Just when we thought it was safe to book on these opaque booking sites, comes another story of a hotel guest showing up at their selected hotel to find no room waiting for them.
Chris Elliott over at MSNBC posted this travel horror story of a couple that booked a holiday weekend stay in Las Vegas to attend a wedding for $952. They found the deal on Hotwire. The hotel they were given was the Wynn Las Vegas.
Yet when they arrived at the hotel, there was no reservation in their name. When we interviewed Clem Bason, Hotwire's VP of Merchandising, he said these stories only happen about 10 percent of the time. Well, keep reading to see what happens 10 percent of the time.
Here at HotelChatter we get all sorts of questions about booking hotel rooms such as where to book (boutique hotel or a place with a loyalty program?), how to book (phone or website?), how to get a cheap rate, how to get free upgrades and the always lovely "Can you hook me up with a free room?" (We can't.)
But we do realize that you have a lot of good questions about booking hotel rooms. So once a week we're running Everything You Wanted to Know About Booking Hotel Rooms where we will give you the latest news, advice, tips, and answers on booking a room. And just maybe we'll be able to hook you up with a free room after all.
This week we spent some time chatting with Clem Bason, the VP of Merchandising for Hotwire.
For those of you unfamiliar with Hotwire's hotel roulette, here's how it works: You select a hotel in a city that's has whatever location, star rating, and amenities that you desire. The price is listed but the hotel name is not.
Then once you select your hotel and hand over your credit card info, Hotwire tells you what hotel you will be staying in. You can't change the selection and the room is non-refundable. So it's truly for those on a budget or those who just want a bargain buy high which btw, is addicting and habit-forming.
Now Clem fills us in on some more advice about booking a hotel room on Hotwire.
Jazz Fest begins next weekend (April 25-27) in New Orleans and HotWire just announced some more hotel deals in case you still need a place to spend the night or two or three.
Remember HotWire is a blind booking site so it's really for those you want a deal rather than say gain some loyalty program points (although depending on which hotel you get, that might work out for you.)
Some deals for the first Jazz Fest weekend:
· 4.5-star hotel in Downtown New Orleans for $183 per room per night
· 4-star hotel in Downtown New Orleans for $129 per room per night
· 3-star hotel in French Quarter for $159 per room per night
· 3-star hotel in New Orleans Intl Airport MSY for $73 per room per night
We did some research on Betterbidding.com to see what hotels these deals might be at. The 4.5-star was tricky but a lot of people on the board think it's the Le Pavillion Hotel. For the 4-star in Downtown, we're gonna guess the Intercontinental.
The 3-star hotel in the French Quarter could be the Holiday Inn and the 3-star near the airport is probably the Radisson.
Got any scientific or unscientific guesses as to which hotels these might be? Help your fellow travelers out by putting your suggestions in comments below.
For this week's Good Rate and Bad Rate, we looked at D.C. hotels for Earth Day weekend, staying the nights of April 21 and 22. The Good Rate was at Kimpton's Hotel Palomar in Dupont Circle for $184 a night and the Bad Rate was paying at least $429 for a room with a view at the JW Marriott.
But what if you went the Hotwire route like we did in our story HOWTO Get a Hotel in Manhattan for Under $200? If your plans are solid and you can be flexible, it turns out you would score quite the deal. Here's a sampling of what's on tap for that same weekend of April 21 and 22:
4-star hotel in Dupont Circle - Embassy Row - $89
3-star hotel in Dupont Circle - Embassy Row - $79
4-star hotel in The White House - Capitol Hill - $127
3.5-star hotel in The White House - Capitol Hill - $103
3-star hotel in Georgetown - $96
3-star hotel in South of the Mall - $108
We're not sure "in the White House" is the proper terminology for that area since the Lincoln Bedroom is probably not up for sale that cheap, but semantic quibbling aside, a nice batch of deals. Checking out the message board at BetterBidding.com, we can get a pretty good sense of which ones these are by looking at the descriptions.
The 4-star in Dupont Circle is probably the Hilton Washington Towers, which is a steal. The White House 4-star is probably the Grand Hyatt Washington. The 3-star in Georgetown is probably the Holiday Inn. The 3-star one South of the Mall is a complete mystery though, so you're taking more of a chance there. If you're going to spend all day marching and mingling though, you can opt for one of these hotels and have plenty of money left for buying some locally grown organic produce and some fair trade coffee.
Sure, Priceline and Hotwire work great when you want to find a deal in the Bahamas or get a chain hotel room in bizcity, USA, but what about in the high-occupancy alternate universe known as New York City? Twice in past years we've gotten a room there for less than $150 through one of these services, but as demand has risen and supply has only slightly nudged up, how's it looking now?
