Frugal Friday

For this week's Frugal Friday, I wanted to share my recent experience using Hotwire. Perhaps you already know about this and use it regularly, but until our trip to California, I had never actually used it. I cannot recommend it enough! It was fabulous. For those who don't know, Hotwire is a discount travel site that gives you incredible rates on hotels, cars, and airfare. The only catch is that you don't what company you will get until after your purchase is complete. I used Hotwire to book our hotels and here's how it worked:

I plugged in my dates and it pulled up a number of options, giving me the price, a general location and a star rating. I found a hotel listed for $59/night in the South Disneyland area with 3-1/2 stars. I chose this option and paid for it. Once I completed my reservation I found out we'd be staying at the Crowne Plaza Resort. The hotel was great--free shuttle to Disneyland, nice pool, really comfy beds. The posted rate in our room was $259.00!! The best internet deal I found for the same hotel was $109 so I figured we saved at least $50 on the room, per night. That's $100 total for our 2 nights!

We also got a rental car for $25/day. The cheapest rate I could find anywhere else was $35/day so it was a $50 savings!

If you're not picky about where you're staying, I would highly recommend using Hotwire to save money. The only drawback for me is that they mainly contract with major chain hotels, so you don't get the cute, boutique-style hotels that Mark & I love so much. But for a trip like Disneyland, when we're outside the hotel for the entire day anyway, it's perfect. I'll be using Hotwire from now on.

Anyone ever used them for air travel? How did that go?