Hotwire.com
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| Subsidiary | |
| Founded | 2000 |
| Founders | Karl Peterson Eric Grosse Gregg Brockway Spencer Rascoff American Airlines Northwest Airlines Continental Airlines America West Airlines United Airlines |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
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Number of employees
|
300+ |
| Parent | Expedia, Inc. |
| Website | www |
Hotwire is a travel website that can be used to book airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and vacation packages. It operates by selling off unsold travel inventory at discounted prices.
Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Hotwire, Inc. is an operating company of Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE). Expedia also operates Hotels.com, ClassicVacations.com, and Egencia.
Hotwire was launched in 2000 by Karl Peterson, Eric Grosse, Gregg Brockway, and Spencer Rascoff and by six major airlines: American, Northwest (now Delta), Continental (now United), America West (now American), and United. They were funded by a leading private equity firm, Texas Pacific Group (TPG) with an initial $75 million investment. Prior to its formal launch, it was codenamed Purple Demon.
In September 2003, IAC/InterActiveCorp announced its acquisition of Hotwire.com for $663 million. (Expedia spun off from IAC in 2005.) Hotwire's co-partners under IAC included Citysearch, Evite, HSN, Ticketmaster, LendingTree, RealEstate.com, Entertainment.com, and Match.com.
In 2007, J.D. Power and Associates Independent Travel Web Site Satisfaction StudySM recognized Hotwire for ranking "Highest in Customer Satisfaction for Independent Travel Web Sites" for the second year in a row. In 2009, they were given the 2008 award for the third time in a row.
Hotwire first launched with opaque airline tickets. The company started selling opaque hotel and rental cars a few months later. Package offerings started in 2003. In 2004, Hotwire began to offer select retail travel products. In June 2007, Hotwire removed all airfare booking fees.
When hotel rooms, airline seats, or rental cars go unsold, they are filled by travel companies through companies like Hotwire. Hotwire does not identify the participating companies until after the purchaser has paid so as not to directly compete with regular retail sales of the travel partners. This sales model is known as an "opaque". According to the Hotwire website, they deal with brand-name travel companies exclusively. This strategy allows Hotwire partners to clear out their supply and sell inventory that would otherwise go unsold. Hotwire reveals the prices and the travel dates of all their products upfront and does not sell via a "bidding" or "auction" model. Hotwire also offers a set of open travel APIs that can be used in travel applications.
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Wikipedia