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Is Hotwire charging higher fees?


Colfax
By Colfax,
in

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For years the "common wisdom" has been that Priceline usually beats Hotwire on rate but Priceline charges higher transaction fees. I'm not sure the second part is still true.

Lately I've noticed some higher fees on Hotwire buys and I decided to try a little test to see if that common wisdom still holds true. Turns out it doesn't--at least not in my experiment. In 5 of 6 Hotwire vs Priceline trials I ran Priceline cost less than Hotwire after taxes and fees were factored in, for identically priced hotels. Since the hotel prices and taxes were identical on PL and HW all the difference in totals would be due to fees.

I picked Denver, Colorado as a random city and searched Hotwire first for random 1-day and random 7-day stays. For each length of stay I picked from what was offered three hotels at different price points: $44, $100, and $160.

Then I entered identical amounts as dummy bids on Priceline, for 1-day and 7-day stays in Denver, just to see what the totals would be on Priceline after tax/fee, and compare them to the Hotwire totals.

In only one case of six did Hotwire cost less than Priceline, after tax/fee, and that was the one-night stay at the $44 hotel. 57 cents less. For the $100 and $160 hotels Hotwire cost more than Priceline--by $2 and $5. And for the 7-night stay Hotwire cost more than Priceline at every price point---$44, $100, and $160. For a week at the $160 hotel the difference was $17 in Priceline's favor!

Tax is also a factor in the total price and tax rates vary by city, so the result I got might not be exactly true in other cities. I've already seen enough though that I'm going to quit preaching as gospel that Priceline charges higher fees than Hotwire. Not in Denver anyhow.

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