One of the major advantages of using an opaque site like Hotwire is that travellers really can same lots of money on hotel bookings. However, travellers may be concerned about using this travel site because the name of the hotel is not released until after you book. With some research, it is possible to have your hotel name on Hotwire revealed before you reserve using the steps outlined below.
Hotwire Overview
As a primer, here is an overview of how Hotwire works. Hotels with excess inventory sell would rather sell off their rooms than let them go vacant. In order to not dilute their brand or anger customers who paid regular rates, hotels sell their rooms through Hotwire at deep discounts. The catch is the name of your hotel is not revealed until after a purchase is made. You book your hotel, then find out what hotel you receive. This is a major drawback for many travellers who want to eliminate risk by determine their hotel in advance.
Hotwire Revealed – Step By Step
Here is a method to reveal your Hotwire hotel in 3 steps.
1. Go to Hotwire and decide what hotel you want. If you are not familiar with Hotwire, you will need to enter in your hotel selection criteria such as your dates of travel, city, etc. This step is fairly easy to do. Once you have narrowed down your selection and see a hotel you’re interested in, makee not of the information about the hotel such as the hotel area, rating, and amenities.
Here is an example in the image below. As you can see, you can find out certain information about this hotel but the name of the hotel is not revealed. This is a major risk, and if you are like most Hotwire customers, it would take a lot of risk out of the game if you knew the hotel name. Observe the following information that is displayed on Hotwire: This is a 4.5 star hotel in the Financial District – Embarcadero area of San Francisco with the following hotel amenities: pet-friendly, fitness center, restaurant(s) and business center.
2. Compare Hotwire details against known hotels: HotelDealsRevealed.com has a Hotwire forum where travellers post their actual purchase details such as the star rating, area, and amenities. Of course, the hotel name is also provide. This information is then collected and compiled into lists of hotels known to be available on Hotwire. We have literally thousands of hotels for virtually every city throughout North America. To have your the name of your hotel on Hotwire revealed, you simply need to compare the information from Hotwire to the info on the hotel list.
Continuing with the sample, the San Francisco Hotwire hotel list shows a hotel in the Financial District with a 4.5 star rating, and hotel amenities coming very close to the data displayed on the Hotwire website. There is no guarantee this hotel will end up being the Omni San Francisco hotel, but there is a very high likelihood.
3. Understanding risks and making a judgement call: It is best to avoid Hotwire altogether if you want or need the assurance of a particular hotel. As well, there are several risks associated with using Hotwire in addition to not knowing the name of the hotel (e.g., your purchase is non-refundable). This method of revealing Hotwire hotels is not guaranteed, and therefore, it is particularly important you understand the risks and only use the lists as a guide for what hotel you might get. Here are some reasons why its risky:
- Hotel changes: hotels open and close, change hands, renovate, and change amenities all the time. HotelDealsRevealed does its best to stay on top of these changes but we rely on forum members to post their Hotwire purchase details.
- Hotwire likes to change things up: I do not know if this is intentional or not, but Hotwire changes hotel area boundaries all the time. For whatever reason, we also see hotel amenities appear one day and not the next. You will not always get a perfect match, but will usually get close and narrow down your possibilities to a few hotels.
- We rely on crowd sourcing: That is, we rely on the goodwill of fellow travellers to post their wins. And fortunately, we get lots of people willing to share their winning bid info. However, we simply do not get enough. The most accurate hotel lists, and thus your best chance at revealing your Hotwire hotel, are in the most popular cities: San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, and Orlando.
While is not always possible to have your hotel name on Hotwire revealed in advance, it is very must possible to at least narrow it down to 1 or 2 choices. This greatly reduces the risk associated with bidding for travel on sites such as Hotwire.
Additional Resources
Here are some additional resources for booking a hotel on Hotwire.
- Hotwire and Priceline Forum: An online community where customers share their winning bids and other information about their purchases.
- Hotel Lists: Use these to compare against the data to identify your hotel.
- Complaints: As mentioned, Hotwire is not without some risks and caveats. See what other people are saying about Hotwire before using their site.