Travelocity has decided to take on Priceline and Hotwire in the opaque-pricing market for accommodations with a service they call "Top Secret Hotels."
Opaque pricing is the practice of giving the consumer some -- but not all -- of the information about a hotel prior to a booking decision. That one missing detail is the identity of the property. Location also is masked, but the customer is given a zone in which the hotel is located. The exact address doesn't appear until after you've completed the non-refundable transaction.
It's not for everyone. But the trade-off for this uncertainty is a discount on the room rate. Travelocity is advertising that their Top Secret Hotels promotion will save up to 45 percent. I decided to use it for a one-night stay last week in St. Louis.
The service is available in 33 U.S. cities, three Canadian cities and 10 other locations in Mexico, the Caribbean and South America. All the bookings are three- and four-star properties. I chose a four-star within a very large zone that included not only downtown St. Louis but also many of the outlying suburbs. In theory, I was going for a four-star hotel downtown, but Travelocity made it clear the hotel might not be located downtown.
After purchase, I learned the room was about eight miles from downtown, but located within a short walk of restaurants, an entertainment district and a MetroLink light rail stop. From there, it took 15-20 minutes on the train to reach downtown. On my trip, the distance from downtown was not a hardship. But this is clearly a weakness when compared to Priceline and Hotwire, which offer more narrowly defined zones in many more cities around the world.
I agreed to a $60 rate, which with taxes came to $70.55. On the hotel's website, a single room was quoted at a special pre-tax rate just more than double my total cost. A search for the hotel on Kayak.com returned results between $112-$169/night.
In summary: I was delighted with the price and the value. The hotel is only about a year old with comfortable appointments one would expect in an upscale property. Self-parking on property was free. Service was good, and I didn't feel as if I was a second-class citizen because I received a deeply discounted room rate. Remember that this is one experience at one hotel at one moment in time. It is not intended to be a scientific study--just an expression of how it worked out for me.
In my opinion, Travelocity still has work to do if they plan to make serious challenges to Priceline and Hotwire. The limited number of cities and the large geographic zones in cities such as St. Louis could create problems for some budget travelers.
All the same, my first Travelocity Top Secret Hotels experience was a good one.
I was thinking about booking a room in Toronto using Top Secret Hotels but it appears there are some hotels classified as “downtown” that really aren’t. For me that makes a big difference. Your article has made me rethink this. Thanks.
Do not use Top Secret. I got a hotel that was over 3 hours away from my original destination. Travelocity won’t refund my money either. So now I’m out money too. THIS IS BOGUS. I will never use Travelocity again. They have lost my business. PASS IT ON.
Avoid Secret Hotels – and don’t book with a crooked outfit like Travelocity – I booked a Downtown Ottawa Hotel – and ended up with something very suburban. And the hotel was in renovations – which is not disclosed in the Secret Hotel listing.
I just booked a hotel for NYC for Sept with Top Secret Hotel… NEVER AGAIN. I should have used Priceline, which I’m always happy with. This NYC booking was for a 2 star hotel which Travelocity said had 4/5 happy customer faces. Not true. After finding out the hotel name, the reviews on other sites (such as tripadvisor) was not positive at all. No help from travelocity customer service or the hotel with I requested a room with two twin beds instead of a double bed. they said I’d have to pay an upgrade fee of another $110 USD. One big scam. Just don’t do it, you’ll regret it.
Top Secret Hotels is a Rip-Off.
Booked a night in Cancun, thankfully only one night to test the system, and ended up in a Holiday Inn away from the beach for $ 5.00 below the posted rate, that’s a discount of 7%. When I called Travelocity to complain I was told that the policy states that the discount is between 0 and 45%. When I asked the person that called me back if they think it is a good deal to give up my cancellation privilege, prepay for 5month in advance and end up away from the beach they refused to answer and said there is nothing they can do.. Again no help even though I offered to book my remaining days with Travelocity as well if they rebook into another Hotel by the beach.
Never again Travelocity!
DO NOT USE TRAVELOCITY TOP SECRET HOTEL!!
I reserved a room through their website.. however, when I tried to check in, they did not have my reservation.. even after I showed them my confirmation number from travelocity and that my credit card had been charged. The hotel gave me a room anyway but I had to give them my credit card again for security reasons. Travelocity customer service assured me that they will fax the hotel my reservation and get it straightened out so that I will not be charged again.
It’s been 2 months now and my card is still charged from travelocity AND the FULL PRICE from the hotel. I’m STILL having issues getting this reversed.
WARNING!! DO NOT USE THEIR SERVICE!!!!
I just had a terrible experience using Travelocity’s “Secret Hotels” feature. The star ratings are SO not what you expect! Called customer service, was told no one in the entire company had the authority to help me. (I spoke with the original person, the supervisor, and the supervisor of the supervisor.) I have used hotwire and priceline before to “blind book” hotel rooms and was very satisfied. Unfortunately, it looks like Travelocity’s Secret Hotels can just not be trusted.
The issue at hand: Comfort Inn is somehow in the same hotel class as Hilton, Doubletree, Courtyard by Marriot, Drury Inn… Huh??? Very disappointing.
Never never again. I booked an hotel in copenhagen. The system gave me a single occupancy room instead of double. In that specific hotel there are 40 individual rooms with only one twin bed. I have tried to resolve the problem with travelocity customer care for several days, without any success. Also, I found a much lower price for the same hotel and same date including breakfast at destinia.com. Never again with travelocity.
Hi,
I can understand how upset you are, and I would be as well, however its quite easy to do a little research and be almost certain which hotel is the opaque hotel in question. I’ve outlined my experience on my website ( http://www.bidcry.com/ ) permalinked here :
http://www.bidcry.com/travelocity/ttrosen.aspx
I actually found myself booked into a hotel at a 75% discount, far exceeding the upto 55% that travelocity advertises.
Awesome deal