Horrible experience with Hotwire
 

Just want to share my bad experiences with Hotwire so that it may help somebody.

Be tripple careful booking hotels through their site!!!. I wanted a hotel close to the airport because I never been in Toronto before and my return flight was early in the morning and I was afraid of the traffic. I selected a hotel that was advetized within 5 miles but after I booked it, it turned out to be more than 3 times further away. And they refused my immediate request to change it to any other hotel closer to the airport. So I had to book another hotel through another cite.

Be supercareful with Hotwire. They mislead you and "steal" your money.

Will you please state the Hotel booked for you by Hotwire? I'm really curious because the entire airport area is only about 4 miles x 5 miles.

Of course, it would be outrageous if the hotel was more than 5 miles away, but 20???

Yes - definitely tell us which hotel you got. If it was in the YYZ zone it could not have been 15 miles away.

Since I never ended up staying in the hotel they charged me for, I do not know/recall its name. By the way, Hotwire does not tell you the name of the hotel until after you pay.

The trip was in early July and my cc initially gave me credit, but they just contacted me and stated that because of Hotwire no-refund policy they will reinstate the charge. I submitted all documentation, even names of the Hotwire representative I spoke to. The Hotwire position is as long as the hotel is within the same city, the distance does not matter !!! Can you imagine that...

The distance from airport changed from advertized 5 miles to over 12 for the actual hotel. The hotel webpage stated that normal travel time would be 20-30 minutes to the airport but can double in early rush hour. So I booked another hotel through another site.

My original post mistakenly stated that the change in distance was over 3 times. It was a typo and should have been over 2 times. Sorry

If you log on into your Hotwire account, you should have been able to pull up your past bookings.

Yes, we know you don't get the name of the hotel until after you pay.

But something smells strange - you get a hotel w/i a geographic zone, so again, if it was in the YYZ zone how could it have been 15 or even 10 miles away? Also - how could you not know the name of the property - since you can access your entire history w/ hotwire.

It seems there is more to this story . . . . .

I really do not know what you mean by saying that I can pull my history with Hotwire. I never booked with them before and never will again.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I just posted my experience. If you were lucky with them, good for you. But in my experience as a consumer, if the company cannot provide what they promised you once, they will do it again. After I learned that the actual hotel was much further than advertized, I contacted their customer service and stated that I want a closer hotel, as was promised in description. I told them that I do not care for the name/brand/etc. They responded they could do it only if I pay higher rate per night. Once again, I am not pushing my viepoint on anybody, just sharing the experience I had with the company.

If you had booked with Hotwire, you must have created an account on Hotwire.

What I was suggesting is to log on into your Hotwire account. Then click on "my account" and under PAST TRIPS, you can look up all the bookings you had made with Hotwire.

I did that yesterday and was able to pull up 3 past hotel bookings and 2 car rental bookings with them, dating back to 2006.

If you do so, you can click on that Toronto hotel booking and it'll show you which hotel Hotwire had sold you.

All we were asking was which hotel Hotwire gave you, as we were curious as to how far away from the airport it is and which "zone" it is listed.

We're not accusing you of lying or anything, we just wanted to know, so that someone might benefit from your unfortunate experience.

As I've mentioned above, I have used Hotwire 3 times before to book a hotel. I was pleased with all the bookings. In one case, the hotel did not have hot water one morning (due to the boiler which broke). I wrote to Hotwire after the trip and they actually gave me back a partial credit because of that inconvenience.

Thank you for giving me the directions for finding the information you were looking for

The name of the hotel they booked me in is

Delta Meadowvale Resort & Conference Centre

That hotel isn't too awfully far from the airport -- but it also is not in the airport zone. If you wanted to be right near the airport, then it makes more sense to choose the airport zone.

I'm not a Hotwire expert, but looking at the Toronto hotel list on betterbidding, your hotel, the Delta Meadowvale is listed as a 3.5* in the Mississauga zone, NOT the YYZ airport zone.

When I go on to Hotwire and plug in Toronto airport YYZ as the destination, I see that they offer hotels in numerous zones, including YYZ, Mississauga, Brampton, and North York.

So girl66216 - I'm sorry to say, but I am afraid that when you book on Hotwire, even though you typed in YYZ as the destination, mostly likely you picked a hotel in the Mississauga zone - and you ended up with the Delta Meadowvale. That's the reason you couldn't get a refund back from Hotwire.

I just looked at the hotel's website - it says 15 mins from YYZ. So even w/ the mistake of booking a hotel in the wrong zone - it still is close enough to be relatively convenient.

You could also have identified that particular hotel if you had checked the pinned hotel list on www.betterbidding.com

I think it was very generous of Hotwire to offer to let you rebook...

You do have to pay attention when booking with Hotwire.

It's unfair of you to say that Hotwire misleads you and "steals" your money.

I've used Hotwire dozens of times for many years in a lot of cities and have never been disappointed.

i have used hotwire and have been happy so far.

one thing that is TRUE, if you want an "airport" hotel, then be sure you book something that has the "shuttle" amenity as they sometimes include hotels that are a bit more distant from airports and not ALL have shuttles ( a good sign of reasonable proximity).