Any experience w/ priceline.com or hotwire.com for booking hotel rooms?

I used it once (I think it was priceline, but can’t remember for sure) to book a hotel in NYC for a couple of nights. It was a great deal. My wife and I got a 4 star hotel on the Upper East Side for less than $100/night. I think if you really don’t care precisely where you stay, it can work out really well. However, if you have specific limitations, then it can be a lot more of a crapshoot.

sidestep.com is better!

I’ve used hotwire for both airfare (several times) and hotels (once), and never had a single complaint. I love them. Super-cheap and always satisfied with flights and the hotel we stayed in last vacation was amazing for the money we paid. For 2 people to vacation in Orlando (from New Jersey) for 6 nights in a 3-star for less than $600 including round-trip airfare, I think that’s excellent.

I used hotels.com a few times and had good results. Since I live in New Jersey, and my daughter lives in Florida, we decided to meet at the halfway mark in Raliegh North Carolina for christmas one year. I used the site to book 2 rooms, and I was pleasantly surprised. We got two extended stay rooms, which were like mini apartments, and they were great! Very clean, comfortable and we got a great deal on the price also.

Great info so far….thanks all!

I’ve used hotwire at least 20 times. It is easy and I can count an their star rating to be pretty accurate. If you pay close attention to the ammenities beside the hotel choices you can get a pretty
good idea about the hotel. I always pick hotels with room
service, because I know they’ll
be fairly nice.
I have only used priceline once because I find it frustrating. If you bid on a hotel and it doesn’t accept your price, you have to change something in order to bid again. Too much headache for me when I could just use hotwire.

@cherryberry I was wondering about that….I would tend to want to bid low and then increase in $5 increments or something until I hit their minimum…..that could take awhile.

From what I am understanding, hotwire has a set flat price…..you just don’t know what hotel you are bidding on…while priceline, you bid a price and don’t know what hotel (both)?

@asmonet what is the story w/ your link? More like hotwire or priceline? Or neither?

@snoopy
Priceline lets you bid on area/star rating. Like hotwire, you will know a general area, star rating, and sometimes ammenities of a hotel, then you name a price.

Priceline makes you change something else each time you change the $. You can change the days, the star ratings, the area, but you must change something. If they didn’t make it risky for you to bid too low, then everyone would get the same price.

@cherryberry Thanks so much for the info…!

Do you notice availability increasing as you approach your travel date? If so, how close does this start to occur?

I sometimes notice the price increasing as I approach my travel date, unless I am really close. If I am within 7 days of going somewhere the price starts to go up. A few times I have made same or next day reservations and I got super deals, but I don’t usually wait until the last minute. It makes me too nervous.

@cherryberry Yes….that would make me nervous too….

I was playing around on the site. I am familiar w/ the Chicago area, so that was helpful in getting a feel for how good the pricing might be….

thanks for you help :)

Basically it’s a lesser known version, I’ve used sidestep.com multiple times, and each time I felt like I was robbing the airline. With two days notice once, I got a flight from Florida to Virginia for something like $40, another flight was only $70. Can’t say I have much experience with their hotel booking services, but I would trust them completely with that based on other transactions.

I almost felt bad about it. Like, I should be extra nice to the airline and not rub it in their face. It was weird.

@asmonet $40 for your butt in the seat for a flight that was going to lift off the ground anyway paid for something….maybe only the cocktail peanuts, but something.

Something is better than nothing!

Okay then screw them! That’s a ridiculous price for peanuts. Bastards!

@asmonet YEAH! And why-o-why must I ASK for the entire can (insteaf of just a dixie cup) of Coke? Huh? Tell me that?!

Rationing, and douchebaggery.