vanpoodle

Agreed -- a few newbie Hotwire things I know for next time -- I should have checked their retail site BEFORE booking (though with the Fairmont showing as nearly $50 less I may have assumed that is what I would get anyhow), but I wish I would have known to look on the fine print for the resort fee before proceeding, as apparently the fee was in there, and if they had the Fairmont in mind the fee would have been zero. But I guess from a deducing the hotel prior point of view it gives another hint for which hotel Hotwire will assign if you know what the resort fee is.

With pretty much every guest being totally ticked off about a resort fee, why do they keep doing it? It adds another $200 to our stay that was not expected. I guess it's better for me to be all angry about it now, it would have been worse to know once I got there and also be charged $10 a day for parking? (well, I'll still be angry about it when they take my credit card to add it on....) And thanks for listening to me vent about this. The Hotwire staff seem pretty well coached in dealing with the resort fee issue (I talked to 3 different people) and absolutely not budging on it, which is another thing that makes me angry since it shows that it is totally part of the industry and upsets so many customers that they give such extensive training on dealing it.

Of course I've gotten nowhere but thought I'd share a nugget of wisdom for others looking at 5* bookings in North Scottsdale. At the very bottom of the page, well below where it gives a description of the hotel and amenities, where you wouldn't normally look, in small print, it says there is a $25 resort fee if it is the Intercontinental. If it is the Fairmont there would be no resort fee. I'm really kicking myself for not re-checking their retail side, I could have gotten that Fairmont for less than I will be paying for the Intercontinental.

Okay, I discovered a big problem now that I'm booked and can't back out. The Intercontinental charges a $25 per night resort fee which was only discovered after the booking was accepted. The Fairmont does not. I have also just discovered the Fairmont on Hotwire's "known" side for $155 a night (I had seen it on other sites for $186 a night but it didn't come to light on Hotwire until after I'd made the booking and gone to $149 without success on Priceline), which ends up being $5 a night cheaper than what I will be paying. I have now made 2 phone calls to Hotwire and one to the hotel and no one will budge. I'm ticked off because on Hotwire's opaque side they promise me the lowest rate, yet they have the equivalent 5* on their known side that ends up being cheaper -- and the Fairmont would have given us upgrades. The Intercontinental has kindly offered to not charge us the yet additional $10 a night parking fee that they would have tacked on top of the resort fee. With 2 rooms for 4 nights this resort fee is $200.

I made another 23 bids (gotta love that Matrix that Smilingboy shared!) and went from $100 to $149 today on PL using my free rebids for the North Scottsdale zone, no accepted bid, no counteroffers.

Went back to Hotwire and noticed that the rate had dropped to $137 for the 5* North Scottsdale (it was $139 15 hours ago). Made a phone call, did some web browsing and went back to it 10 minutes later and it had dropped to $135. Decided to book it and not wait any longer and it is indeed the Intercontinental Montelucia. Not sure if I should have waited a few more days or not, I suppose it was just as likely to go up in price as down.

Thanks everyone for your help -- I have never done a Hotwire booking before, your site was excellent to help figure out which hotel it was likely to be. I used the link above.

thanks for clarifying where resort sits in the hierarchy!

Yes, the Hotwire listing was 5* for North Scottsdale. PL seems to classify the Fairmont and the Intercontinental as resort.

After some discussion, my instructions now are to bid PL up to $149 for North Scottsdale resort where the Fairmont appears to be the only possibility and if no success then the take the Hotwire 5* and hope that it is one of the Fairmont or Intercontinental, both of which look incredible on their websites (I was burned on that once in Boston after a reco from a professor of mine, but that's a whole other story!)

Once I get back from work this afternoon I'll continue working through that awesome permutation matrix $1 at a time of course using the links off this site. Thanks so much for your feedback everyone!

Bid the North Scottsdale zone at the resort level on PL (where Fairmont Princess appears to be the only resort) starting at $75 in $2 increments to $115 and then $1 increments to $139 using the free re-bidding permutations table as set out by Smilingboy on Sept 7 2008 (with 9 re-bid zones it seems to give a massive # of free re-bids -- I squeezed in 44 rebids and there are still tons left in my 24 hour window).

I stopped at $139 because Hotwire has a 5* North Scottsdale at $139 which, as far as I can tell, could be either the Fairmont or else the Intercontinental Montelucia. The Intercontinental is in the Scottsdale zone on Priceline with a few other hotels which aren't as nice and therefore I don't want to risk bidding in that zone.

