Hotwire is referred to as an “opaque” travel site because you get discounts on your room, flight or rental car in exchange for giving up a few things. In other words, you were taking your chances when you booked your accommodations through Hotwire, and while it would have been nice for Hotwire to refund your purchase or for Omni to put you and your co-worker in a more appropriate room, they didn’t have to. Was the hotel just giving you a “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude or did it really have no rooms for you? “The lack of her requested bedding was due to the rooms of that type being committed to other guests,” Ryan Hawkins, Omni’s assistant director of revenue management, told me. Even though you were not entitled to a refund, and even though I did not ask Omni for a refund on your behalf, the hotel contacted Hotwire and agreed, as a one-time exception, to refund the room with no penalty.