Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - CLT: Hotwire cheaper than Priceline!

Question: How often have you found HW to be cheaper than PL?

I'm laying comfortably in my bed at the 3* Doubletree in Gateway Village, Charlotte, NC.

I bought my room on HW for $52++, the point at which I stopped bidding on PL. I found that to be very odd.

Oh well... love the cookies!

This is strictly a guess: The hotel may allocate separate inventories for PL and for HW. When you did your bidding, the PL allocation may have been sold out, but at least one room remained in the HW inventory.

This is strictly a guess: The hotel may allocate separate inventories for PL and for HW. When you did your bidding, the PL allocation may have been sold out, but at least one room remained in the HW inventory.

That's it, exactly. Different room pools.

Question: How often have you found HW to be cheaper than PL?



Never!
I look at Hotwire only to get an idea about prices .. and I always got much better prices at Priceline.
Actually, I found the Hotwire prices rather high.

Last week I booked a hotel in KC...

Hotwire had a hotel in the district where I wanted to stay for $59...so I did multiple bids on PL. When my bid was still not accepted by PL, I just booked the property with HW.

Also booked a midsized car at LGA for a weekend in May for $28/day using HW! Didn't even consider bidding via PL because the cheapest rates I was finding otherwise was around $75/day. Figured the savings were significant enough to book it before I possibly did not see it again...

Hotwire overrates many of their hotels (vs. Priceline). So I hope all those that think they are bidding on Priceline for the same hotel class have done their homework to figure out the Hotwire hotel. In many cases, you are comparing apples to oranges (or Lemons in Hotwire's case). Beware.

Priceline has always seemed to work better for me than Hotwire, although I never have bid anything less than a 4* through either one.

Hotwire overrates many of their hotels (vs. Priceline). So I hope all those that think they are bidding on Priceline for the same hotel class have done their homework to figure out the Hotwire hotel. In many cases, you are comparing apples to oranges (or Lemons in Hotwire's case). Beware.

True, but I've found Hotwire in the past 6 months or so has downgraded many properties. One example would be the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins in San Francisco. For a long time it was 4.5 on Hotwire, then 4.0, now 3.5. On Priceline, it's a 4 star.

I've also noticed on a number of occasions lately where the price gap has narrowed between Priceline & Hotwire. This is not an across-the-board change, but rather in select cities I've researched.

If the scenario is such that a particular Priceline zone has a hotel I don't care to stay at, I'm often happy to pay more and go the Hotwire route where I can identify the property I would like to stay (and avoid the one I don't!).

Once. I got a better deal in Somerville, MA on the weekend of the Boston Marathon on Hotwire. Hotwire came in at $83 total including taxes & fees, and Priceline turned up nothing for that. The only other time I've used Hotwire over Priceline was recently in London when Hotwire showed a hotel I was pretty certain was the Waldorf Hilton - and it was. It was worth the few dollars more per night to be certain.

I have done a lot of traveling, hotel booking, and homework and have found that it is very common for Hotwire to give 4 or 3.5 Stars to most of the hotels that Priceline has as a 3 Star. I also really appreciate the apparent contracts that Priceline has with Hyatt. These are very nice hotels that can often be won at rediulously good prices!....just be aware - parking will almost always be an addition 20 bucs. :D

I ALMOST always get a better price on Priceline, but on a few rare occasions I've done better with Hotwire.

The few times I scored with Hotwire, it was because I could identify the Hotwire property with certainty and knew that it was what I wanted, and the price differential with the not-so-certain Priceline property was fairly minimal.

I just found an example over on www.betterbidding.com where Hotwire awarded the Vienna hotel Le Meridien to a person as a 5* hotel. Priceline has it on their retail side (so presumably the same on their bidding side) as a 4*.
I've always loosely figured there could be a 1/2* difference in the ratings, but this is a full star!

