vanpoodle

The dept store idea is a good one. We discovered a love of Pret a Manger, I don't normally like sandwiches but they put some nice ones together affordably with some pretty creative and tasty selection, so we ate there quite a bit. Also check out Time Out London's website for cheap eats, they have a section devoted to it. There is a small chain called Hummus Bros that can put together a fairly inexpensive meal, too. We also found some good options at train station food courts which often happened to be at a tube station we ended up at anyway. We found Cornish Pasties there that we like. I probably wouldn't eat train station food here, but it was much more exotic and interesting to me there, with so many train commuters wanting good cheap options. I just felt there was no point in going for fine dining every night. We did a bit of that at Wagamama and the like, but lots of cheaper options exist there.

I wouldn't want to risk a 3* hotel in London. There's enough good zones though to try. It is summer so it will be a bit more expensive.

My favourite zones are:

Notting Hill

Regent's Park

Westminster

Bloomsbury

Mayfair

I will bid on these ones using caution:

Chelsea -- because I'm most likely to get the Copthorne at Chelsea Football Club which is way far out but at least close to the tube -- if nothing low is accepted in other zones then I'll start bidding that zone in the 80s figuring I'll put up with the hassle for the savings

Finsbury -- It's the old east end, not as nice as the other areas but the two hotels they are known to use are nice ones but quite a long walk from the tube

Kensington -- I like Kensington a lot, but I fear winning the Hilton Olympia which recently got upped to 4* but is tired and sounds like quite a walk to the tube. I'd risk it at a low bid if nothing was being accepted in the other zones.

Kew -- too far out, won't bid there

Docklands -- location is a bit too far out, but I'd consider it if I were desperate because the hotels are nice there at least.

City and LB -- half the zone is great, the other half is on the south side of the river so not ideal (and if you look at their rates, they are usually quite a bit cheaper on the other side of the river so I'd expect that would be where I'd end up).

Take a look at the postings explaining re-bidding, especially the permutation table that Smilingboy posted in 2008 to help maximize your bids at one sitting. I'd start slightly sub-80 if you have a good grasp of the permutations and then slowly raise the bids working your way through all the different combinations of the acceptable zones and the re-bid zones. I've done this before and once got up past $140 for the zones I like, then started looking at the other zones and ended up at Chelsea Football Club for $120 which was a decent compromise considering. I look at bidding on PL as a process requiring patience and don't mind taking a few days to do it, always ignoring any counteroffer and working my bidding up slowly and methodically. Always with a pen and paper in front of me to keep track of which bids I made.

I'd seriously consider splitting my stay into two or three blocks, you'd have a better chance of getting the best hotel rate that way. I'm happy to do that for stays more than 5 days or so. Try the full 11 days first, see if anything works, then consider splitting it up. To me the advantage is that I might get to stay in a new hotel or a different part of the city and see a bit more.

Also, this is a link to a fantastic post by smilingboy explaining re-bidding and using a matrix to maximize the # of bids you can do in one session, I think it can squeeze out about 30 at one session if there are 5 zones that you can bid on before getting frozen out for 24 hours.

Priceline Re-Bidding Explained

Not a bad result at all. It's always worth trying a less central zone if the zones you like better start getting more expensive. Very wise to start fresh bidding at Docklands rather than tack it on after nothing accepted in the other zones. Definitely check out the Docklands Museum (free and really good!), London Walks for some greated guided walking tours, and the Time Out London website -- which has a ton of ideas of things to do.

Bloomsbury, Regent's Park, Notting Hill and Westminster are all reasonably central and if it were me I'd be comfortable staying in those zones if I could get a good deal on a 5* (that's usually where I start for my own stays since the first 3 often come in cheaper than Mayfair and all have neat things of their own going on). Docklands is a bit of a ways out (only worth doing if you have business in that area as it takes a while to get there from central London) and Chelsea has one hotel (a Wyndham 5*)that people have been getting that's apparently a nice hotel but not terribly convenient since no tube nearby, only bus. City and London Bridge has half the zone being central the other half not, but I think there might only be one 5* hotel participating in that area at the moment so worth looking at to see if you can figure out which it is and if worth taking the chance on (this used to be a free re-bid zone for 5*, and I think one hotel got added a month or two ago but I don't know which it is). Kew/Richmond is most definitely too far out, I wouldn't bid there.

