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Expedia/Hotwire Unpublished rate


slruud
By slruud,
in

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Checking all the usual sites for a hotel in San Diego Labor Day weekend, and going into Expedia, noticed a banner in between every few hotels for "Expedia Unpublished Rates...powered by Hotwire". Clicked on it and searched for 4* and found unnamed hotel with amenities of restaurant, pool, fitness center, business center, and High speed internet, which in the past has got me the Omni, for $136/nite. Rolled the dice and lo and behold it was the Omni.

I tried going through BetterBiddings Expedia link, but the "unpublished rates" banner was not showing up, and I have not been able to replicate it since.

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Interesting cross-marketing... do you know if this same hotel was offered directly on HOTWIRE and/or was there more than one 4* hotel offered per zone (or did the banner take you directly to the HOTWIRE site?)

If time permits I'll try to look into this Expedia feature over the weekend... thanks for letting us know about it.

Please use this HOTWIRE and these PRICELINE LINKS: HOTELS, CAR RENTALS, and AIRFARE to begin your travel purchases

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I cross checked with HOTWIRE the same time I had the "Unpublished" hotel waiting for me to purchase by openning up another window. The 4* there was priced at $119, which now is priced at $109...with the amenities being no smoking, fitness center, pool, restaurant, business center, and hi speed internet. It did not take me to the Hotwire site, but had the listing just like you would get if you selected a hotel on HOTWIRE, but it was still the Expedia site. I have not seen the banners come up since I first accessed Expedia around 5am MST.

I also checked Austin through Expedia around the same time this morning, and the 4* hotel offered for the Expedia "unpublished rates" was the same being offered on HOTWIRE...both appearing to be the Mansion at Judges Hill by comparing amenities.

Maybe it's just something for us night owls, or I caught them testing it. Whatever, I'm happy.

PS....Just got off the phone with Expedia, and the rep was surprised I knew about the "Expedia Unpublished Rates" and said the official launch is scheduled for June 30. I had her check that I indeed had a booking and she said yes I did. I must have caught them in a test phase, and just got lucky.

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Interesting. I wonder if Expedia is testing a new format---opaque Hotwire listings sprinkled among retail Expedia listings---to compete with Travelocity's "Top Secret Hotels".

I'm unable to replicate your results now. I searched Expedia for July and Sept dates in SF, San Diego, Dallas, and Miami, and I can't get any "Unpublished Rates" to appear.

Maybe those "Unpublished Rates" weren't supposed to go live yet and you were fortunate to catch the glitch first and take advantage. Congratulations!

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I was able to see the unpublished rate thing once today when searching for hotels on Expedia. It was mixed in the middle of the hotel listings and did say powered by HOTWIRE. However, I was only able to get it to appear once. I tried a new session and it didn't show up the 2nd and 3rd attempts.

I happen to have HOTWIRE search on another tab so compared the two side by side. There were more 4 star via HOTWIRE than the one that showed up on Expedia. They both showed the same price($175) for the SeaWorld - Mission Bay - Shelter Island area Hotel 4 star hotel.

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  • 1 month later...

I stumbled onto these unpublished hotels a week or two ago while randomly surfing Expedia. So far I've seen unpublished rates in SF, LA, NY, Reno and Oakland/East Bay. In my SF search yesterday for 9/4/10, Expedia listed a 4.5* in Union Square East for $125. On Hotwire, there are two known 4.5 properties in this zone, that being SF Intercontinental and Taj Campton Place. On Expedia, you're able to zero in on a map the general location of the unpublished hotel. Interestingly, the Taj Campton place was within the area of the zone, however the Intercontinental was clearly outside the area. So while I assume Expedia was selling the Taj Campton Place, the question that comes to mind is whether or not Expedia rates unpublished hotels the same as published. My Campton Place assumption was based on Expedia rating hotels the same between the two different products.

Below are links to other Internet chatter about this new Expedia product. In one article, it states

As Expedia tests its new opaque product, it is available to a subset of users only.

I find that statement interesting because I cannot bring up any unpublished hotels when on my computer at work (even though I'm logged into my Expedia account), but they display for me on my home PC. I'm no tech wizard, but I'm wondering if there's any correlation between their statement and my experience at work vs home. Could this also be why Colfax wasn't able to display the unpublished rates on his computer ????

http://www.tnooz.com/2010/06/23/news/Expedia-integrates-hotwire-distressed-inventory-in-hotel-booking-path/

http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2010/8/3...ublished_Rates_

Should this thread be moved to the "Off Topic Run of House" forum where it may get more exposure and possibly more feedback?

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