I am now deducing that the Hotwire hotel is most likely to be the Intercontinental since not even a counteroffer from PL. I know my husband would prefer to stay at the Fairmont just because he has coupons for free upgrades and meal discounts there and he is a Fairmont fan. We need to figure out if we should take the Hotwire offer (and hope that it's not some other 5* that suddenly appeared in the North Scottsdale zone), keep going with PL for the Fairmont's zone, or book it as a known hotel on another site. I'm going to sleep on it and come back to this later.

Resort is its own separate category.

So any zone with no resorts but hotels of one to five star ratings are safe rebids? Sorry if I'm being pedantic, I don't want to make a horrible bidding mistake!

I was looking to figure out my safe re-bids and it seems that for North Scottsdale the Fairmont must be in the Resort category and not 5*. In setting out the hierarchy, where does resort fall? In order on PL, it goes 5-1* then resort. Is resort a step above 5 star?

Hotwire has a 5* North Scottsdale Hotels listed, with 95% happiness, 3.2-10.5 mi from city center at $139. Does anyone have a sense of which hotel it is?

It looks like it could be either the Fairmont Princess or the Intercontinental Montelucia.

It's got resort, fitness center, pool, tennis nearby, golf nearby, children's business center, high-speed internet, spa, restaurants. I have never been to the Phoenix area and have no idea what to expect, but if it is one of these, both seem like a fantastic indulgent family Xmas getaway place!

My family are heaading to the Phoenix area for Xmas and are booking 2 rooms. I currently have a cancellable room at the Intercontinental Montelucia at $173 a night that I booked in February. Fairmont has just had some promotional pricing for those dates and on their site the Scottsdale Princess is $220, and it's $186 on Hotels.com and Expedia. I either want to stay at the Intercontinental or the Fairmont and won't risk a PL bid to try to get the Intercontinental which is in the Scottsdale zone for fear of getting the Scottsdale Resort & Conference Center which is in the same zone as the Intercontinental. If I book with a "known" as opposed to "opaque" site I have a coupon for one free Fairmont night for one of our rooms that I could use if we make the switch.

The Fairmont is listed (on this site's hotel lists) as the only 5* in the North Scottsdale zone on PL so that would be a safe bid as far as I can tell if I go the PL route.

Hotwire has a 5* North Scottsdale Hotels listed, with 95% happiness, the other 3.2-10.5 mi at $139. If I go Hotwire I'm thinking the $139 in North Scottsdale would be either hotel which would be great (on the hotels list here those are the only two 5* listed for that area). I'd book two rooms for all the nights together if I did this and not use the coupon since I don't want to risk our family being separated at two different hotels and find that neither is the Fairmont anyhow.

So I'm looking for advice -- either keep what I have, take a pretty good web deal on Expedia and use the 1 night coupon, or do some gamblin' with either PL or Hotwire (or try a round in North Scottsdale with PL first then go with Hotwire?). Does anyone have a sense of which hotel Hotwire is offering at $139? It's got resort, fitness center, pool, tennis nearby, golf nearby, children's business center, high-speed internet, spa, restaurants. I have never been to the Phoenix area and have no idea which hotel is nicer, but both seem like a fantastic indulgent family Xmas getaway place!

I think you got the best deal going for Mayfair at the moment -- I was studying it closely for my London bid and I think that's the lowest a 5* was going in the area for this time of year. Who knows if something cheaper would have come up in a week or two, sometimes you just don't know which way demand goes. That matrix was magic for maxing out the # of bids in a session!

I am contemplating a visit to DC over Easter to see the museums and do touristy things. I checked the Smithsonian website, it sounds like they're operating as usual on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Does anyone know whether I can expect a fully functioning city when we're there? The only other time I seem to be able to schedule would be 1st weekend of July (but I worry about it being too busy with July 4th celebrations) or 1st weekend of August when it might be unbearably hot. Would love to hear what others think about timing on this. Thanks!

The wonderful matrix is located at Priceline Re-Bidding Permutations -- at page 3. dated Sept 7 2008 by Smilingboy. (if the link doesn't work you should be able to search by posts made by Smilingboy?)

it's also found here: Priceline and Hotwire Forum > Tips and Tricks for Priceline and Hotwire > General Priceline Tips

For me, I'm not crazy about Thistle at all, it's not quite Holiday Inn calibre on average, I'd be gunning for a 4* in an area that I like better! (or splurging on a 5* if I can manage it -- in my Nov 7-10 bids, I went up to $171 for 5*but nothing came through so settled on $120 for the Chelsea Football Club 4*)

I've also read the debates about bidding early v. bidding late on this forum and the consensus seems to be that one may as well bid early though last minute deals do come through, it all comes down to occupancy targets set by the hotels at various points in time prior to check in date.

