steveref

I followed up on the Guanacaste thread. Do you have any sense yet as to how much we can rely on the property being referenced with "The last person got..." verbiage?

Decided to book directly with the Hilton Papagayo.

Now that Hotwire has stopped the practice of providing a hint for each offering in which they identified the names of several hotels (none of which were usually the actual property for sale), I have encountered what appears to be a new format while conducting a search for Las Vegas hotels. After seeing the list that is created from the search and then clicking on a particular offering there is a message at the top of the next page that reads "Book Soon! The last person got the Aria Resort and Casino Las Vegas." Since the list of amenities should be unique to a specific property, wouldn't this violate their policy of not revealing the name of the hotel until after the purchase? If not, then are they misleading us in some way? Also, their usual practice has been to provide one offering per star level in each geographic zone. My search came back with two 5-star offerings for The Strip-South area as well as two 5-star offerings for The Strip-North area. In both cases the price and amenities were different yet the message alluded to above referred to the same hotel. In the case of the South area both were the Aria and for the North area both were Trump International. Does anyone have any insight into what Hotwire is doing?

Liberia, Costa Rica

There are only 3* properties currently reported. Any guess as to which property this may be with the following amenities: All Inclusive Beachfront Property A la Carte Dining Options Water Sports Evening Entertainment Children's Activities Daily Activities Fitness Center Pool Laundry Golf Tennis

It did turn out to be The Madison as expected. Booked it for two nights, 10/16/10-10/18/10.

Started bidding at $45. Used free bidding zones. My $52 bid was counter-offered with $67. I declined and continued rebidding.

Thanks. Checking in Oct. 16 for one night.

Did a search for Oct. 16 and found this listing for $56. The description doesn't match up with any property on your Hotwire list but does seem to be a strong match for The Madison Hotel on your Priceline list. What do you think? Complimentary Breakfast Gym Pool Dining Internet

I went back later the same day to purchase what I was now sure would be the Caribe Hilton; however, that offering was no longer available. There was another 4 star San Juan property listed at the same price of $119 for 1/15/10-1/18/10 with these amenities: Near Beach Oceanfront Casino Fitness Pool Restaurants Business Laundry Golf Tennis Spa This matched up exactly with the Conrad Condado Plaza. I made the purchase and was happier with this selection over the Caribe Hilton as there is a casino on site and the Trip Advisor rating is higher. I used the site's HOTWIRE link.

Thanks for the advice. Since we will be requiring 2 rooms I ran a new search using your HOTWIRE link for 4 adults, 2 children and it came back with the Beachfront icon. What is the reason for "hiding" an icon? I think this would be an important amenity to show as it would help to make the sale. This is not necessarily the property I had been hoping for since my preference would be to have a casino on site. However, if I can identify it with a reasonable degree of certainty (which it appears I now can), then this would be an acceptable fallback position. I had also been submitting bids using your PRICELINE link and had been rejected up through $117 using the Resorts category (which includes the Caribe Hilton) and through $109 selecting the 4-star category. This HOTWIRE offering would appear to be our best option. Will post to the board once a purchase has been made.

I have responded to the Stamford post as requested.

Didn't receive a reply from the Board after I responded with my requested dates of travel. I ultimately used PRICELINE and got the Stamford Hilton for $45 per night on the first bid.

Hotwire lists this property for $119 per night with the following amenities: Fitness Pool Restaurant Business Tennis Spa This matches up closely with the Caribe Hilton except for not having a reference to Beachfront.

Forgot to mention, I did use the PRICELINE link to begin my purchase.