Hotwire Hotel Help: Articles for Bidding Travelers - Page 3

Lake Buena Vista Resort on Hotwire

I recently got the Lake Buena Vista Resort on Hotwire for just $100 per night. This hotel was easy to reveal before I booked, even though the name is unpublished on Hotwire. See how to reveal the hotel name for this Orlando hotel, a great choice for families visiting Walt Disney World resort in Orlando.

Hotwire Complaints

People love to complain about Hotwire. You might be thinking that a site like HotelDealsRevealed.com was in support of Hotwire — we are, but we always advocate educating yourself about how it works because purchases are non-refundable. We also want to help travellers save money on travel, and that doesn’t always mean Hotwire. Here are some trips to help you avoid pitfalls and complaints against Hotwire.

How do I cancel a reservation on Hotwire? You can’t. When you book a hotel or other products using Hotwire Hot Rates, you can’t cancel your reservation. When you book, your credit card is charged and there is no cancelation clause. I have a bit of an inside scoop and I’m lead to believe that this will be changing soon. Hotwire will soon open up a very short cancelation window. Nothing confirmed quite yet.

Hotwire Hotel Ratings

One of the questions often asked in the Hotwire & Priceline Forum is, “Does Hotwire artificially inflate their hotel ratings?” In other words, is Hotwire maybe a little too generous with the hotel ratings you see on their site. For those who are unaware, hotels you purchase on Hotwire are non-refundable. Therefore it’s imperative to know if the rating is reliable or not. Unlike other sites, you cannot check out hotel ratings and reviews on TripAdvisor before you buy on Hotwire because you don’t know what hotel you’re getting. This makes it all the more important to have confidence in the hotel rating that you see before you buy.

Hotel Deals Revealed – New Home Page

Every so often, a website needs a homepage make-over.  HotelDealsRevealed is working on a new design.  Currently, we are trying out a new look on the homepage.  Have a look at the screenshot below. Homepage Features & Layout The new home page is divided into 4 main sections. The main body of the home page […]

Hotwire Hotels Revealed

Revealing Your Hotwire Hotel – As you probably know, when you book a hotel room on Hotwire, you don’t find out the name of your hotel until after you have booked. Fortunately for travellers using this site, there is a way to have your Hotwire hotel revealed. Hotwire has been around for well over a decade, and by now most people are familiar with the concept. You pay first (non-refundable) and then you find out what hotel you booked. Hotwire tells you certain information about a hotel such as the general vicinity, hotel rating, and the hotel amenities, but the actual name of the hotel is not revealed until after you pay.

Why does Hotwire not reveal the hotel name before you bid? Essentially, Hotwire sells off rooms for hotels that the hotel themselves cannot sell through direct bookings or other channels. Problem is that hotels want to sell off excess capacity, but they don’t want to frustrate existing customers who reserved at higher rates. Instead, hotels use services like HW where the name is not revealed until after you buy. This is usually a win-win for everybody involved.

Using United MilesPlus Miles for Hotwire Hotels

It was recently announced that members of the United Airlines Mileage Plus program can use their mile points to get Hotwire hotel rooms. Is this a good deal for members or should you use your points for flights instead? This is the question I wanted to answer.

How Hotwire Works: First a quick overview of Hotwire’s unpublished hotels. With Hotwire, you don’t know the name of the hotel until after you bid (that is, unless you use the Hotwire hotel lists to match up amenities to reveal the name of the hotel). All you know about the hotel star rating, general vacinity, and the hotel amenities.

United Points for Hotwire Hotels: Now, instead of using cash to book your Hotwire hotel, you can use United miles. My instincts tell me that generally, using points to buy 3rd party goods (whether it’s a hotel room or other) is not a good thing. There’s just too many players all wanting a piece of the pie. But I’m a numbers kind of guy, so I decided to put this to the test. My objective, take a few Hotwire offerings on United and see how many points were required to purchase a hotel. Then compare the same hotel to what you would have paid on Hotwire straight up. From this, you’d be able to deduce a price per point for Hotwire hotels purchased with United points.