I've done some bookings earlier and managed to get the Hilton Hyde Park in the Notting Hill zone for $84 a night Nov 5-6. A few thoughts -- I am very reluctant to stay at a 3* in England, they can be more than a little lacking.

There is a section of this forum called Priceline Re-Bidding Explained -- this was huge for me in learning how to get the most out of my bidding and not over bid. The key post for me was on September 7, 2008 which sets out a fantastic rebidding matrix that I now follow when bidding, upping each bid by $1, which is on about page 3 of that topic.

I'm not sure if that deal is still available or not, but take a look at the 4* zones but beware of some of the boundaries. I'm reluctant to bid in Chelsea and Kensington, for example, because some of the properties are a ways out, but I was having problems getting a bid accepted for Nov 7-10 and used the PL map feature, realized there was a cheap hotel to be had in Chelsea (was coming up at about half the price of the other 4* who had rejected me up to $145) and won it for $120 after implementing lessons learned in that rebidding post. I reckoned that for the difference in price over the 4 rooms that I needed, we would give it a try. I started at about $75 for a 4* in the first round, but must have spent a few weeks on the project. (I decided that since I was having bids in the $140s rejected that I would try Kensington up to $110 as well, but above that it wasn't worth the risk of a poorly located hotel at a price higher than that)

My own favourites are Notting Hilll, Bloomsbury, Regent's Park, Mayfair and Westminster. You'll have 2 free re-bid zones to use. You've got time to work with, so if you're patient and don't mind spending some time at it over a few days, you can start low and follow that matrix and slowly work your way up in the bidding to know you're getting the best possible deal. Others might have different words of advice. I am fairly new to this so I might defer to them if they have differing points of view!

If I see an counteroffer and am following the matrix (with 5 free re-bid zones) so I have 30 or so free re-bids, I'd just go up $1 at a time. Especialy if I have a few weeks to work with. If it's not taking $163, who knows if it would take $164, you never know where it will tip the scales. Mayfair is usually the most expensive zone, especially when we're looking at 4*. It doesn't seem like there is a huge amount of inventory for 5* in the other zones.

Hmmm, if it were me and my maximum was strict, I'd start looking at 4* in Notting Hill or Regent's Park. Good deals can sometimes be had there and you're still quite central.

You're probably right on it being a Mayfair hotel that is coming up on the counteroffer. I have had counteroffers accepted that were $3 higher than what I was bidding, I've also had to go more like $15 higher than where I was to have a counteroffer accepted. Is that for 4* or 5*in Mayfair?

If you go to "free rebids explained", on page 3 there was a post on Sept 7 2008 which gave a full matrix of rebidding with 5 re-bid zones available -- which 5* in London has. I have used it for 4* which has 2 free rebid zones, but also used desired zones that were more expensive than the zone I was bidding as rebid zones, so that if I ended up in one of those I would be just as happy. That matrix gives you 30 rebids that you can use -- over the course of about an hour you can get a lot of bids in without running into the 24 hour problem.

Just curious -- I like Docklands but I'd choose to stay somewhere more central -- why do you like Docklands? That's a great hotel price for a pretty new property.

While you're there, the Docklands Museum is free and very, very worthwhile.

Sid50,

On September 7, 2008, Smilingboy gave a complete bidding instruction on how to effectively re-bid on a zone when it has 5 rebids available. you'll find it on the 3rd page of the link that thereuare pointed you to. You might want to copy and paste it into Word and print it out so you have it handy. I have a copy of it next to me when I'm using rebids and it can squeeze out 30 rebids for a desired zone when there are 5 re-bid zones (I've used it for 4 star as well, with the more expensive and still desired zones as re-bids when I was bidding a less expensive zone), which is quite remarkable really. I've used it and it works! I was able to use it to increase my bid $1 at a time and know that I was getting the lowest possible rate avaialble, though the reopening a browser with practically every bid is a little cumbersome.

I've been to London over Xmas. It is the only day that the Underground is closed so the only way to get in from the airports is via Taxi which runs at surcharge (i.e. 3 x the usual) rates. I found that airport buses only ran until noon -- so depending on when you arrive you might have that option. The trains are shut and getting dinner can be a challenge as most of the restaurants are closed, though the hotel ones are probably open, but they seem to be doing expensive holiday buffets. So you definitely don't want to arrive on the 25th if you can help it, arriving on the 24th or 26th are better.

The museums and galleries will also be closed that day. About the only thing going on that we could find on the 25th was London Walks had two really good special walks leaving from Trafalgar Square -- but what a pain in the neck to get there with no tube running! (when I complained to someone at TFL about it I got a curt "it's only one day a year, deal with it" kind of response)

We did manage cheap hotel rates though on our Xmas visit. A quick look at the PL retail rates show that the Xmas ones are priced about the same as the January ones -- in January the Hilton Paddington is showing $115 which is REALLY low and it's $177 at Xmas, and Holiday in Mayfair is $169 at Xmas and $155 in January.

