Hotwire

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, my plans and flight to Chicago was cancelled and will be rescheduled later. I tried getting Hotwire to cancel my reservation and request a refund. I spoke to a woman on the phone who acted like she would take care of it. Heard nothing for weeks. Went online since i couldn't get thru on the phone and cancelled again. Got a reply from Hotwire that said SIXT (rental) would not approve. SIXT said it was Hotwire's responsibility since I booked thru them. Hotwire is telling me i'm out of luck. That is not a reasonable answer under the current economic crisis and pandemic. At the very least, they should offer a credit to be used later.

So I changed my vehicle rental with Hotwire to include an additional day to my vacation, they refused but the end provider Thrifty (who were helpful) amended it. However the insurance Hotwire sold me still needed to be altered to match. Hotwire told me I have to speak to Allianz directly to change the insurance part of the booking. They put me through as I am from UK and there's no out-of-US contact number listed for Allianz. I was then told by an Allianz advisor that the policy wouldn't have covered me anyway as I'm not a US resident! She said the only option was to cancel it. I rang Hotwire back and they refused to get involved as it's not their product (despite the fact that they sold it to me) so I wrote an email of complaint copying both companies. No reply from Hotwire. I got a response from Allianz stating actually I would have been covered. So I asked them to phone me back to alter it to include my extra day, they said no I would need to call back. I called back again and they said They can change it but there was a phone fault and I'd have to phone back. I requested again someone call me. 1:50am I get a call from an Allianz advisor who advised me they cannot change my policy as I'm not a US resident and it would need to be cancelled. They've now provided their UK office number in the hope they can provide insurance. I rang Hotwire again but they didn't want to know, just kept saying it's not their product. I travel in 3 days and currently I have no insurance.

I needed to reserve a hotel room near Charles de Gaulle airport. Hotwire promoted a marginal two star hotel as a four star hotel in the airport. The hotel is in fact more than the .2 kilometers that was advertised. I have used numerous internet websites for hotel reservations usually successfully. I would advise anyone to never use Hotwire. Once I discovered the name of the hotel after payment unfortunately, I found that the hotel was selling for less per night on any other internet reservation; and that the reviews are overwhelmingly negative.

Hotwire is being dishonest, do not use them for anything.