<p>Seems like I’ve been visiting Hotwire a lot lately! Had to book rooms for an out of town funeral, book rooms and car rental for a vacation and also booked rooms for a couple of weekend overnights. </p>
<p>It’s become a game of sorts. Which hotel is it?! How long can I wait to see if the price goes down?! Should I act now on this price or chance it?! (on rooms or car rental or whatever!) Then the thrill or disappointment when you click the “buy” button and see what you got! </p>
<p>Many of you travel lots more than me. Thought it would be fun to share your best “scores”/deals. The city, the deal.</p>
<p>One of my best deals in recent memory - an Embassy Suites (so plenty of room for 5 of us) and their nice breakfast, free parking, etc. for $49 + tax in Columbus Ohio. That same “deal” is/was $96 when I was trying to book again for this weekend!</p>
<p>Best deal for us was younger son’s graduation week. Booked it just a few days shy of the day when you can use hotwire…pushing it out as far as you can go. Used betterbidding to identify the hotel, Hyatt in princeton NJ. Saved the confirmation email $42 per night, free parking, free shuttle all around town and to all university events. They offered a free full breakfast every morning and for graduation week/reunions really went all out. Hosted Happy Hour every day for 2-3 hours with free drinks and food. Hotel was decked out in princeton colors.</p>
<p>Other guests who did not use Hotwire paid $350+ per night. Room was great, they had just renovated, 2 queens beds with a suite…another bed in the sofa sleeper, fridge, microwave, extra sinks…</p>
<p>We have used hotwire for over 13 years, so many great deals over the years but that deal was the best. Not just the actual price paid but ALL the added benefits. AMAZING.</p>
<p>I love Travelzoo. While planning a trip to NYC two years ago, I found a hotel that was renovating (there was a disclaimer on their posting) and the rates were $99/night. Really low for that part of NYC that time of the year. The rooms advertised on TZ didn’t fit our needs so I called the hotel directly and asked for a larger room with the TZ discount and got one. </p>
<p>We used Hotwire for a week long car rental on another trip and got it for $120. And that was for a minivan!</p>
<p>If you use betterbidding dot com or biddingfortravel dot com, there is rarely any surprise or disappointment. A week ago I won the Sheraton in Myrtle Beach (6 blocks from the beach) for $53/night.</p>
<p>When we go to Columbus, I bid “Columbus North” and 3 1/2 stars, and I usually get the Sheraton Suites in Worthington for around $50/night.</p>
<p>betterbidding is a site that lists people’s winning bids by state. They also have a hotwire section, where they will help you figure out what hotel hotwire is quoting. All they ask is that you use the betterbidding link to hotwire and priceline.</p>
<p>Also if you have Discover card, you can get 5% cashback for hotwire through shopdiscover.</p>
<p>Is it just me, but hotwire has changed some stuffs and it is very hard to ascertain the hotel through betterbidding now. I could never match the features anymore and the star rating seems to change a lot. There should be a feature in betterbidding to enter city and all the features and the star rating and the list of possible hotels pops out.</p>
<p>Oh, and after I think I know the hotel I am about to book, I go to tripadvisor and look at the pictures and user reviews of the hotels there.</p>
<p>My very best deal was when Hotwire first started. They offered $25 bonus dollars per night. I found the doubletree on Michigan Ave for $52, and with $25 off it was $27/night. We spent a weekend in Chicago for practically nothing. </p>
<p>Recently I got the Hotel Allegro in Chicago (theater district) for $60/night through Priceline. On the weekend. It was amazing, the published price for our room was $209. I get great deals on Priceline but you have to read the tutorials on bidding for travel. Yes I know the site owner is a pain but she knows what she is doing. It takes a lot of time to get a really good deal. </p>
<p>Other deals but not recently. I got the Grand Hyatt in NYC for $86 the spring of 2002 when people were nervous to go and tourism was still down. I once got a Hampton Inn in Orlando near universal studios for $16 but you can get great deals in Orlando.</p>
<p>I am not an expert but not too shabby either. My first piece of advice would be to start with a city that you know (the area) or a city where you know the area you need to be staying in. If you know nothing about a city and have no preference where to stay, I’d hesitate to just randomly pick on prices!</p>
<p>Go on Hotwire and just explore. Pick a city, date, etc. and see what comes up. Notice how they have a map that breaks up the city into areas (downtown, north suburbs, east, etc.). You can look at a city entirely or click one of these map areas to widdle down the choices in that specific area. </p>
<p>Things to pay attention to besides price:
-% recommended by customers - I personally don’t want ANYTHING under 80-85% recommended
-# of stars - 3 or above for sure
-Click on hotel and check amenities - be sure to look for free parking, free breakfast - -whatever amenities are important to you. The hotel price may be good but if you have to pay $25 for parking it may not be the bargain you thought.
