How to Tell What Hotel you are Getting on Hotwire BEFORE Paying

Those shopping for great quality and a great value often turn to Hotwire for cut-rate prices at fine hotels. Now you can know exactly which hotel you’ll receive before making your blind purchase…at least in some cities.

Hotwire offers great values, but there is a catch…you won’t see the name of your hotel until you actually pay. Instead, you’ll see the general neighborhood the hotel is located in as well as the star level. The name is shielded: Hotwire says this is so they can provide great prices.

But here’s a way you can virtually guarantee you’ll know exactly what you are getting when you purchase a blind offer. Hotwire partners with Trip Advisor and every hotel on Hotwire has a Trip Advisor rating next to it. You can’t read the reviews themselves (that gives away “Hot Rate” identities too easily…), but you can see the star level that Trip Advisor users have given it. More importantly, you can see how many reviews the hotel has. This is the true giveaway.

For example, the first masked hotel has 992 Trip Advisor reviews. It is no coincidence that if you scroll down the page to normal hotel rates, the NH, that also has 992 reviews and the same star rating. That’s the trick. Click through on the blind booking and you’ll receive that hotel for a fraction of the retail price.

I just did it…

How about the second blind booking above?

Same story in terms of star level and number of reviews matching. But that’s not much of a savings…

Don’t pay attention to the crossed-out price. In order to “confuse” you, Hotwire will average the prices of all the hotels in the neighborhood within the same star level to report the “original price”.

CONCLUSION

I should have called this post “Shatter the Mystery of Hotwire with this One Easy Trick” but then I’d be accused of clickbait. In this case, though, it really is this case you can shatter the mystery of blind purchases on Hotwire with the one easy trick I have outlined above. Just note that it works in some cities and not for others…or perhaps some browsers and not others. Please see the discussion below.