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Hotwire Hotel: 2.5* London (Ealing-Hammersmith-Shepherds Bush) Express by Holiday Inn


lwitchel
By lwitchel,
in

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Midweek hotel rates in Central London were very high so I opted for an outlying area and have a new hotel for the list

Express by Holiday Inn London Park Royal

2.5* - Amenities Complimentary Breakfast, Restaurant, Business Center, Hi-Speed Internet Access.

I was able to guess the hotel from the amenities before accepting by assuming it was an HI Express and looking in the region. Hotwire said it was rated a 4.0 on Travelocity and this came up a match. It's about a 20 minute tube ride from London Center, a similar distance to Hammersmith.

The one oddity of the booking was that when I tried to use an affiliate link (any affiliate link - I tried multiple ones to test) Hotwire's bundled fees jumped $20. I had to clear cookies and book only through Hotwire to get the lowest price.

Total cost of the two night booking, $176.58.

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I noticed some strange behavior I wanted to report regarding this purchase...

Searching Hotwire, I saw a hotel in London listed as being $62/nightly - $124 for 2 nights + fees of $53 - $177 total. I was at the office and didn't have time to book immediately, so a few hours later at home I revisited Hotwire through an affiliate link. Same hotel (at least it probably was - same amenities, etc) $59 nightly but $73 in fees - $191 total.

I called customer service to ask why fees were so high. The CSR was no help (and basically either did not understand or avoided my question.) I went back to the office, did not go through the portal and used IE instead of Firefox - the price and fees went back to the same total $177. I left that window in IE open, deleted cookies in Firefox and tried again to go through an affiliate link. Back to $73 in fees. I tried deleting cookies and going through a different affiliate link to test. Same result. I booked on the IE window with the lower fees that I had left open.

I tested again with a dummy booking in Barcelona. This offer was $132/night and the same booking produced the same results with or without an affiliate link. So the problem in London was either an aberration or perhaps something kicks in to bump up the fees if the price with an affiliate referral fee drops Hotwire's profit below a certain point? Is Hotwire using the hidden nature of its fee structure to bundle in other fees?

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