Complaint Review: Hotwire.com

We have been hotwire customers for more than a year and we made the mistake of trusting the website. We booked several 2 star hotels under the HOT RATE HOTEL PRICES with basic amenities as we are both students and just need a decent place to stay as our main aim was to explore the area and go for sight-seeing and activities in the area. We had a satisfactory stay these few trips as we were provided the described standard of care. We now planned for a trip to Universal Studios Orlando and decided to book for a 3 star and 3.5 star hotel this time through hotwire.com. BIG MISTAKE! First thing we learnt that this "Hot Rate Hotel deal" is a big scam. If you read the fine print, they can stick you with any hotel that they find and is deemed 3 star even if it doesn't meet any required standards!! They misrepresent the category by putting in names like Sheraton, Westin, etc. and I doubt barely any customer is actually provided with an actual booking in these places. Instead they have a large mix of any nearby hotels who they deem eligible and chances are you will be stuck with one of them. This is exactly our story and they cheated us this way not once but twice. Here is our story. We made a reservation through the Hot Rate deal at a 3 star hotel and were stuck with a substandard hotel deemed 3 star. Checked reviews on google, yelp, tripadvisor, and several other websites and sorted those with most recent ones. We were horrified to see pictures of filthy and dirty rooms and furniture, complaints about pest infestation and unsanitary conditions. So of course we decided to call customer care. After a long time of explaining the situation and being redirected we finally got an agent who stressed that this would be a one time exception given to us. We of course noted that they should not have kept such hotels in this category and they should update according to recent reviews! In this day and age, who relies 3-5 years old reviews. We finally made a agreement to pay more and get a decent place. The category we chose was a 3 Star Boutique Hotel! Of course again we specified we would require basic amenities and we asked to be filtered out of such places. The lady mentioned that she removed the hotel we complained about. AND AGAIN WE WERE CHEATED! They stuck us with a hotel even worse. The filtering was only for that one place. We got another horrible place with even bad customer ratings and pictures with shower heads hanging, broken chairs and awful conditions. Their claim about the hotel was false - it was not 'boutique'. The hotel was below standard. So we called them again! After speaking with several people and getting redirected about 5 times. All they claim is we were already given a one time exception and they can't do anything further. How is it a one time exception if our complaint was never addressed. Another excuse to stick us up by giving us any substandard place and charging us even more for it! They state that their reservation policy is non-refundable. Of course the policy is enforcable but the standard of the hotel mentioned is not??? Their 'customer service' is anything but. The supervisor claims they were isolated incidents when we were ready to provide all the required proof and information from several recent past customers posted online on several travel websites!! This is just another way to scam people and they are making great money in doing this. There is no proper management and it did not even seem they were redirecting or doing anything about our case. Just putting us on hold and saying we cannot do anything. We, obviously, now are out of our money and will never use them again. All we were looking for is a decent place to stay! We got scammed by their hot rate deal and misrepresentation of hotels! This is just another effort of on our part so other customers are warned of the shady business these people run!! PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THIS WEBSITE! YOU MAY HAVE HAD A GOOD EXPERIENCE ONCE BUT DO NOT TRUST THEM!!