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.
Good catch but I guess Hotwire will change their system after this post. 🙂 BTW, in my experience hotels booked using Hotwire, Booking.com, Hotels.com, etc… won’t give you any points or stays.
Where are you seeing the exact number of TripAdvisor reviews for the hotrate hotel? I see ranges – such as 501-1,000 reviews – but not the exact number. Thanks!
I just used this in Zurich. What city are you trying?
I just test tried it with Atlanta
I just tried Barcelona and Geneva and don’t see any TripAdvisor information for the opaque hotel listings.
I don’t know if it is due to my Safari browser, but Barcelona just worked fine…
So did New York:
Switched browser and it worked! Thanks.
This is incredibly odd, but I’ve figured out the trick. When I searched using private browser in Safari, I got the specific numbers, but when I didn’t, that particular line in the search results was omitted entirely.
I see the same thing, 501 – 1000. Santa Marta Colombia
I have another tip. Hotwire reservations ARE cancelled as long as they have the hotel’s permission. The way you do that is to call the hotel and explain that you need to cancel – get their permission to cancel (make sure you take the name of the person you spoke with). Then call Hotwire and ask for an exception, tell them you called their hotel partner and they agreed to the cancellation and provide the name of the person you spoke with. They will put you on hold while they call the hotel and ask that person for permission. They will then be able to cancel the reservation and you’ll get a refund.
Also, they send out emails with discounts when you subscribe. The discounts include taxes & fees, meaning if you get a $20 off $100 promo, it just has to be $100 AFTER taxes & fees (for example $82 hotwire rate + taxes & fees = $101, so you’d be able to get it for a total of $81 after the discount).
I’ve gotten it to work exactly once, but was declined no fewer than four other times. So maybe it is possible but the majority of hotels won’t comply with a request like this, and don’t get your hopes up.
All hotels (at least in New York City) just show a range. I.e. 501-1000 reviews, 1001-1500 reviews etc… Perhaps this trick (which is pretty cool, by the way) only works in particular markets such as Zurich.
I originally checked Toronto and when I saw the ranges they were pretty high so I thought that maybe they only used it on those hotels with a significant number of reviews. To test this theory I looked up Aberdeen Scotland figuring it was a small market but should still have enough hotels to have deals. The same, only ranges (this time much lower than Toronto).
Now that I check Zurich I still only see ranges, the current hot deal for President’s Day weekend has a range of 101-300. I think that your trick has been “fixed.”
Another data point – I just pulled up San Francisco, DC, and Miami using Firefox. I see the exact number of reviews. Not ranges. Perhaps it is a browser thing, or some are just getting a preview of the next “enhancement” that hasn’t been fully rolled out yet.
I used to do the same thing with Priceline, but pretty sure they didn’t provide the number of reviews. You could narrow down the hotels by stars, and in smaller areas with less hotels it was pretty obvious where you’d get to stay when comparing to the list of hotels with those stars that you could buy rooms for outright.
Hey folks – I replied to this effect above, but when I searched using a private browser mode in Safari I got the exact number of hotels, whereas when I searched using the non-private browser mode, that line in the search results was omitted. I do have to second the comment earlier that I hope this isn’t picked up on by Hotwire and adjusted for. Of course, many times now when I click on a hot rate hotel I get the “last person who booked got the _____” message, so I’m not sure how much they’re safeguarding that info.
Cool tip. Any tips on how to find out what rental car company it will be with hotwire?
With this info, I would then reach out to the hotel directly to see if they’d match it. They’ll still end up ahead vs if I made the booking via Hotwire.
I usually reach out to hotels directly when traveling internationally…less so when domestic. And say that I was considering booking on a third party website, but thought I’d contact them to see if they would offer any perks for booking directly. That has worked quite well, and means I’ll get point for booking directly.
I just tried Microsoft Edge and saw the exact number of reviews.
If you use Mozilla (Firefox), it even lists an option that says “Your hotel is guaranteed to be one of these 4″…. lol so you just pick by the rating. Very nice! Thanks.
It seems the “one of these hotels” guarantee isn’t always offered. I got that on a 3.5 star deal but not on a 4 star deal under the same search. The 4 star listed possible brands but made no guarantees. It seems likely this is related to the number of possible hotels matching your criteria. (Firefox, private browsing, with VPN.)
I wasn’t able to see the exact number of reviews I the know hotel search. In fact, the filter options were different. One used “airport shuttle” and the other used “free airport shuttle” among other differences. Odd.
It seems this no longer works on my computer. Anyone still using this trick?
Still works for me using Safari browser.
Hi Matthew, can you try if it is still working? For me, it does not work since beginning of may.
It still works fine for me using the Safari browser on my Mac. I just checked.
thanks for your reply. It worked till Monday in firefox using private Mode. Since yesterday it doesn’t work anymore either firefox or safari, chrome, edge and brave browser. Are you logged into your hotwire account?
I’ve been using this trick for months, but it seems to no longer to be showing as of this week. I’ve noticed it randomly appears on some browsers and locations, so let’s hope it comes back….
I’m trying to do this for Waikiki in Hawaii. Though it’ll show me the review # for a 5 start hotel, 79, I can’t find a named in with the same # of reviews. Help!
Thanks so much! Not working for me. An icon pops up in Hotwire in the “zone” the icon is it?
Try a different browser.
It does work!
Also if you do some test, refreshing the page, loading from incognito mode, you are going to see the same hotel out of 4, coming back…
Thanks for the article.