I recently booked a NYC hotel on hotwire. I was happy enough with the hotel at the time. It claimed to be a 4* and even though every other site listed it as a 3.5*, I was content with the price and happy to stay there. A couple months later, I started to notice posts on various sites about the serious bed bug problem at the hotel. Granted, NYC has a problem with many hotels, but what was particularly concening was that the management of this hotel refused to admit the problem. One Chicago woman was even suing the hotel. And some of the posts were from the hotel's own employees. I have a particular sensitivity to any insect bites and have a severe reaction, so naturally I was concerned. I contacted Hotwire and explained the situation and after several replies back and forth, some of which were a complete brush off and didn't even address my concerns, but rather took the form of a pre-fab letter on another issue, they finally said that I would have to stay at the hotel and experience the problem before I could contact them to do anything. In other word, I have to get bitten (which would undoubtendly ruin my entire trip) before they would even consider addressing the problem. That is the last time I will ever use this service and the last time any of my friends or family will use it. They may have saved a few bucks by refusing to change or refund my hotel, but they literally lost thousands in business. So...BEWARE OF BEDBUGS AND HOTWIRE'S POLICY THAT THEY SHOULD BITE YOU AND RUIN YOUR TRIP BEFORE THEY TAKE ACTION. Feel free to post this on any additional sites that will help people. I have and will continue to. People need to know what they're getting into. Sometime a good deal is a really really bad one.
