Hotwire Hotel: Question: Palm Desert - LaQuinta Fee Inconsistency

[DDSeeker]

I searched Palm Desert - LaQuinta for 12-21-05 to 12-23-05.

I see an unidentifiable 4* for $65 / night. Wow! But when I click through to buy, I see that taxes and fees are a full 50% of the room price. I wonder to myself, what is going on?

For a sanity check, I select the 3* for $63 in Palm Desert for the same dates. Taxes and fees are about 12% of the room price.

My first thought is that the 4* hotel has resort fees or other recovery fees that the 3* hotel does not. But upon further reflection, this should not matter. If I book through Hotwire, I will be responsible for paying resort/other fees directly to the hotel.

Any suggestions as to what is driving the inconsistency I am seeing?

[thereuare]

I'd guess that they have a wrong tax rate associated with this property.

You can try to email or call them, but the last time it happened such emails were replied with the standard "taxes and fees are bundled togethter, etc, etc"

[DDSeeker]

Creepy. As soon as I posted this, the $65 4* hotel disappeared completely.

I first noticed this hotel and its crazy fee amount a few days ago. Nothing changed until I posted about it on your site, thereuare. The small tea leaves I'm reading say that Hotwire monitors BB.