Anyone had any lucky with mystery hotel bookings in Melbourne, is it worth the punt?

Anyone had any lucky with mystery hotel bookings in Melbourne, is it worth the punt? Need help deciphering the 5star options.

You mean hotwire, or what? 

I've used hotwire about a dozen times and had only good experiences, usually had really good prices too. I always check the forums on betterbidding.com which usually give you a pretty good idea of what you're going to be getting. 

Yep even wotif i have noticed now do a mystery hotel deal. 

Have used hotwire for the states but not here, so might check it out now. 

Thanks

wotif it's usually pretty easy to tell which one it is, by lining up the prices and availability with the other hotels in the same price category.

I don't use wotif any more though -- firstly because they have a ridiculous booking fee (you're already getting paid by the hotel, guys, no need to gouge me seven bucks) and secondly because I had a bad experience with them when I booked a hotel through them (on a night when the whole town was sold out) and when I showed up the hotel looked dumbly at me and said (a) they were completely booked out and (b) they didn't even know they still used wotif. I wound up having to drive about an extra 150km that night. So yeah, screw wotif.

I think hotwire often has good deals in Australia (actually everywhere outside the US) because fewer people use it here. So I probably shouldn't be talking about it. Shhhh! 

Yeh wotif isnt the greatest but its 5 star paris end hotel, seemsto be the stamford; which is certianly at the cheaper end of the 5star range, but for $140 a night you cant complain. 

I have used hotwire before in vegas, and wasnt bad. But its melbourne list seems pretty poor. You click the hotel and it says unavalible almost instantly. strange