Hotwire Hot Rate Hotels Revealed: My Favorite Way to Save Money on Hotels
A World in Reach contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may receive a commission at no cost to you! Read my full disclosure here.
Hotwire Hot Rate Hotels Revealed: Keep reading to see how I save money on hotels while traveling!
A World in Reach contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may receive a commission at no cost to you! Read my full disclosure here.
If you’ve read many posts here on A World in Reach, you know that it’s no secret that I like to travel on a budget. I always try to save as much money as I can on flights and hotels so I can spend more money on things that are a little more fun, like delicious food and amazing experiences!
Most of my trip destinations are decided on the availability of a cheap flight. Since I’ve gotten pretty good at finding affordable airfare, accommodation costs usually take up the biggest chunk of my travel expenses. Because of this, I’ve started to find ways to save as much money on accommodation as possible. One of my favorite ways to save money on hotels around the world is to book a Hotwire Hot Rate hotel deal.
Just a quick note: this post is not sponsored in any way by Hotwire. I just truly love their Hot Rate deals and I want to share one of my top money-saving tips with you!
What are Hotwire Hot Rate Hotel Deals?
Hotwire is a popular online travel agency where you can book hotels, flights, rental cars, and more. Sometimes the prices offered on Hotwire are similar to those on the hotel or airline website while others are deeply discounted. Hotwire’s best deals are known as Hot Rate Deals. These hotels are often up to 60% cheaper than if you were to book directly with the hotel or through another online booking website such as Booking.com.
There’s just one catch when it comes to Hotwire’s Hot Rate Deals: you don’t know exactly what hotel you’re staying at until after you complete the booking, and there are no refunds on Hotwire Hot Rate Deals.
So, why would someone want to book a hotel when they’re not even sure of the place they’re booking? Well, the deals you can get with Hotwire Hot Rate hotels can be insane – sometimes, you can get 4 or 5-star hotels at 2-star prices. Plus, I’ve discovered a little trick that can help you find out exactly what hotel you’ll be staying at when you book a Hotwire Hot Rate hotel.
Hotwire Hot Rate Hotels Revealed: Know Exactly Where You’re Staying
It can be a little scary booking a mystery hotel. What if it’s in an unsafe neighborhood, or what if it’s been reported as being unclean? Luckily, I’ve found a trick that can help you reveal the exact hotel you’ll be getting with a Hotwire Hot Rate Hotel before you book.
When you go to a Hotwire Hot Rate Hotel deal page, you’ll be shown a little bit of information about where you’re staying:
- The star rating of the hotel
- The area of the city where the hotel is located
- The Expedia review score of the hotel
- The number of Expedia reviews
- A photo of the actual hotel you’ll be booking
- A list of 3-4 hotels, with one of the hotels guaranteed to be one of the hotels you’re booking
The photo and the list of potential hotels are not always shown, but I’ve been able to see them in most cases (unless it’s a hotel listed as new to Hotwire or in a lesser-visited location).
In the screenshot above, you can see that this Hotwire Hot Rate Hotel is a 4-star hotel located in San Francisco’s Union Square East area. It is rated 4.4/5 on Expedia with 1,159 reviews. There is a photo of an actual hotel room at the hotel and it’s guaranteed to be one of three hotels: Hotel G, Axiom Hotel, or Grand Hyatt San Francisco.
You’re in luck with this listing: you’re able to see a photo of the hotel, which is the easiest way to reveal exactly which hotel you’re getting when you book this Hotwire Hot Rate hotel.
Go ahead and click on the hotel photo to make it larger. Now, take a screenshot of the photo (it is easiest if you’re able to use a snipping tool to only grab the hotel photo and not the rest of the screen).
Go to Google Images and reverse image search the screenshot.
As you can see, the Google reverse image search results show that the exact hotel of this Hotwire Hot Rate Hotel deal listing is the Axiom Hotel.
Now that you know the name of the hotel, you can check out more reviews and see the exact location of the hotel to help you decide before booking the non-refundable deal.
You can also compare the Hotwire Hot Rate deal price with the price of booking the hotel outright. In this case, for the same dates (May 1-3, 2020), the Hotwire Hot Rate price is $99 a night, while the hotel website price is $194 a night. That’s nearly $100 off!
Here’s another example of the trick in action:
Here you can see that this Hotwire Hot Rate Hotel is a 5-star hotel located in the La Défense/Neuilly/Suresnes area of Paris. It is rated 4.2/5 on Expedia. There is a photo of an actual hotel room at the hotel and it’s guaranteed to be one of three hotels: Hotel Balzac Paris Champs Elysees, Pershing Hall, or Pullman Paris La Defense. You can also see that the last person who booked this Hotwire Hot Rate Deal got the Pullman Paris La Defense as their hotel.
When you reverse image search the hotel image that you’re provided, it is confirmed that the hotel you will be booking is the Pullman Paris La Defense.
I’ve tried this trick several times to reveal my Hotwire Hot Rate hotel before booking. As long as there’s an actual hotel photo provided, this trick has never failed me!
What if there’s only a sample photo?
In some cases, Hotwire provides a sample photo rather than a photo of the actual hotel. In these cases, you probably won’t be able to verify exactly which hotel you’ll be booking with your Hotwire Hot Rate deal.
However, when I was searching for hotels in major cities to put together this post, nearly every hotel I clicked on gave an actual photo. If you’re stuck getting a sample photo, try refreshing the page a few times or searching through a different browser – this happened to me a couple of times but I was eventually able to get the page to come up with an actual photo.
Even if you’re not able to verify the exact hotel, Hotwire Hot Rate deals are often worth it for the savings. On my road trip across the United States, I used Hotwire Hot Rate deals to book hotels every single night, and I only had one not-so-great experience. It’s also how I booked the luxurious Swissotel Chicago for a fraction of the price!
Hotwire Hot Rate Hotels Revealed
Using Hotwire Hot Rate deals to score hotels for a fraction of the price is one of my favorite ways to save money on accommodation costs, and this is especially true when I’m able to verify the exact hotel before booking!
If you’re planning a trip and are looking to save money on your hotel, I highly recommend booking a Hotwire Hot Rate hotel. Don’t forget to use my trick so that you can see where you’ll be staying before you book, and then get ready to save a ton on your next hotel stay!
Click here to search for a Hotwire Hot Rate hotel deal for your next trip!
Have you booked a Hotwire Hot Rate hotel deal before?
