Identifying Hotwire hotels Options

[zbenye]

Lots of changes in Hotwire's portal, including the introduction of vacation packages, where hotels are shown with name, star level and amenity icons.

Want to book the hotel alone? Check out the hotels listed in the vacation packages for the city, then go to the hotel booking screen and match the star level and amenity icons to what you saw in packages!

[iahphx]

Thanks -- that's a great tip!

Too bad it only works in the 30 or so large cities where they offer packages.

For example, I'm looking at Arizona, and they offer packages to Phoenix, but not Tucson. I'm trying to figure out which "foothills" resort they're offering in Tuscon for 70 bucks.

[Scorp]

QUOTE

For example, I'm looking at Arizona, and they offer packages to Phoenix, but not Tucson.

They have Tucson now in Packages as well, as follows:

3 * Westward Look Resort
Restaurant(s), Pool(s), Fitness Center, Business Center, Golf Course Nearby, Tennis Court Nearby, Spa Services

4.5 * The Lodge at Ventana Canyon
Resort, Restaurant(s), Pool(s), Fitness Center, Golf Course Nearby, Tennis Court Nearby, Spa Services

3 * Holiday Inn Tucson-Airport
Shuttle, Restaurant(s), Pool(s), Fitness Center, High Speed Internet Access, Business Center, Laundry Facilities

3 * Clarion Hotel Tucson-Airport
Shuttle, Restaurant(s), Pool(s), Fitness Center, Complimentary Breakfast, Business Center, Laundry Facilities

3 * Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites Tucson North-Oro Valley
Pool(s), Fitness Center, Complimentary Breakfast, Business Center, Golf Course Nearby, Tennis Court Nearby, Laundry Facilities

3 * Sheraton Tucson Hotel and Suites
Restaurant(s), Pool(s), Fitness Center, Complimentary Breakfast, Business Center, Golf Course Nearby, Laundry Facilities

4.5 * The Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa
Resort, Restaurant(s), Pool(s), Fitness Center, Business Center, Golf Course Nearby, Tennis Court Nearby, Spa Services

thereuare, please feel free to doublecheck this listing and update the Arizona hotel listings if you see fit...

By the way, how do you know you are seeing all of the hotels available through the Vacation Package -- I just kept putting in different dates and looking for additional hotels.... isn't there a better way?

[thereuare]

You don't know if you're seeing them all, just need to try different dates, which is why i'm updating the lists all the time whenever i see a new hotel that isn't already on the list. You're now starting to see how time consuming the process can be.

I'll copy this info over the the Arizona section, but since you did the work i don't want to take the credit (by having this info appear under my name). If you'd like you can copy/paste it yourself as a reply to the Hotwire Hotel List by City category OR you can just type a message there with the word "test" in the body and i'll copy/paste it for you later on.

Have i been slacking that much on the board that you've now fixed two things?

I tried to do the most popular areas of the Hotwire Vacation package first, and then have been adding areas as requested. So thanks for taking care of the Tucson zone for me!

[Scorp]

QUOTE (thereuare @ Jun 7 2003, 11:14 AM)

Have i been slacking that much on the board that you've now fixed two things?

Well, it's either this or mowing the lawn! I'm doing some avoidance!

And I copied it over but I don't really care whose name is on it!

[hpae]

This is an AWESOME idea! Thanks for cracking the code. Works great if your city is one of the cities there are packages for!!!

[thereuare]

Hpae,

It's actually MUCH easier to just look at the lists on this site which keep track of the same thing.

[rlaakso]

I just tried this for Montreal. It works great!!!

[hotwirecsr]

This may work some of the time however be advised that if two hotels have some of the same ammites and they are close in price. we will show you the ammites that the hotels have in common and then add the ammites that not listed at the end after purchace. This works because most people wont complain if the room has a coffe maker and we dont tell you.

[brianhb]

I am not sure if I have discovered something that is already known/posted. If you are searching for a hotel on Hotwire run two parallel searches. For the same set of dates check out the hotel only and hotel+car.

The search for the hotel plus car rental lists all the hotels and amenities. It is then pretty easy to match up which hotel you will be bidding on for the hotel only search based on matching the amenities. Just tried it for booking a hotel in Los Angles. The hotel names and amenities on the hotel+car rental listings (names listed) seems to exactly match the hotel only listings (names hidden).

[DeltaPurser]

Tried doing a search, but it failed... So my apologies if this has aleady been discussed elsewhere on the board:

I'm looking at the results of a search for the Quincy Market zone in Boston. Depending on the dates I enter, the same number of hotels show up: one 4* hotel, one 3.5*, and one 3*. Every date has the same results, never more, never less... But each time, the hotels have different amenities. What's up with that?!

Does Hotwire intentionally change the amenities listed to confuse us, or can it be that Hotwire has a large number of participating hotels in this zone but only displays one in each star rating for each search? Makes no sense to me... Anybody have any input?

Cheers,
DeltaPurser

[thereuare]

HOTWIRE only shows the lowest priced hotel in each zone at each star level.

[DeltaPurser]

Thanks for the speedy reply! I had no idea... I'll keep it in mind.