-The “hints” will give you the type of hotel you will get but the hint does NOT mean you will get one of those listed!!!</p>
<p>Before you purchase, check with betterbidding or another site and you might be able to see what hotel it LIKELY is - someone else can probably guide you through this process better than me. </p>
<p>Another tip - when you are searching for a place, click the left column where it offers to “watch your trip” for you - to email you (if you have an account) and let you know when prices drop - I have noticed as of late, that almost always within a day or two, I get an email and if I book through that email, prices are a few dollars cheaper than if I go to Hotwire just on my own. </p>
<p>Remember that once you purchase, prices are FINAL. </p>
<p>If you MUST have a very particular street, if you MUST have a particular hotel chain, this is not for you (IMO).</p>
<p>Toledo “taught” me and I appreciate her knowledge! (dang, but I should have had you help me with this weekend - bet you could have got me a better deal- I have never tried Priceline!!!)</p>
<p>And for hotwire, you try to match up the features in the hotel listed on the hotwire mystery hotel with the winning hotel on the betterbidding posts. These features are pools, exercise room, restaurants, internet, business center, etc… Once you have a match, you can look up the hotel online for exact locations and reviews. Again, this could be so much better if they instead have a form that people can enter when they post their winning bid and automate the subsequent search process.</p>
<p>I used to be able to match maybe 90% of the time, but I have not done it in awhile (no vacation for the family until all the kids are done with colleges).</p>
<p>If abasket likes the hotel listed for the area she wants, she can bid by using the box in the upper right-hand corner of the web site. The Columbus areas are listed in parenthesis. When bidding, you choose the city first and then you are given a choice of areas.</p>
<p>ttparent, that is a great idea! You could start your own web site with that idea. You should make that suggestion at betterbidding. It would make their job much easier. </p>
<p>I also use tripadvisor to research the hotels before I bid, like ttparent mentioned.</p>
<p>When traveling without the dog, I use priceline and check out betterbidding and biddingfortravel for ideas where to start bidding. </p>
<p>However, when traveling with the dog, I use hotwire so I can pick the hotels that allow pets.</p>
<p>The advantage of using Hotwire also is you can specify the number of members in your party, e.g 2 adults and 2 teens, so that when the bid is placed, the request goes to the hotel and they will make sure to accommodate with a room with e.g. two beds. For Priceline, I have to make sure to call and ask and they don’t always guarantee.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tip about biddingfortravel. I’ve always used betterbidding and it usually works out well with Hotwire. Most times I’ve got it narrowed down to 2 hotels that it <em>could</em> be; I don’t think I’ve ever been surprised.</p>
<p>Then I bounce over to TripAdvisor & search for hotels by map & star rating, partially to see if there’s any that might be missing off the Hotwire list. I read the TripAdvisor ratings plus I read the Hotwire ratings, although those are mostly stripped of identifying info but if you know the area you can usually figure it out. </p>
<p>For example, when I was looking for a hotel in Downtown Charleston, I knew there was only 1 hotel in my rating range that offered free parking so when an option popped up with free parking as an amenity, I knew it was the King Charles Inn.</p>