Romelle

Hotwire overrates many of their hotels (vs. Priceline). So I hope all those that think they are bidding on Priceline for the same hotel class have done their homework to figure out the Hotwire hotel. In many cases, you are comparing apples to oranges (or Lemons in Hotwire's case). Beware.

I found out that HW is very fair.
I bought a three star hotel on HW, but when it was revealed, I checked the
property against Trip Advisor, who rated it a two star.
I called HW, and asked for a supervisor. She called back, after checking
Trip Advisor, and agreed that the property was listed incorrectly.
Amazingly, HW credited my account, and said that they would downgrade the property.

I ALMOST always get a better price on Priceline, but on a few rare occasions I've done better with Hotwire.

The few times I scored with Hotwire, it was because I could identify the Hotwire property with certainty and knew that it was what I wanted, and the price differential with the not-so-certain Priceline property was fairly minimal.

Recently, my experience has been the exact opposite.
Hotwire has been less money and much less hastle than Priceline.
Eight out of ten times.

Never!
I look at Hotwire only to get an idea about prices .. and I always got much better prices at Priceline.
Actually, I found the Hotwire prices rather high.

Just your experience. As has been pointed out, hotwire does sometimes beat priceline for equivalent rated properties.

As was stated, the buyer needs to do their homework to be sure they are looking at similar properties. It is not easy but with some research and the help of betterbidding.com it is possible.

I know I have gotten hotels in Anchorage through Hotwire that priceline didn't offer or offered at a higher rate. I knew the rating of the hotels on each site so I was comparing apples with apples.

Happened to me in Orange County. I got the Hilton Disneyland for around $60 when I couldn't get any Priceline bids accepted at that price.

I always thought Hotwire tends to rate properties a little higher than Priceline would. So if it's 4 in HW, it would have to be 3.5 in PL.

Guess I could've been mistaken after all.

I just did a booking on Priceline and saw the property on Hotwire (3*) and bid successfully 30% under Hotwire on Priceline for the same dates. With Priceline you don't know the price until you bid and then you're free to quit while still below Hotwire. So why not try?

In most of my Priceline bids, I have been able to save approximately 20% off the lowest price available on Hotwire. Sometimes, the difference has been 40%. This is especially in larger cities where there is a lot of availability.

On occasion, Hotwire has inventory when Priceline does not. On at least two occasions, I have been able to get a Saturday night only booking in Las Vegas using Hotwire when it was unavailable on Priceline.

I have a real problem with the Hotwire ranking system. On one occasion, the hotel was outside of the bidding zone. In another, a clearly 1* Best Value Inn in Texarkana was rated 2.5*. Wow, what a dump.

Only in a very small percentage of bookings have I ever found the hotwire offering to be cheaper than what Priceline was providing. In two of the three instances, the purchases came with problems. In one, the hotel was not close to the star rating that was reported by Hotwire. After a complaint listing reviews from Trip Advisor, a nice credit was added to my account.

On another booking for a same day reservation, the hotel was sold-out of non-smoking rooms and I was told by the desk-clerk that that been the case for several days. Our relative that was to use the room had severe asthma and was unable to stay there. Now I know that smoking preference isn't guaranteed, but both Hotwire and Priceline represent that they put in non-smoking requests when you purchase your room. Anyone else see a problem with a property posting inventory on websites that request non-smoking rooms when the property knows they have no non-smoking rooms left for that day?

The times that I've found Hotwire to have advantages over Priceline is when a specific room type or amenity is needed, for example, an airport shuttle. Since Hotwire pricing changes based upon the number of occupants, I'm concluding that the inventory entered in the system is in most cases taking into account room capacity, something that we know Priceline doesn't do. I'll admit to not being up on the Hotwire terms and I know I've seen some say that they only guarantee double occupancy, but I know that if I search for two people and then search for four people I get different prices and not all of the same hotels. This is a huge plus when booking in situations where you can't be left hanging with just a single bed.