I won't book anything lower than 3-star.

www.biddingfortravel.com
www.betterbidding.com

[newfbc]

I've used Hotwire several times.. the hotels always live up to the star rating. I've gotten deals at Crown Plaza in Seattle, Intercontinental and Westin in Toronto, etc.

Ron.

[PC-stuff]

biddingfortravel and betterbidding have a list of all possible hotels on Hotwire. You can pretty guess the name of the hotel by matching their star ranking and facilities. Personally, I won't book anything lower than 3-star.

www.biddingfortravel.com
www.betterbidding.com


Ditto. If you have the time, you can narrow it down to one or two
before bidding. I've recently used Hotwire for the 1st time and was
very pleased with the hotel and the 30%+ savings over the regular
hotel rate.

See the following thred for comments on a "Priceline" stay & my "Hotwire" stay
http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=251893

[cko64]

It's no mystery at all. With Hotwire, first check the location and date you want to book, then write down the amenities of the listed hotels. Now, go to the package deals such as "Car Rental plus Hotel" and input the same location and date. The selection is now smaller but hotel's names are now revealed. Compare the amenities of the hotel and find out if that's the hotel you want to stay. You should able to narrow down to the exact hotel you are bidding.

Although Hotwire is general more expensive than Priceline, but I prefer Hotwire because I am pretty certain which hotel I am booking for.

I stayed at more Hirewire's hotels than Priceline's.

As for betterbidding and biddingfortravel, they are valuable websites to find out which hotels you are bidding, but hotel inventory changes and you may not get the same hotels as the previous posters. And some of the hotel list is so out of date, over a year old, so you may not booking for the same hotel. It happened to me before.

[Homefry]

I love Hotwire!

I have booked many hotels through it, in Cleveland, Boston, Los Angeles, Detroit, and San Francisco. I always get a great deal, and stay in a hotel with good location, and name (i.e. Hilton Garden Inn, Westin, Renassance, Hilton).

[raptorfan]

[QUOTE=cko64]It's no mystery at all. With Hotwire, first check the location and date you want to book, then write down the amenities of the listed hotels. Now, go to the package deals such as "Car Rental plus Hotel" and input the same location and date. The selection is now smaller but hotel's names are now revealed. Compare the amenities of the hotel and find out if that's the hotel you want to stay. You should able to narrow down to the exact hotel you are bidding.

thanks very much, i figured it out that way!

[HighFlyer]

I deal mainly with Priceline as I can often get 4* hotels for less than the price of 3* hotwire hotels. That said, I still use hotwire if it's known (via BFT or BB) that there is a 'bad' hotel in the star rating and zone that I'm bidding for. Of course, there are no guarantees as I've had to deal with staying at a couple of 4* fleabags.