FlyBalletGuy

I just had a strange experience on Hotwire and wondered if anyone had a similar issue or could enlighten.

Hotwire gives 5% cashback from Discover Card's ShopDiscover portal - the best cashback for it I know of.

Without using the portal, I saw a hotel in London listed as being $62/nightly - $124 for 2 nights + fees of $53 - $177 total. I didn't have time to book immediately, so I went home. A few hours later I went through Discover's portal. Same hotel (at least it probably was - same amenities, etc) $59 nightly but $73 in fees - $191 total.

I called customer service to ask why fees were so high. The CSR was no help (and basically either did not understand or avoided my question.) I went back to the office, did not go through the portal and used IE instead of Firefox - the price and fees went back to the same total $177. I left that window open, deleted cookies in Firefox and tried again to go through ShopDiscover. Back to $73 in fees. I tried deleting cookies and going through FatWallet. Same result.

I booked without cashback on the IE window I had left open. I wonder, was this just an aberration or is Hotwire absorbing cashback portal affiliate fees by bundling them into their fees?

FlyBalletGuy

Sorry to follow myself up, but I checked with another booking in Barcelona. This booking was $132/night and the same booking produced the same fees with or without an affiliate link. So the problem in London was either an aberration or perhaps something kicks in to bump up the fees if the price with cashback becomes less than Hotwire paid for the room?

Moflav

I had problems with Hotline as well. They were a little different in that no affiliate links were not used. I'd been watching a 3.5 star room in San Francisco for more than a week. The day I wanted to purchase, the fee was higher by about $30. It was getting close to the date I needed the room so I went ahead and booked. The next day, the same 3.5 star room was $30 less. Makes you wonder.

gleff

there are past threads here on different hotwire prices based on different browsers, which always seemed strange -- either a glitch in hotwire's algorithms, random (although it seemed conssitent and reproducable) or hotwire believed that users of some browsers were savvier and more price sensitive than others.

BEAV

How many nights did you book? If only a one night stay, I would tend to wonder if a $30 fluctuation meant Hotwire was displaying different properties (both 3.5 stars, however) on different days. To your knowledge, were the amenity icons the same day after day?

Moflav

I carefully checked the amenity icons. They were the same. I booked the Hyatt at Fisherman's Wharf for one night. Will spent the next three nights at Meadowood in Napa