[gudipudi]

greetings |!!!!



since i have joined this forum today i found it exciting rather than noticing the changes that happened ,.....


cheers

[zbenye]

Is this new, or did I just not notice it before? If you click on a Hotwire hotel as if to book it, the next page has the TripAdvisor Traveler Rating for the hotel. If you have a suspicion which hotel it is, you can look it up on TripAdvisor and see if it has the same rating there.

For example, searched for hotels in San Francisco, saw a 3* in Japantown/CivicCenterNorth with amenities that suggest it's the Opal. Clicked it and the next page showed a TripAdvisor Traveler Rating of 3.5. Looked up the Opal on TripAdvisor and indeed it has a 3.5 rating there.

[thereuare]

This has been around for about 6-8 months or so... but it's not shown for every offering.

The problem is that TA's ratings are dynamic and constantly changing (automatically it appears) based upon new posts and ratings by users; while HOTWIRE only downloads this information sporatically (like 3+ months)... creating LOTS of inconsistencies. (enough that i don't think it's reliable... certainly another confirming tool, but i wouldn't based an identification off of it if others things didn't match)

[djs]

A little research can often help identify which hotel you will be booked into. A couple of years ago I was searching for a hotel in Denver and one of the reviews on Hotwire's site for this hotel (which was still unknown) said that they gave the guest a pet goldfish for the weekend. It didn't take long to go to Google and search "botique hotel denver goldfish" and come up with the name of the hotel (Hotel Monaco).

That one was pretty much a slam dunk. Today I booked a 4* in San Francisco and again was quite confident (after doing some on-line searching) that I knew the hotel (Hilton Financial District).

In both cases the rates were significantly lower than the lowest rate offered on each hotel's website.

I did notice shortly after I booked the Denver hotel that the review regarding the pet goldfish had been removed. I imagine the hotel found out about it and told Hotwire that it was too easy to identify them with that reference.

[thereuare]

djs,

How about sharing your results with the board?

We have a a Hotwire San Francisco forum all set up just waiting for you to add your 'win'.

[sandradeen]

Well, the tripadvisor rating should be a good indication as to whether you will like the property though, and does take into consideration service. I have had good luck going w/tripadvisor recommendations.

[FraKHegly]

In fact the TripAdvisor rating is listed on many of the hotels. So all you need to do is use the list from this site and then type the possible hotels into TripAdvisor.

If we consider a 3.5 star downtown LA hotel it could be either:
Westin
Marriot
Wiltshire
Millenium

If the SPA icon is not here then you can discount the Millenium. The high speen internet is not such a sure fire hit though.

Anyway if you then look at the Trip Advisor ratings you will see that the ratings vary, so by discounting the ones that are not the same you narrow down the list even more.

Remeber that the trip advisor rating is static not dynamic (you can see by looking at the source code). In saying this it will most likley be updated monthly and the hotels will have a lot of reviews and will not change by a .5 star rating that often.

[thereuare]

I disagree with the above...

I do think that TA's ratings are dynamic, but you can't tell this by looking at the source code. The source code will only give you the html output, but other programming language can be (and is likely) used to determine what to output.

Even if the info is not dynamic, the problem is that it's certainly updated more frequently then Hotwire 'retrieves' the data... thus we have found LOTS of inconsistenicies between what hotwire shows is the current TA rating and what the actual current TA rating is.

[FraKHegly]

Just to expand on the earlier post.

I am NOT saying that the TripAdvisor rating on the TripAdvisor site is not dynamic.

What I am saying is that the the number published on Hotwire is not linked directly to the rating on the TripAdvisor site. It is a static number and is changed every so often-

This is visable in the source code on Hotwire (It says static). So this is why there is an inconsistency between the start rating on Hotwire and TripAdvisor- Which is what I was warning people about.

The point I was making is that it if you are trying to work out which hotel it could be, the TripAdvisor rating of one hotel could be 2.5 stars and another could be 3.5. So it helps (obviously not 100% accurate) if the rating published on Hotwire matches the one on TripAdvisor.

I was trying to work out which hotel I had and Hotwire said it had a TA rating of 3.5. I looked on TA and of the 2 hotels it could be one was 3.5 stars and the other was 2.5.

Obviously we cannot tell when it was updated, but I think it is a help.

[bnb913]

hi there i'm looking at this hotel on hotwire, anyone can help me to identify it? pleaseeee

<link removed... contains session IDs so doesn't work any other computer other than than the user>

thanks

[thereuare]

bnb913,

For help with your stay please start a NEW TOPIC and include the date(s) of your stay as well as the amenities that HOTWIRE associates with the property... posting links to HOTWIRE search results doesn't work.

As well, please post start a NEW TOPIC for your DC win, as requested HERE

[kilarney]

Hotwire now gives the tripadvisor rating on the hotel information page. They also give the number of customer reviews and the month of the last review. (In my example, it was listed as 340+ when the actual number was 379.)

All of this information could help pin down the identity of a hotel.

Note: I did not make a purchase. The example I used was of a hotel that I knew had been pinned based on the amenities and location.