My preference would be to go in January -- the British Museum will be open and will be very quiet, the same with almost everything else in London.

thanks, that's a good rule of thumb. But when large parts of the US have nasty weather in Jan/Feb, is it generally more expensive then as opposed to July/Aug? I would so love to snag that lovely Wailea Marriott at a stellar price, but also have to juggle our work demands! But I could work with next Sept-Nov as well!

I'd like to take my husband to Maui at some point in 2012 (particularly Wailea). I just don't know when is the best time to go. I know I'm not likely to snag a deal over Xmas as that is high season, but I can't figure out what the other times to avoid are, and when a nice low bid is most likely to be accepted. Can anyone offer any wisdom on this? I'm looking at 4* or resort level.

You do have this property on the hotel list, actually I think you have it listed twice, one just as "Millennium Copthorne Chelsea" and the other with its full name. In further review and scouring the boards, sounds like most bids in the Chelsea zone will end up at this property since its rates are quite a bit lower than anything comparable likely due to being quite a ways west. But it's next door to the tube and the reviews are positive. So best to keep in mind when people are looking for bidding strategies -- unless there is a game being played next door this one goes for quite a bit less and be wary of the possibility of overbids.

Also, lots of good posts about whether to bid sooner or just before the stay -- the link you pointed me to pointed me to another more in-depth discussion. Sounds like the majority goes with "as soon as possible, earlier is usually cheaper". I will keep monitoring the boards to see if anyone else reports for those nights, very curious to see if the prices show any sign of relief! I started this in August (4 months prior) for 8 nights in a row with nothing up to $105 before I took a break and ended up splitting to accommodate family and I think that was very fortuitous. And then your site had this great re-bidding table for 6 zones that I had on one monitor and followed step-by-step with each bid I made on the other monitor -- I was really glad to discover it amongst the postings. But ugh, the Tara at $261 -- you know it's bad when....

Thanks thereuare. It was a calculated gamble -- based on my experience bidding since August, I just knew that there were NO GOOD DEALS for my dates in November until I saw this outlier when I started using map view for my nights instead of list view. Actually, that's not 100% true, I did score the weekends before and after these room nights for $84 and $83 respectively at a great hotel. But the convention this week really did appear to be causing some trouble. Good thing I was right with my gamble or I would have been in big trouble from my mother for having my uncle stay somewhere else!

In follow up to my earlier long-winded post (see all the gory details there), I managed to book 2 nights for my uncle at the same hotel that we're at for 3 nights at $120 a night. Started at $95 a night (of course using the PRICELINE link), referred to the lengthy permutation table in the "re-bids explained" section and used the usual 2 rebid zones plus Mayfair, Westminster and Regent's Park as rebid zones (hotels there that week are so much more expensive than this one so I figured these would be safe rebid zones, especially since I'd been shot down up to $145 for these areas yesterday). Followed the table for my bidding strategy -- Chelsea became "A" and the other zones I deemed "B" through "F". Upped by $2 a night following the table until I got a counteroffer of $135 at $107. Then bid in $1 increments when it was finally accepted at $117.

Bid on 5* up to 178 this morning with no success. I had talked to someone last night in the travel industry who pointed out that I was there at the heart of "WTM", which he is travelling to London for. Apparently this has 30,000 attendees and fills up the O2 arena. He reckoned that I should just keep bidding higher because the cancellation date had already passed about 7 weeks prior and the excess rooms should have already been released, rates not likely to go down prior to the event.

Then later on this morning I was playing with the map function that shows all the prices of the hotels on a map for the nights I was looking at. Everything was $280 or higher in all the areas I was looking at. Except I noticed that the Millennium at Chelsea Football showed $172 on its little flag. It was very close to the tube in zone 2 so I decided to try to go for that one if I could get it cheaply enough since $145 wasn't doing it for a 4* where I wanted to be. Had reasonable tripadvisor reviews.

Started biddiing at $95, increased in $2 increments with rebids (the usual 2, plus I decided that at that price I could also use Mayfair, Westminster and Regents Park since I'd had no luck with those up to $145) to $105, then $1 increments to $110 where I got my first counteroffer of $141. Kept going with rebids $1 at a time and was accepted at $120 at the Millennium at Chelsea Football Club, also with $2 bonus cash from my Entertainment Book. 3 Rooms. My mother has now asked me to book another room at the hotel for 2 of the nights for her brother. Am working on that now and will keep you posted. (of course used the PRICELINE link as instructed with bonus cash)