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Do Hotels give Priceline/Hotwire bidders the Worst Rooms ?


Peterpack
By Peterpack,
in

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This is always my biggest fear when booking through Priceline or hotwire. You get a great deal but i always feel the hotels look down on me because i got such a cheap price relative to other guests and want to put me in the worst room in the hotel.

 

Does anyone else feel this ?

 

from my point of view, no one forces hotels to give room inventory to priceline, if they want to be snobby about things, don't offer your rooms on priceline !

i got a really great deal on a 5 star hotel in central london. You know how elitest they are in England, 5 star hotels in London being the worst. I don't want to be seen as the 'riff raff' who booked through priceline or hotwire.

 

Am i being a bit too paranoid ?

 

or is there truth to priceliners or hotwirers getting the worst rooms/service at hotels ?

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i got a really great deal on a 5 star hotel in central london...

Perhaps you could share your win with the board (as we had previously asked here as well) along with any other wins you may have had over the last 8 years since your last post.

When you previously won a 4 star hotel on Hotwire how was your experience? Even if you were given the worst room in the hotel, did you get a good value for your $85/nite price?

Please use the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your travel purchases... or thru our sister site MAPS and HOTELS.com for your regular rate purchases.

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

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've written about the absolutely awful, cramped dark room that I got at a hotel in Barcelona, which I'm sure was due to booking on Hotwire.  They were happy to charge me for an upgrade to a decent room the next day, and I was happy to pay it.  Though I've since put this hotel on my block list.

 

But I've also been upgraded and given really nice rooms too.

 

For example, through Priceline once I booked The Intercontinental Park Lane (5* in Central London).  I was given a 1 bedroom suite with a kitchen, separate dining room, living room, tons of closet space and an oversized bathroom on the top floor with a view of Hyde Park.  It's hard to top that.

 

So, it can go either way.

 

I find that being extremely polite and friendly to the front desk staff at check-in is just as important in getting a good room as the amount that you pay per night.

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So far I've gotten pretty decent rooms in places I've booked through Hot.wire and not their worst rooms, even though some of the places I've been, I've looked up reviews of on TripAdvisor and other Hotwire customers complain loud and long and say they'll never use Hotwire again. Maybe I've just been lucky; maybe it has something to do with arriving EARLY and never in the middle of the night as I won't drive past sundown in most parts of the country (being Native American, a minority, and this country becoming overwhelmingly more and more of a giant "sundown town" over the last 10-15 years or so). I used to travel and drive more hours each day thus arriving either late in the evening or early in the "night" hours but never after midnight, but that was 15 years ago. These last few years, I refuse to do that. You might get a crappier room if you arrive after midnight and all the better rooms are taken by people who just won't drive after dark. 

 

Now, for those flying: airplanes get in when they get in, so they may have no choice.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For this stay (in the northern suburbs of Chicago), I did arrive fairly late -- about 11PM -- and was told they had unfortunately run out of rooms. They'd had some problems and had to take a few rooms "off line", was how she'd put it. So they were going to walk me (and my wife and adult son) to the Marriott Courtyard, but I declined, on the grounds that I'd paid for the Renaissance and the Courtyard was definitely a couple of steps down. (I was polite, but firm.)

Eventually they paid for a nearby Crowne Plaza, and said they would have Hotwire refund my money too. I'll be interested to see if they do it, and if not what I might be able to do to encourage them!

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Hotels don't want to walk any guests, but sometimes it does happen... it could be an overbooking situation, but sometimes a room can become uninhabitable (a pipe bursts, damaged by previous guest, electrical or heating/cooling issues, etc).

Although not a rule/law, when getting 'walked' it is standard practice to be given cab fare to the new hotel and the first nite is free, so i suspect there won't be too much issue getting them to honor what they told you, although you may need to follow-up in a few days to make sure they have done so.

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

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yep, Hot.wire did give me a credit, which means the hotel gave it to Hotwire. Hotwire added a $25 credit, too.

 

So, I'm quite satisfied with the way this worked out. It's not what I wanted to book, but heck, I definitely would have taken the Crowne Plaza for free instead of the Renaissance for $82!

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I have always received acceptable rooms from PL and Hotwire. The only case when I received a bad room and was told I couldnt change because of the agency, it was Orbitz.  But the WORST room was booked directly with Westin, they gave me a room that was used for meetings, wreaked of smoke, unclean, stained furniture w/a crikety bed that folded out of the wall

 

Orbitz gave me a credit, Westin didnt...go figure

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I think it happens once in a while but most often I get good rooms.  My most recent hotwire win was an awesome waterview room.  When booking from the hotel's own website it says not to expect a waterview unless booking a certain type of suite.  There is one hotel that I have got terrible rooms in the oldest part of the hotel when booking through either Hotwire or Priceline so I now book directly with that hotel when I must stay there and request not to be in that building. 

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  • 2 months later...
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