Priceline Hotel: 3* Nashville (Downtown - Metro Center) Springhill Suites Nashville Metro

[VegasChick]

We made a last minute decision to spend the night in Nashville on the way home. I skimmed through the boards here to get a sense of bidding strategy but I saw high prices on Priceline Express. A four star was $171. I tried bidding up to $110 without luck. I saw a 3 star PRICELINE EXPRESS deal for $105 so I started my bidding at $60. I was prompted to increase my bid to $86. I was declined at 75 and accepted at $78.

Knowing that something had to be going on in the city I was pretty satisfied with this deal, that is until I arrived to the hotel. It is among a sea of car dealerships, industrial places and residential. The fact that this hotel is included in a downtown/metro zone is absolutely ridiculous. I have been a customer with PL for ten years now. I've never really had an issue with placement. I did stop bidding on Vegas strip zones because of this board and seeing how far away they can put you sometimes, but then again I know that city very well. When bidding on PL I generally have trust that the grey zone I'm looking at is what they are saying it is. I felt really duped by this one and I called them immediately to express my opinions. Boy did that go nowhere.

They all (including supervisors) read from the same cookie cutter script. The supervisor offered to have me look at the zone on my iPad while on the phone to see that I'm wrong and that it is in the shaded zone. That was not my point. My point was and is that their zoning is ridiculous. This hotel and this area should never be included in a downtown/metro zone. Their zoning needs revision to make customers happy. No one I spoke to understood this and simply stated it was in the zone. This hotel I likened to bidding on Magnificent Mile in Chicago and getting a place in Greek Town, it is just that bad.

Since I was stuck with the reservation I checked in, reluctantly. The check in agent stated he gets the same complaint all the time from PL customers. He said they have asked not to be included in the zone due to customer complaints. When a supervisor of PL called me the next day I shared this with her, but she had the same cookie cutter script and no understanding as well.

I'm not quite done with PL on this one. I'm sending registered letters to PL corporate, both for the zoning issue and with how customer service treats you. This is the down side to PL, but I save too much money to stop using them. I will post here if any resolution is reached.

[AaronJB]

Very sorry to hear that the result was a disappointment in terms of location. Thank you for the detailed discussion of what happened and for keeping us updated on how things go if you continue to try to contact Price.line for a resolution to the issue. Hope the hotel itself was pleasant.

 

Thank you for sharing your win and please use the site's PRICELINE or HOTWIRE links to start your purchases and searches.

 

 

[VegasChick]

I just wanted to add to this post, since it has been a while since I have been on the board. An attempt at any resolution with Priceline got nowhere. I never needed their customer service before. After dealing with them for this particular stay I can tell you that if you ever need them for anything, good luck. Their supervisors read from the same scripts as everyone else and do not seem to care about any concerns. As a deal seeker, I realize that I can't disregard priceline completely and just have to accept this as an issue that can happen when bargain shopping.

[thereuare]

Regardless of the zone name, the boundaries as depicted on the map is what defines the area.

In the future if heading to an unfamiliar area, you can use our sister site MAPS and HOTELS.com and pick hotels that in various locations within the designated zone. Click th hotel on the map and the infowindow opens with a link to 'SEE NEARBY Restaurants, Coffee, Bars, etc.'... this will show you what is in the immediate area and may give you a better sense of how urban, isolated, industrial, etc. the area may be.

Sorry you were disappointed with PRICELINE this time around... good luck with your future purchases.

[VegasChick]

While I do agree with you that the boundaries depicted on the map are what defines the area, I believe that the inclusion of an area like this in a downtown category is purposefully misleading. Infact, at the time this happened I searched other cities across the United States with similar population sizes and not one of them combined downtown with another area. It was simply "Tampa-downtown", "Boston-downtown", "Milwaukee-downtown" and so on and so on. Your point (which was the same as PL's point) was never my point. My point is their boundaries should be changed to reflect a downtown area and perhaps another one for a metro area as they do for every other city. Why is Nashville any different? It is misleading. This is further influenced by the fact that the desk clerk stated that they even asked PL to not be included in the "downtown" area as customers were arriving disappointed. When this is virtually one of the only cities in the US that pulls from well outside of a downtown area and adds it to their downtown zone, it creates problems.

 

But I digress. I just wanted to post a follow up to reflect that if you ever need PL customer service, don't expect to be heard. If you want to purchase a room and stay in Nashville downtown area, do not use PL. If you do, you might be cabbing it for 10 minutes like me. Lesson learned.