On Tuesday, Dec 9 I booked a 4 Star in Downtown Toronto Waterfront area for the evening of Friday Dec 12. This area is bounded to the north by Queen or King St. , roughly. Typical Hotels 4 star include Royal York, Renaissance, King Edward etc. I was booking that area as I was attending a dinner and basketball game. The price was $97. After submitting everything, the hotel which I was awarded was the Marriott in Yorkville. For those of you not familiar with Toronto, Yorkville is at Yonge & Bloor, about 5 or six subway stops away from the area I chose, and about a 4 mile walk? Obviously there was a significant error on the part of HotWire. I called them . the Customer person named "Joe" looked at my booking and said "My Goodness, we certainly made a serious error here....I don't know how that happened, but the hotel is definitely way out of your chosen area" I naturally asked for a refund or simply switch to 4 star in the chosen area. Joe's response was to refuse a refund, EVEN THOUGH HE ADMITTED HOTWIRE WAS DEAD WRONG, and told me that I could book in my chosen area for $177. $177 was the 'retail' price current, or the Expedia price. Priceline was offering 4 stars in the chosen area for $95. I said "So if I booked a Toronto hotel, and Hotwire awarded me a hotel in Winnipeg, I could not get a refund?" Joes response was that I would not get a refund and that I would be offered the chance to purchase a room at $177. I asked to speak to a supervisor, Joe told me that supervisor will not be authorized to refund or correct, only for $177. Joe then put me on hold and then disconnected.
Within about 3 hours, Hotwire changed their Toronto Downtown areas to remove the Waterfront South area, ....they how have East, West, and North.
So basically Hotwire ADMITTED that they screwed up royally, but their solution was to charge me retail price rather than simply switch or refund. The bottom line is that either Hotwire (owned by Expedia) is engaging in very very dirty business practices Ie, bait N switch, or that buyers should be very very very careful as Hotwire will reward a hotel in any area they see fit, and there is absolutely no recourse whatsoever.
Personally, I can't take the risk going forward, so I am done with anything to do with Hotwire in the future, and I seriously advise users to be very very careful and consider the risks going forward dealing with this company.
