Priceline Hotel: Help with bidding

[schmidt2k]

Dear BB friends,

Well, I have become a user and I am posting the parameters of my stay and would like bidding suggestions and strategies.

June 17 - 20, 2005

LA (Santa Monica - Marina del Rey) - prefer Santa Monica

LA (Bev. Hills - Westwood - Cent. City) prefer BH or WW

4 star rating would be wonderful, but will drop to 3.5 as needed.

I don't have a max bid in mind as I have never done this before but,the most I would like to pay is $130

I do have my eyes on one property - Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel

We are attending a 50th anni party and our sons grad from UCLA

Any advice you can give me will be greatly appreciated. I understand from your posts that PL is usually cheaper than Hotwire.

Many, many thanks! :) Lane

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

Few things in order to be able to help you best...

You have to be able to accept any hotel in the zone, with Priceline there's nothing to help you target one city in a zone over another... HOTWIRE gives you a little more control as you can often identify the property before hand. As you point out, priceline is usually a bit cheaper than hotwire, so i'm not sure where your priorties lie (price vs. location)

Along the same lines, do you have a preference of the Santa Monica zone vs. the Beverly Hills zone? Would you prefer the cheaper of the two, or if you prefer one more than the other would you prefer to exahust your chances with one zone before trying the other?

Priceline does not use 3.5* properties in their rating system (Hotwire does)... would a 3* on priceline also be sufficient?

Let us know the above and we'll proceed from there. Also, i'm assuming $130 is your maximum bid/purchase amount (ie- before taxes and/or fees)... if not please let us know your maximum bid amount.