I haven't stayed there (I've walked past it), but it is a pretty new hotel. The Docklands Museum is very close to it. It has free admission and is well worth a visit. The Tube and DLR both connect nearby so not too far out. I think the Hilton Hyde Park tends to work better for cheap rates on weekends, so that might be why no luck on that one. Also, I learned with experience that it is better to close the browser and start on a fresh zone as a new bid and then add the previously declined area as a re-bid zone, which you can get away with. PL doesn't make it intuitive that you can do that, it wasn't until digging through the archives and finding SmilingBoy's matrix that I figured this out (and then my bidding got a lot more strategic). I don't know that you would have gotten anything cheaper this way, $85 a night is still a great deal for a decent hotel in London. (i.e. I would have started a fresh bid at $80 with Docklands, if no go, then add Notting Hill at $81, the Westminster at $82, etc.)

Also check out London Walks -- they have a menu of about 40 inexpensive walking tours, every day they have things ranging from the classic sights to the more obscure. I like exploring when I'm in London (there are so many layers and new and interesting things to see) and found all sorts of other walks on the Time Out London website, including maps for self-guided ones and links to free walking clubs.

Hmmm, I know some people love Mayfair, but I'd really throw a few bids at some of the other zones as well to see if a lower bid would be accepted. The other zones with 5* are all pretty central, though Chelsea does have that one 5* hotel that is not near the tube so I might not bid there.

I like to visit London and have had good success with PL. I won't go below 4* as 3* can be scary. I've tried bidding on 5* here and there to see if I could get a good deal but always ended up with 4*. I've managed to get great deals in the Notting Hill zone (i.e. less than $85 a night more than once for a great Hilton), anywhere close to a tube station should be good. Notting Hill seems to have some of the best prices and I really like some of the things going on there, like the Sunday artists' market along Bayswater Road. You can certainly try bids in a few different zones below $90 to see if there are any takers. If it were me, I'd first try out some bids in the more expensive zones (Mayfair, Westminster), then mid (Bloomsbury, Regents Park), then typically Kensington and Notting Hill. I will sometimes try for City and London Bridge if a low bid is not getting accepted in the other zones but a few of the properties there are a bit far from the things I'll be visiting during my trip. Chelsea I'd only bid on out of desperation because (depending if there's a match being played) you're likely to get Chelsea Football Club which is a bit out of the way (in zone 2), though not a terrible property, and walkable to the tube. I've been avoiding Kensington lately because the Hilton Olympia got upgraded to 4* from 3* and it's too far from the tube for my liking and knowing my luck I'd land that one rather than one of the other excellent properties in the area. But, if bids aren't being accepted in my desired zones, I'd try those ones to see if a lower bid would be accepted there because if it was cheap enough I'd put up with one of those hotels.

SmilingBoy's matrix is fantastic to help you focus on 3 zones and using the re-bid zones to slowly bid your way up and fitting in a ton of bids (well, 30 I think -- and then if you swap in another 2 zones you can get even more bids in) at one sitting rather than having to wait 24 hours to try again.

May might be a little expensive, so the sub-$90 rate might not happen, but if you start now and work your bidding up slowly you should be able to find a great deal. Sometimes splitting your visit into two stays is one way to get a lower price if you don't mind moving hotels mid-trip. I kind of like doing that so I have the chance to explore another area, and it's also fun to see what PRICELINE will surprise me with.

Thanks -- I bid on 5*, $75 for the first set of nights and $76 for the second set of nights with nothing. Based solely on reported bids starting at about that price over the past few years. I'll slowly nudge up over the next while. All the hotels in 5* look great, 4* just has that one bad one, the Mercure, which I don't want to chance at this point. We also need to figure out where to go and what to see for the other 3 nights!

I posted previously about possibly going to DC for Easter, that has been scrapped because now I've just booked a trip to Australia using my husband's points in August. (the surprise is how, despite using points the fees and the like they charge seems pretty close to what regular airfare would be anyway, thus can't do all the trips this year that I want!)

Anyhow, right now we land on the 1st and depart the 8th, and thoughts right now are to book the first two and last two nights in Sydney and explore somewhere else the other days. Still have to figure out where for the middle of the trip. We also have SPG points that we will use this trip for 2 nights, so might see how bidding goes and whichever set of nights seems more expensive will be the one that we will use points for.

It seems that there are no re-bids in Sydney and I see most postings are for 5*, never having been to Australia I've no idea why or what a 4* in Sydney in PL would be like. In looking at the known properties list on PL it appears that there is a 4* Mercure which sounds like an undesirable hotel that is too far out and gets poor reviews. It may be worth avoiding 4* hotel bidding since that seems like a possible hotel?

If someone could let me know what to expect from the possible 4* and where to start bidding for 4* and 5* that would be great. I see that I'm only going to be able to bid once a day. Prior 5* bids have gone up to $180 and if that's what I have to pay I'm okay with that, though lower would be better! Thanks!

