Hotwire has New Interface

[thereuare]

Is it me or is it true that everytime Hotwire changes their interface they mess it up and/or make it worse? Do they test this stuff for ease of use and/or increased user satisfaction?

This interface is the worst yet as it's nearly impossible to add zones/regions that you want once you begin your search. I'm sure clicking the maps have something to do with it, but for the life of me i can't seem to figure it out (trying to get add the Universal zone in Orlando to appear).

It's really a shame because opaque purchases are difficult enough for the newbie, and they continue to make it more difficult.

I'm sure they'll eventually get it right, but they should 1) make sure it works first, and 2) do some consumer research first to see if it's what the user wants

[ufjoe21]

Thereuare, it appears you enter your city:

e.g., Orlando, FL

and hotwire selects some region for you (seems to come up with downtown area first)

and lists opaque hotels in that region (downtown)

then scroll down and it says "Still shopping? We've got great deals nearby:" and that's how you can view the other zones in that city (Airport, Airport West, Altamonte Springs, Universal)

it does seem like a really bad idea though

I've never been a fan of Hotwire because their star ratings are inflated and people never seem to save much money, I prefer priceline anyday.

[thereuare]

... and you have tried clicking those zones at the bottom of the list? For me, when i click the Universal-SW zone i'm still not shown hotels in that area. Thought maybe Firefox was missing a plug-in to make it work correctly so i also tried with IE and got the same <lack of> result.

Similar thing is being reported as happening in this HOTWIRE HAWAII thread.

[ufjoe21]

I can't seem to get into the Universal-SW zone, it instead goes back to the Dowtown zone. It appears some zones work and others don't.

Say I go from Downtown to Lake Buena Vista, then the other zones I have to choose from changes as well which is crazy!

Thereuare if you noticed this tonight, maybe this is a very recent change to Hotwire (i.e., maybe since yesterday). So perhaps they're not done working out all the kinks. I think the interface is bad, but as for not loading the correct zone that's a problem with the website that will likely be reported by anybody who tries to look for an opaque hotel. Even when it is fixed, still the interface is silly and is enough to drive a person away from their site for sure. Next time I need a reservation I definitely won't be using HW.

[thereuare]

... but you wouldn't have been using them before this change either :)

[ufjoe21]

^ lol, yep but I do admit I used them ONCE before and it DID save me money, but my point is it only saved me a few dollars below direct booking rate

[zbenye]

Although I made maybe one purchase on Hotwire in the last three years, I use their website all the time to get a feel for availability of hotels.

1. Entering SFO for the hotel location, I no longer got the second screen where I would choose any San Francisco area zones, but rather got a results page showing the SFO (airport) zones only. It appears that Hotwire has completely separated the SFO area from the San Francisco city area. I must enter "San Francisco" in the search screen to get the San Francisco zones. This is worrisome, because someone might know an airport code but not necessarily the names of cities around that airport.
   
2. Whereas previously the list of hotels was sorted by default by Best Value, now it came up sorted by distance. Neither is my first preference. I always re-sort by price.
   
3. The other locations shown at the bottom of the screen, under "Still shopping?" are irrelevant to my search (they are in other Priceline areas altogether).
   
4. One improvement is that now I am able to select four San Francisco city zones, whereas previously it would only let select two.
   
5. Adding zones by checking them in the box on the left-hand side of the results screen, and clicking Update, is better in my opinion than the annoying drop-down list box they previously had at the top of the screen. It allows me to add all remaining zones, rather than selecting one additional zone at a time.
   
6. I like the "Compare prices" thing.
   

[WillTravel]

I tried to figure out a way to get to Seattle airport hotels by entering Seattle.

I wasn't able to do it.

Then I entered Tukwila, a town I know is near the airport. That brought up several zones including the airport zone.

But as zbenye said, if you don't know the towns surrounding the airport, it's tough.

Entering SEA brought up the central Seattle zones only.

For many people, the product will be essentially unusable. I hope they fix this quickly.

[lindabobhat]

I use Hotwire frequently for close to home getaways. I do not like the new interface at all, especially since we are open to just about any zone in the metropolitan Chicago area. In order to get rates for a particular zone, I have to type in the name of a specific suburb (several times over.) If they keep this the way it is, I'll look for something a little more user friendly.

[WillTravel]

Another trick is to enter the zip code for a hotel that you would like (e.g. an airport hotel). That seems to do a fairly good job of searching adjacent areas.

[Canes98]

It may just be a coincidence, but simultaneous with Hotwire's interface change, the hotel reported to be the Paris Hilton in the Eiffel Tower zone of Paris jacked their price up about $30 a night for many different sets of dates that they had been offering a rate of around $100 a night.

[thereuare]

I'm sure the pricing change and their new interface are unrelated.

They also seem to have fixed the problem of not being able to search the zones you wanted, as i am now able to search for the Orlando Universal area while i was previously unable to do so.