badbadleroybrown

Why is CrankyOldGuy posting as surferdude?

Yeah, thats what I thought. I have never this before, because I'm afraid my claim would be rejected. I guess people do this all the time though. You have to be careful because there is a $1000 limit.

BEAV,

Great advice. The same thing actually happened to a friend of mine. Howtire sent the fax number over, and luckally, my friend had also printed out the hotel rate page. It was a 2.5 hotel. Hotwire got back to him in less than 24 hours. Here are the e-mails my friend received. I will remove the hotel name, because my friend has jumped on this a couple of times, and don't want to risk not being able to do this again. If someone wants more info, just e-mail me. These numbers are not mistyped.

Initial e-mail:

***** HOTEL ITINERARY *****

Hotel/CRS Confirmation Number: XXXXXXXX

Hotwire Itinerary Number:XXXXXXXXXX

Location: XXXXXXXX

City Area: XXXXXXXXX

Hotel Quality: 2.5-star Value

XXXXX

XXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXX

Check-in Date: Wed, Nov 24, 2004

Check-out Date: Thu, Nov 25, 2004

Number Of Rooms: 1

Number of Nights: 1

***** Billing Details *****

Hotel

Price per night: $492.00

Hotel Subtotal: $492.00

Total Taxes and Booking Fees: $77.95

Total: $569.95

E-Mail after the DTD claim:

Thank you for your message regarding the Hotwire Hotel Double the

Difference

Price Guarantee. Hotwire works hard to get you the best hotel deals.

We

hope you'll continue to check Hotwire when planning future trips.

You are entitled to a refund of $812.00. We will issue a credit to the

card

used for your Hotwire purchase within 10 business days.

For your review, I have pasted below the portion of the Double the

Difference Guarantee Terms and Conditions that explains how we compare

rates

and calculate the refund amount.

All comparisons will be made between Hotwire's aggregate rate for the

customer's entire stay before taxes and booking fees on the one hand

and the

hotel's aggregate published pre-tax rates for each night of the

customer's

stay on the other. For Hotwire hotel rates, the rate that will be used

for

comparison will be the first rate displayed to the customer after the

customer chooses his or her preferences multiplied by the number of

room

nights the customer has purchased. For other hotel rates, the rate that

will

be used for comparison will be the lowest qualifying published pre-tax

rate

available for each night of the customer's stay.

Thank goodness!! lwitchel sees what I am talking about.

thereuare,

The reason for my post was to understand why they are posting. I am not discouraging hotwirecsr from posting, I am curious to know the reason why they are. Thereuare, as the moderator of this board, you have to wonder the same thing. It would be great for both PL and HW to have an open relationship with BB, but to serve their best interests IMO, they cannot.

As for my tone, text can be read many different ways. I'm sorry you take mine in an offensive manner, but the way I read it, it sounds quite fine to me. Questionative, maybe, but not rude. I am not one to put smiley faces on my text and start saying, "Better Bidding has saved my life," as that is a little overboard for me. I will use the BB information when I do use HW or PL, and will support it when i do, but when I see something that does not make sense, I will ask it.

My question is, why does a Hotwire CSR post on this site?

From a marketing stand point, yes it is great advertisement for Hotwire against Priceline, but what is this appearance really doing? I would also have to question whether the Hotwire company would want to associate yourselves with a site like this. It is almost promoting yourselves on this site, creating problems with the hotel partners that Hotwire affiliates itself with.

I am sorry, but I really have to question whether or not this is really a Hotwire CSR. And if it is, I would really question whether Hotwire the company, knows if this going on. From a business standpoint, it would be foolish for Hotwire to do this. I would have to think hotels also monitor sites like BB, and if they saw a Hotwire CSR on this forum, I would not think hotels would be very happy about it.

Thanks for the 3 follow-ups to my post. My point has been proven.

I have never posted on TOBB because I find it disorganized and ugly.

For those who have never visited the other bidding message board, then my further "suggestion" is to not bother.

Just for fun, try to post a complimentary message about BetterBidding over there and see how long it lasts.

I would be happy to let the other board's moderators know exactly why I will no longer frequent their site, but I can guarantee that my posting wouldn't last as long as it has taken to write.

If that is not a rivalry, I do not know what is.

For someone who rarely posts to any boards (Newbie) I'm surprised that this discussion would warrant your attention at all.

After this comment, and calling someone "newbie" is about as immature as you can get, maybe this board isn't as friendly as I first perceived.

I will say, I rarely ever bid on Priceline, so I do not post that often on this forum, or any other. But, I do like travel. From what I can see, there is some kind of rivalry between BB and TOBB. Now, BB seems to be a well run website. The thing I would like to mention, is that it looks very futile to make posts about the competition. If you do not like a website, don't use it. I would like to see BB prosper, but the posting of how mean some website is, is like a younger sibling complaining about an older one. I think it would help BB status to ignore the competition, and focus on its strengths, rather than worry about the other websites demeanor. This is just a suggestion.

I won this hotel about 6 months ago and remember, with 100% confidence, that this hotel was in the Trevose/Bensalem zone and it was a 3 star. I am sure you are mistaken. Its ok, just make sure to double check your checking.

Thanks for the invite.

But if you view Daycruiser's South Carolina post, he states he added the Airport zone # 3 on his rebid list. This hotel seems to be in the airport zone. So, N Charleston doesn't seem to be a mistake since it only offers 2.5 stars. I guess I view this as complaining about something that didn't deserve it. If you don't want a hotel in a certain zone, you shouldn't add the zone. But then, it seems like searching for a way out of it, by trying to find a complaint about it; i.e. renovation. Its nice this post was added, but it seems like irresponsible bidding to me.

My question is why would you bid higher than available rates?