Should also add: You'll be staying in a really neat area -- the Lock is beautiful (there are some great walks along the canals and you can go for hours and take the tube home from whereever it takes you). The hotel seems pretty new and welcoming from the outside (I've never been in, just walked past it) and if you're there on a Saturday the nearby markets are REALLY hopping. I thought punk and goth were long gone, but they most definitely come alive on Saturdays in Camden!

Just a hint for next time -- whenever you bid a new zone, you can close your browser and start a whole new bid for a new zone at a low price, and then use zones you've already bid on as free re-bids for those areas, along with the two usual free re-bid zones for London 4*. You can generally sort out where the basement of the prices is that way and be sure you're not overbidding. Generally Westminster and Mayfair are the most expensive zones while Notting Hill seems to get lower bids accepted (and I think it's a great place to stay) and the others fall in the middle. Of course it doesn't always go that way and all depends on occupancy and which hotels are being the most competitive to get some rooms booked.

When I bid (for 4*) in London, I might open up under $80 for each zone I like and use the free re-bids to gradually go higher. It means that I end up closing my browser and filling in all the information again a few times which is tedious, but that is how you can be sure you're not overbidding and getting the lowest possible price. Sometimes it might take a few days to get a bid accepted but I've found that Priceline really rewards those who are patient.

That's a great score! London is a ton of fun -- one thing I've really enjoyed is walking tours with the folks at London Walks (www.walks.com), it's been great for getting the know the city. The more I visit the more I want to go back!

Well done, I'm nervous of Kensington now because there's a couple not so great hotels in the zone as 4 star now but that one is a very good hotel! Good property, great location!

Thought I should give an update here.we used the gold card at checkin. Hotel was full so she could not upgrade us and was giving us grief for not having told the hotel in advance about the gold card. I told her that I had tried but it clearly didn't work and left it at that. Anyhow, we got free breakfasts every day. We are coming back next week and might have the upgrades then. Our room is very very small, can barely walk around the bed, so would be nice if they do.

I understand your frustration -- at least PL matched the price and gave you $25 credit. I agree with thereuare that alas, they did meet their obligations. I had a similarly frustrating experience with resort fees when I booked with Hotwire (the extra $25 meant that I in fact did not get the best price but they had met their obligations and there was nothing I could do to solve it). As upset as I was, I just have to look to it as a learning experience and know what to be wary of in future, and what else I need to check and verify before I proceed with an opaque booking.

Well, look at that. Further proof that just because there were 5 free re-bid zones for 5* in London 3 weeks ago, doesn't mean it will be the same today! So a hotel in City has either been upgraded to 5* or there's a new property on board. I will watch closely to see what gets reported!

If you don't mind switching hotels you can split your stay. That's what I did for my upcoming stay. Got nowhere trying to book 8 nights in all of those zones up to $130. Weekends are much cheaper in London. Then split it to 2-3-3 and it's $84 for the 1st two nights, $120 for the next 3 nights and $83 for the last 3 nights. It will be a big pain in the neck to switch hotels, but sometimes availability is weird to get so many nights together at discount pricing and we saved a lot of money that way since I was booking more than one room.

Yes, that's right, but I think there's another re-bid available for 5*, too. If you search by member, smilingboy did a fantastic post on all the permutations available on Sept 7, 2008 I think under re-bidding explained. It's buried in there, but essentially if you have 5 re-bid zones he did a chart showing how to get 30 re-bids in a session if that helps. It works, I've used for London.

Just curious since I`ve been bidding for a similar time -- what did you start bidding at and what other zones did you try bidding on? London`s been expensive on PL for weeknights this fall!

Mayfair is usually the most expensive zone (Westminster is as well but it's traditionally the business zone and maybe not what you're looking for). It has exclusive shopping neighbourhoods but also has Soho which is loud and nightclubby and in places borderline seedy and a lot of fun at night!

Deals can be had in Notting Hill and I quite like it there, lots of restaurants and young people and quite central. I have also had good luck with Bloomsbury, which is near the British Museum and a real hub of its own with lots of students hanging out and having fun.

I avoid Chelsea just because half of how PL has the zone set up is definitely not central. (though I did win a bid there recently just because my stay was looking like it would be very expensive in my preferred zones and for the 4 rooms I needed the tradeoff made sense, I saved about $30 a night by bidding that zone. I'll see how it turns out!)

Islington can be a cheaper zone and is getting its own nightlife but it was traditionally part of the poorer East End and has parts that aren't quite as nice.

