Consumer WebWatch--Jan 04 Consumer Reports

[bturner13]

Has anyone else read the Jan 04 Consumer Reports article (pg. 6 ) and the research report done by William McGee? I have read both and I have heartburn on the hotel results when using Priceline compared to Hotwire.

Thanks!

Bill

[thesqueegeekid]

Hey Bill, just found it .... http://www.consumerreports.org/main/detail...D=1074405576021

Well, many of us here can dispute their findings ... for hotel pricing anyways. In their study, how much did they bid for hotels? How much did they overbid?

[thesqueegeekid]

Here is a response from Hotwire disputing the findings...

http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/project/letters.htm

[bturner13]

Great to hear from ya again Kid! Send me your new email address so I can stay in touch. Got loads to tell ya. Hope all is well with ya!

Take a look at McGee's research report at www.consumerwebwatch.org.

Bill

[swag]

Some thoughts reading this.

First, I was surprised that Priceline had the best hotel rate only 40% of the time, while Hotwire won 43%. I had thought that the general consensus is that PL can usually beat HW's best price. Maybe they didn't consider differences in ratings, and that HW's ratings are often a star higher for the same property?

Second, having the absolute best price the most often is a good metric, but what about the size of the savings? What if PL beats HW 8 times out of 10 and saves $10 each, but HW's 2 wins each save $100?

And I wonder how they identified PL prices? You can never know that you got the absolute lowest price, right, unless they repeatedly bid $1 increments from multiple accounts...

[thereuare]

I think THIS is the same story... and BetterBidding is given a mention at the end as a resource to check before using Priceline and Hotwire.