Hotwire gave me a hostel bed!
 

Hi all, I'd appreciate some advice please.

I made an opaque Hotwire booking for central Madrid yesterday. 2*, near Sol, a bargain at £16 for a night. However, then the name of the "hotel" was revealed, it turns out to be a hostel. Fine, thinks me, plenty of hostels have private rooms (and their website confirms this to be the case). However, I email the hostel anyway to confirm I will have a private room. They have replied in the negative. No, I have a bed in an 8 bed dorm room, and there are no refunds.

Clearly I'm not happy at this. I was always under the impression Hotwire and Priceline only offered private rooms via their opaque booking sections. Is this the case? Should I approach Hotwire now?

Many thanks

Steve

Wow - yes, I would definitely get in touch with Hotwire!

I see that their T&Cs only states that "a room will be determined based on the number of persons in the booking, and assigned at check-in", so I don't know what their stance would be.

Get in touch with Hotwire, and if that fails, do a credit card chargeback.

Does Hotwire say anywhere that their "hotel" rooms all have private bathrooms (meaning at least ensuite sink, toilet, and shower and.or bath)? Clearly an eight bed hostel rooms doesn't satisfy this.

I looked at the Madrid listings on Expedia. There are a lot of less expensive hotels with "Hostal" in their name, which does not mean the same as "hostel". They are all listed with single or double rooms. The OP should look at the Expedia listing for the property that was booked. I noticed that things on Hotwire are as low as $15 a night for things that normally cost $50 and nothing for that price on Expedia is a dorm room. Some do have shared baths and are ultra-cheap.

I had something very similar to this happen to me in Anchorage. I contacted Hotwire about it and they canceled the booking.

Any follow up? Is this something one should expect when booking with hotwire? Are there higher star level hostels in their inventory too? Maybe a 4 star hostel that gets 4 stars because of it's location or something.

Hello all,

My first two emails to Hotwire about this issue received a "we don't guarantee private rooms, only that your room will sleep the number of people you request, and there's no refund" response from two different customer service agents. I then call up using Skype, and speak to the wonderful Daniel who confirms my view that you can only win a private room via Hotwire's opaque "Hot Deals" system. Daniel is extremely apologetic and happily processes my refund. Two days later, I checked Madrid again for the same dates and sure enough, a 2* "room" at £16 was being offered in the same zone (no reviews or note about amenities) which I fully expect to be the same dorm bed. I take a screenshot and email Hotwire, once again asking for written confirmation that you cannot "win" anything other than a private room via "Hot Deals". Finally, I receive a written response confirming that this is the case.

Success! If this happens to you, my advice is to be persistent and you will get a refund.

Noted. I have no problem staying anywhere, be it hotel, hostel or hostal, just so long as the room is private and there's a lock on the door. Even shared bathroom is fine. I'll probably end up booking one of these through Expedia or Hotels.com. My Hotwire "win" was definitely a dorm bed though as I emailed the property in question (TOC Hostel) to check, and they were selling dorm beds for around £16. Their private rooms were £55+. I wonder if the problem was how they were supplying the information to Hotwire?

When Hotwire gave me a hotel in the "wrong" location, they offered me $50 HotDollars for the inconvenience. Did they offer you anything for such a mistake?

That's unbelievable. I knew Hotwire had lowered their standards, but that is downright horrible. I mean, with opaque booking, you put a lot of faith in what they're telling you. You have to because you can't check out TripAdvisor reviews or photos. So then they turn around and stick you in a hostel.... pathetic. I'd be outraged if it were me.

No HotDollars were offered, or asked for on my part to be fair, as I didn't lose out on any money or end up actually staying in the hostel bed.

To round this off, though, I have to say Hotwire's customer service has been really good since my initial phone call to them. At the end of last week, one of their corporate customer relations executives left me a long and very apologetic voicemail, explaining how this happened and how they are working hard to ensure it does not happen again. I get the impression this isn't quite an isolated issue, although is by no means widespread, and is down to how the hostels in question are supplying data to Hotwire. He once again confirmed that with a Hot Rate booking, you are guaranteed a private room with private bath, and also backed this up with an email.

So if you do end up with a dorm bed via Hot Rates, get in touch with Hotwire and they'll sort it out.

I am sorry you experienced this but however if I saw $15 the first thing that would pop into my head especially in Europe would be some sort of hostel situation.

When I go to Europe I look for 4 Stars for around $80-$100. If I see 1 star at $15 I know it must be a shared situation and avoid it.

However to your advantage Hotwire should list that some listings are Hostel situations and that you may be sharing a room.

When we think of Hotwire we think of Private Room/Private Bath hence I can see why you expected a private room.

Please keep us posted.

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This might be totally unrelated, but I got the CDG Marriott (either a 4* or 5*) for CA$20 (retail was ~400 euros that night) on Priceline's name your own bid. So FWIW, it's doable.

Yes doable but rare. And in the OP's situation I am pretty sure it would have been a 1 or 2 star hotel as no Hostel I know of would be 4 stars. Hence in your case you did extremely well and I would have booked this hotel for 4 or 5 stars at the cost you did but would skip 1-2 or 3 star hotels.

In Barcelona we got a Boutique Hotel for $90 per night. It was 4 stars in the Passeig Garcia on Hotwire. Not only did we score well but the first room they could not get the safe to work and some other things were wrong.

They upgraded us to their Junior Suite with a balcony. They comped Breakfast too all for no extra cost. Plus Cava was included every night and located in a great location next to good restaurants.

In Rome this past November we booked another Boutique hotel for $90 with this amazing view from the rooftop breakfast area of the Vatican . Our room was also very well appointed.

In Vegas we stayed at the Vdara for $95. Hotwire made the mistake of listing our room as a suite. The Vdara said the room we had was not a suite. So Hotwire paid the difference for a Fountain View Room that was larger.

At checkin as I was celebrating my birthday the first checkin agent put us on a lower floor. I went right away to a open agent and explained the situation and they upgraded us to their 1 bedroom Penthouse Suite with a view of the Fountains. No extra charge plus waived the Resort Fee. It also included a Buffet at the Aria which included Alcohol .

Its all about how you negotiate with the hotel ask politely for what you want etc.