pinworm

Hotwire is pretty secretive about the locations of the hotel before you book it, but as I regulary go to the same cities, I have started to figure out what hotel is what on Hotwire using some basic deduction and knowledge of the city in question. It helps to know the area and the general star rating (outside hotwires own internal star rating systems)

For example, if you ever need to go to Tucson and search the area of North Tucscon/Oro Valley, you will see only one 4 star in the area..knowing the city, I know exactly what that is. Hiltons El Conquistador Spa and Resort. TAKE IT! HW offers it at about 79 per night, in house rate tends to be 125, even in summer. So when I plan my quarterly Tucson visit, I just book it through HW knowing exactly what I am getting.

When I need to go to Vegas, I look for the ONLY 4.5 star on "Central Strip"..it's Caesars. This tends to be only available in summer. 152 per night inhouse is 71 on HW. In summer, I look for this and book it KNOWING it's Ceasars Palace.

I am sure others have similar knowledge, and I cannot think of a better place for it then here..

I could certainly use some info on Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, St. Louis, Denver, Colorado Springs, Toronto, and Des Moines if anyone has figured out a HW "unknown known"

crhptic

There's already an extensive board dedicated to this at betterbidding.com. In the interest of maximizing the utility of that board by keeping as much of this information in one centralized repository as possible, I think it makes more sense to encourage people to post this information over there rather than start a thread at FT for the same purpose. Put another way, I'd rather only have to check one place to find this info than two, and since betterbidding.com is free I don't see how starting a thread here with duplicate information helps anyone.

luv2buynfly

I concur with the last poster. Betterbidding has build a great community for this specifically and contributing there will only help to strengthen and make it better. Their forums are setup for this and I don't really seem them competing with FT

B1

Anyone using Hotwire that much is missing out on lower costs for the same stuff at Priceline. If you are having such success with Hotwire, try the same zone on Priceline and bid less, not more.

zbenye

Especially helpful is the Winning Bid Calendar on betterbidding.com.

BEAV

Can't argue with you when it comes Priceline normally being less than Hotwire. However if I'm hoping to target a specific hotel, Hotwire is offering it and it's easily identifiable, I will often go that route over the more opaque, cheaper Priceline.

B1

That's saying Hotwire ranges from opaque to transparent. I'd rate Priceline as opaque to semi-transparent. But if what you need is absolute transparency, neither can be trusted.

eclipse_boi

I agree that neither site is transparent as even though you may think you know the hotel on Hotwire, there is a chance that you could end up with a different hotel with the same amenities, especially in larger cities.