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Hotwire Hotel: 3* Frederick Holiday Inn Ft. Detrick


iahphx
By iahphx,
in

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As usual, I feel a little suckered by my hotwire experience.

Needed a room in Frederick for a night -- a town without any really "nice" properties, so we're basically talking motels. Hotwire listed mine as a 3-star, and put a lot of (admittedly vague) "amenity" icons next to it. They also listed a couple of 2-star properties, at about the same price, with far fewer amenity icons.

Meanwhile, Priceline displays 2 1/2 star and 2 star bidding opportunities for Frederick. Looking at TOBB, I see folks had gotten a bunch of 2-star holiday inns over the years in the $30 to $35 range. So I bid $31 first at 2 1/2 stars and then at 2 stars. I don't necessarily expect to get hit, but I did expect a counteroffer (especially since I know from Hotwire that some properties are "lurking"). Priceline just rejects my bids with no comment.

So then I have this dilemna: the one amenity I would like at a roadside motel in Maryland in March is an indoor pool. Looking at my AAA guide, about half the rated motels in Frederick have them. I reasonably presume these are the "nicer" ones, more likely to get a better star rating. Hotwire tells me their 3-star has, among all those other things, a pool (unfortunately, Hotwire never tells you whether it's indoors). I have $25 in hotwire bonus bucks (from a hotwire snafu a year ago) that I can use. That brings my base price down from $47 to $22. Given that priceline looks like it will cost me at least 40 bucks -- if I can get a room at all -- I figure it's a good time to use by hotwire bonus money and presumably increase my chances at an indoor pool. After all, the hotel is 3 stars!

Bad guess. The Holiday Inn I get is the ordinary one in town WITHOUT the indoor pool. Why it rates 3-stars in hotwire's system is, as usual, beyond understanding.

Oh well. An inexpensive place to sleep. I won't be getting my winter swim in. And I doubt I'll be using hotwire much in the future.

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Amenity icons were restaurant, pool, fitness center, golf, tennis and laundry.

Not sure folks need to avoid it, but they should know that a hotwire 3-star hotel in Frederick (and, from my experience, anywhere) is likely no better than a 2-star priceline property -- and probably worse than priceline's 2 1/2 star hotels. Accordingly, unless they have bonus money like I did, it would be pretty silly to accept Hotwire's $47 offer without gradually bidding up to that level on priceline for their 2* and 2 1/2* levels.

Unless you're particularly partial to basic Holiday Inns!

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