Not all that bad, actually, assuming there's not some convention going on and it's not a holiday weekend. When we surfed over to the NYC message board at Bidding for Travel, here are some of the recent Priceline deals people have posted. All are total nightly rates with taxes and fees:
Hilton (midtown west) $174
Grand Hyatt (midtown east) $167
Paramount (midtown west) $195
Sheraton (midtown west--pictured here) $125
Hudson Hotel (Central Park) $181
Le Parker Meridien (upper midtown) $191
Some look at that whole bidding process as a game with a great payoff, but others find it too time-consuming and daunting. If you're in the latter camp, go to Hotwire and see what's on offer. If you do some sleuthing on BetterBidding.com, you'll often get a pretty clear idea of what hotels are hidden behind the descriptions.
When we pulled up next weekend (April 13-15), we found 18 hotels on offer, but most of them in the $200 to $300 range. The obvious deal was a 4-star hotel in midtown east for $175 (plus tax and fees). We didn't dig into the listing to figure out which one that is, but the likely culprits, based on previous transactions posted, are not a bad bunch: Grand Hyatt, W New York, Omni Berkshire, and Inter-Continental the Barclay. Your mileage may vary, but any one of those would be a bargain at that price.
There are drawbacks of course. You pay in advance, without knowing the hotel, so you've got to be sure you'll get to your destination on time. If you want a specific place and a specific experience, doing it this way is risky. If you just need a reliable hotel at a good price, however, do some sleuthing. You can grab a room that the hotel would rather part with at a discount than leave empty and make nothing. Everybody wins.
[Ed. Note: Welcome to our Good Rate/Bad Rate feature where we look at hotel prices in the same city and decide which one most deserves your hard-earned benjamins. Rates quotes here were valid from March 15 to 19, 2007 and are subject to change. Enjoy.]
Hotel companies have a love/hate relationship with Hotwire and Priceline. The managers moan that they're practically giving away rooms and they instill in their staffs a "look down your nose" attitude toward people who have booked a room this way. Then again, they love the fact that Hotwire and Priceline are very good at efficiently and quickly raising the occupancy level when a hotel is nowhere close to full. Can't live with them, can't live without them.
Which brings us to the Radisson Cable Beach in Nassau, Bahamas. Two weeks ago we scored a cheap last-minute plane fare to the
Bahamas, but didn't have a hotel booked. Our first choice was sold out (more on that one in another post) and prices at the ones still available were no bargain. It was Spring Break time after all. Enter Hotwire, which had an all-inclusive resort listed for the days we wanted, at only $215 per night with all taxes and fees.
Before hitting the buy button, we pulled up two stealth sites that keep you from being in the dark on what you're getting: BetterBidding.com and BiddingForTravel.com. After a little looking around, it was a pretty sure thing this listing was the Radisson Cable Beach Resort. So we read the TripAdvisor reviews and while they were mixed--a main complaint being ongoing renovations--overall they said, "You get what you expect." For $200 a night all-inclusive, we don't expect all that much, so we went ahead.
Sure enough, we got the Radisson. After a brief tussle at check-in (that "We love/hate Hotwire" thing again), all turned out fine. Beach, cocktails, decent food--that was all we needed and the Radisson Nassau delivered. A good rate indeed--as opposed to the Bad Rate we would have paid elsewhere.
With Hotwire, you've got to grab the deal when you find it though. When we tried again the day before departure just for kicks, our hotel was gone and there was only one choice listed for Nassau--from six the week before.
In a new J.D. Power and Associates survey, "opaque" booking site Hotwire makes customers the happiest.
When you book on Hotwire.com, you don't know for sure which hotel you are getting. You know the general location, the price, and the star level. For a whole lot of travelers, that's good enough.
In a J.D. Power and Associates survey of "6,800 consumers who booked their travel reservation through an independent Web site, Hotwire scored the best ratings.
Not that the other booking sites fared too badly. Out of a possible 1,000 points, Hotwire received 824. But the lowest score--for Hotels.com--was only 788, which is not exactly a thumping. "Hotwire.com received the highest ratings for the two things that matter most to customers -- competitiveness of price and ease of booking."
On the price factor, it is very hard to fault Hotwire, especially at the 2.5 to 4-star level. Pull up the site today and there are 4-star rates of $79 for Chicago, $80 for Atlanta, $81 for L.A., and $99 for D.C.--before fees and taxes of course.
And here's a hint to remove some uncertainty from the process: go to BetterBidding.com and you can see which hotels other bidders got for the price--and where you are likely to end up.
Just when we thought it was safe to book on these opaque booking sites, comes another story of a hotel guest showing up at their selected hotel to find no room waiting for them.
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by juliana
