The tradeoff of “opaque” booking sites like Hotwire has always been that you get a good rate if you’re willing to accept some uncertainty: You don’t know the exact property where you’re booking a room, even if you pinpoint an area, star level, and amenities, but you’ll pay less than retail. The consumer gets a great rate, the hotel fills expiring inventory, and Hotwire gets a commission. Everybody wins.

For some time, there have been message boards that throw a wrench into things: BiddingForTravel (for Priceline only) and BetterBidding (for both Priceline and Hotwire) expose the actual names, dates, and rates of the properties that participate. Now, a new site has launched to cut through the clutter and help consumers pinpoint the name of the hotel they’re actually buying on Hotwire:

HotwireRevealed is the brainchild of programmer Pim Linders. Linders has come up with a simple and — dare I say — elegant solution to the “which hotel is this?” question. It’s effectively a searchable database of Hotwire participating hotels. You choose the state, city/zone, and optionally tick the stars/amenities that Hotwire is listing in its search results. HotwireRevealed decodes it, giving you the name of the hotel (or hotels) that match those criteria. Here’s a partial screenshot:

It’s not a perfect system — the site depends on user submissions for its data. But I compared their findings to the hotels I’ve stayed at via Hotwire, and they were all correct.

The data are all US-based, so no luck if you’re looking for other countries’ hotel results. And the usual caveats with any “decoder” site apply: Star ratings may change, amenities may be listed differently, and the data isn’t exhaustive.

Plus, given the potentially trademark-infringing name of the site and the probability that it didn’t cull all this data from its own users’ experience (I wouldn’t be surprised if they scraped the posted findings from the aforementioned bulletin boards) and this is one resource that may not last very long. (It’s been online since April 2010.) While it lasts, put it in your toolbox.

Related:
- Upgraded: Hotwire lets you choose your bed type
- Hotwire’s 4-star surprise, or how I enjoyed a wildly-overrated room
- Travelocity adds discounted opaque hotel booking option
- Hotwire hotel search (aff)