anybody have experiences with hotwire.com?

[NewJeffCT]

we were looking for hotels in Newport, RI for Labor Day weekend and nothing really met what we wanted for price & location via expedia, travelocity or yahoo travel. So, we just decided to do hotwire.com & take our chances. We ended up getting the Hyatt for less than half the price of any of the aforementioned online services. It seems almost too good to be true.

Is it too good?

[Thtwudbeme]

1. Michael and I stayed (with my folks)

at the most gorgeous hotel in San Antonio for about 60-75 bucks less than other people were paying.

I LOVE Hotwire...we also used it to make reservations for DC in Sept-

Stephanie

[NewJeffCT]

4. I was surprised

The other online places were quoting $290-$300 per night on average... hotwire was $141.

[bettyellen]

6. same here- i just got the doubletree at 1/2 price.

and it looks well reviewed. good location, nice cushy beds at least. :)
see you in DC!

[Cyndee_Lou_Who]

2. I've used it to get 4 & 5 star hotels in downtown Chicago as low as $89

Swissotel and the Sheraton. You don't know exactly WHICH hotel til you book... but I have been very impressed. Especially with last-minute deals.

[FloridaPat]

3. I've used them before without problems

[Bossy Monkey]

5. We had an awful experience with them in Atlanta last October

They had rated a Days Inn in Atlanta three stars; it rated zero. They made no effort to remunerate us or otherwise remedy the situation. It was Days Inn Airport West; I still have our list of complaints, but this is probably TMI. Suffice it to say that it was a fleabag perched between the interstate and a free-fire zone. We haven't used Hotwire again. That said, I hope things work for you; I wouldn't expect there to be many fleabags in Newport.

[kwassa]

7. MAKE SURE YOU CALL THE HOTEL AND CONFIRM!!!!

We also had a bad experience with Hotwire in August. We reserved a hotel in Hyannis, MA, to spend overnight before taking the ferry to Nantucket the next morning.

The reservation was for a Friday night. We were running late, and called from the Connecticut Turnpike just outside NYC to let them know that we were arriving late. The hotel owner, a foreign-born individual with a heavy accent, claimed there was no such reservation and that the hotel was full. Of course, he said many things in the course of repeated phone calls with him and Hotwire. Hotwire really did try to help, but said that he probably overbooked his hotel, and is taking the customers who are paying the full rate.

He claimed that Hotwire faxed confirmations to him, and that he never recieved it. Impossible to prove, right?

We had Hotwire refund our money, and were fortunately able to find a hotel via the AAA travel guide for New England that we had with us, outside the airport in West Warwick, RI. Thank god for cellphones!

We had also checked the original hotel on Tripadvisor.com after we payed for it, and the hotel was not a three-star, either. We figured it out to be passable for one-night, from the comments we read there. The place we actually stayed was much nicer, and only $20 more.

Tripadvisor.com is a great resource, by the way. We have used it to research several possible vacations, and it has worked very well.

[NewJeffCT]

8. thanks - good advice

my wife was on hold with them a little while ago.