London Bridge area has parts that are absolutely hopping and fun at night (but the City part of the zone is business), but some of the hotels PL uses aren't quite central. Docklands also can have deals, but it's a business area and definitely not central and thus will likely not have the activity you'll like close by.

Regent's Park zone includes Camden Town which definitely would qualify as an active area.

Kensington has spots of activity but is a bit more residential, most of the hotels are central but I'm leery of it now because PL upgraded the Hilton Olympia from 3* to 4* and it's a bit too far from the tube and knowing my luck that's the hotel I would land and not the dozen others that would all be good! (I also won't bid on less than 4* in London because some of the hotels can be dodgy)

I HIGHLY recommend that you read through the rebidding process, there is a ton of information here to help explain how to squeeze the best deal out of PL without bidding too high. smilingboy posted a very useful re-bidding permutation table on Sept 7 2008 which has helped me immensely. I didn't do as well the first time I used PL because I didn't take enough time to read up -- I didn't realize that I could close my browser and start up a new session when I ran out of bids and that alone likely cost me about $30 a night that first time.

You can use the search function on this site to filter through postings just about London as well. I hope that helps!

I just tried that, but Hilton said:

"Thank you for your message to Hilton Reservations and Customer Care. It is my pleasure to assist you today with your reservation request.

In researching your request, our records indicate that the stay does not qualify for HHonors credit because it was booked on a third party website. Please see the definition of ?stay? under the Terms and Conditions of the Hilton HHonors program. This rate is also ineligible to receive credit for any incidentals that are paid at the time of your stay.

You can get guaranteed low rates on our web page www.hiltonfamily.com and receive HHonors points. For more information on "Our Best Rates Guaranteed", please visit the following link http://www.hiltonworldwide.com/en/ww/ourbestrates/overview.jhtml?cid=OM,HH,BRG,FeaturedBanner&adId=BRG,FeaturedBanner.

For future reference, you may verify this as well as other policies specific to eligible rates on-line by accessing the following link: http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/terms.do#accrual_of_points.

We appreciate this opportunity to assist you and thank you for your continued loyalty! If you have any further questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to let us know."

My husband has a gold Hilton membership so not sure if we'll be eligible for the slighter nicer room or not upon checkin.

I just received an email from Priceline asking me to install their FB app. I'm not keen on FB apps because they seem to be able to access a bit too much personal information and I have had experiences with them messing up my computer. This one seems interesting though. I was put off though that one of my permissions that I have to allow for it is to "access my data when I'm not using the application". I'm not sure if that means review my FB data or my PL app data. Have people tried this one and liked it?

I took a quick look using the map app and both nights are coming in expensive on PL's retail side, $300 at a minumum for a 4* in Central London, and even the cheap Millenium Copthorne out in the western fringes of Chelsea is showing no availability there. The Hilton Hyde Park is showing a retail of $317 for both nights, as are the two hotels they tend to use in the Islington area which are generally cheaper (alas, with good reason....). My inclination would be to inch up slowly on the bids in your preferred area, use smilingboy's re-bid matrix (added to the Forum on Sept 7, 2008) in the re-bidding permutations area because you can squeeze out 30+ bids a session using it. Sometimes rooms come available at the last minute at a good discount as well. Who knows with this conference, I spoke to someone in the hotel biz who happened to be going to it and his thoughts were that perhaps that strategy might work though he highly doubted it, but that it is so huge that finding rooms at a low price is tough, which is what led me to take the Chelsea hotel instead of waiting. The 3* Copthorne Tara is showing $172 a night on the Thursday (which is quite high) and no room on the Wednesday -- it is generally an undesired hotel on this board and is a good barometer of what is going on in London! If you want a 4* rather than dropping to a 3*, you might also consider trying Docklands -- it's a bit of a ways out but the hotels there are quite new.

I managed to get weekend nights Nov 4/5 and 10/12 for $83-$84 but got nothing for Mon?Tues/Wed going up as high as $145 or so for 4* and $170s for 5 star. I ended up using the PL maps and seeing that there was a lone outlier in zone 2 (meaning a ways out of Central London) in Chelsea for quite a bit less, so focussed my attention on Chelsea and got it for $120 a night. It's in the boonies but it made sense since I was booking 4 rooms and the $ really added up. I think the Thursday night might have cheaper rates (my $83 bid in Notting Hill was for 3 nights starting on the Thursday), but that Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday are a real problem if you're open to splitting up your stay. WTM (a massive conference with 30,000 to 40,000 attendees) ends on Thursday.

I suggest looking at the map app for PL and see where you happen to see lower rates and focus on that area as well. If you don't have access to that, let me know and I'll take a look and see if I find any hints for where a better rate might be.