ago 2000 headquarters san francisco california parent expedia inc. website hotwire.com hotwire is a discount travel website that offers low prices on airfare hotel rental cars and vacation packages 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 . contents 1 history 2 method of operation 3 management 4 see also 5 references 6 external links history edit 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 . 1 2 prior to its formal launch it was codenamed purple demon . 3 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 . 4 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 . 5 in 2009 they were given the 2008 award for the third time in a row . hotwire first launched with opaque airline tickets . they 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 . method of operation edit when hotel rooms airline seats or rental cars go unsold travel companies use hotwire to fill them . 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 opaque . according to the hotwire web site 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 . management edit headquartered in san francisco ca hotwire inc. functions as an operating company of expedia inc. expedia also operates hotels.com classicvacations.com venere and egencia . karl peterson one of hotwire s four founding members served as hotwire s first ceo . in 2006 hotwire was overseen by hotwire s 2004 2006 cfo eric grosse another one of hotwire s four founding members . in january 2009 eric grosse became the president of expedia worldwide and clem bason took over as president of the hotwire group . 6 7 hotwire operates with one general manager and six vice presidents on its management team . hotwire began with 4 employees and then grew to 80 within months . currently hotwire has over 300 employees . see also edit expedia.com references edit hotwire launch to provide yet another way to offload cheap inventory . world airline news . 2000 . retrieved 2000 09 08 . check date values in access date help schaal dennis 2016 . the definitive oral history of online travel . skift . retrieved 15 june 2016 . can purple demon avoid orbitz errors . retrieved 2000 07 05 . check date values in access date help interactivecorp grabs onto hotwire . news.com . retrieved 2003 09 22 . j.d. power and associates ranks hotwire.cc top travel site for second consecutive year . msn money . retrieved 2008 01 23 . clem bason press release . in 2013 clem left the company and henrik kjellberg became president of hotwire.com after joining from expedia affiliate network also as president . hotwire management . external links edit hotwire.com official twitter v t e expedia inc. people barry diller chairman of the board dara khosrowshahi president and ceo subsidiaries brands and divisions current expedia hotels.com hotwire.com trivago venere.com wotif.com travelocity orbitz homeaway former tripadvisor spun off in 2011 elong spun off in 2015 headquarters expedia building retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title hotwire.com & oldid 743135566 categories travel websitesinternet properties established in 2000online travel agenciesexpedia inc.hidden categories cs1 errors dates navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated 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