[joehotel]

Due to the huge east coast snowstorm of Dec. 19, 2009 I was able to get a refund of my Hotwire purchase which is posted here: Hotwire Omni Newport News

I called Hotwire customer service and told the very nice clerk that I was snowbound in Charlottesville VA - and could not drive to Newport News VA.

She was extremely helpful. She said they had a list of cities where they were granting refunds. She could not find Newport News on her list for some reason, so she looked at the Charlottesville news headlines and found out about the severe winter storm, and granted the refund. I have the feeling she went out of her way to make this effort and is to be commended.

BTW the Newport News rooms had been paid for mostly with HotDollars (Hotwire Credit) which is good for one year and was refunded back to my Hotwire account, and partially in cash, which was refunded to my credit card.

The funny part is that the Hotdollars I earned were from a refund from ANOTHER Hotwire episode where HW decided to refund my entire stay in London in Dec. 2008 (see Hotwire London Crowne Plaza). Those refunded HotDollars were good til Jan 2009 and the refunded dollars are now good til Dec. 2010, so I got almost an extra year out of them!

[AaronJB]

Glad to hear that HOTWIRE was able to work out a resolution quickly and easily. Quite a few trips to that area had to be canceled during that period last weekend, unfortunately.