AGuyNamedSteve

I've been trying 4.5 and 5* hotels in this zone for a couple of weeks. Went up to $295 today on a 5* with no luck. Started at $175 and increased by $5 increments. I was at $220 with one bid left (and never seeing any offers pop up). Since I had one bid left, I decided to add $10 instead of $5 and tried $230. It accepted it. It shows a 17% discount on the winning bid page. It turns out it's closer to 85% off the best site rate, which came to 1273.36 after taxes and fees ($1081.28 via Priceline win). I'm overall happy as we've stayed in Sofitel before. I was planning on booking direct from a hotel if I didn't get a win. There were a few different ones I was looking at that ended up being right around the same price. I could have stayed at The Mosaic, which I didn't see on any of the Priceline lists, for $1011 (after taxes and fees). But now it's done and we can continue the rest of our plans.

Just a quick update - still no movement with $235 top bid for 5* and $180 top bid for 4.5* from 3/26-3/30. As always, using the Priceline links to start my bidding. Still have two and a half weeks left, so hopefully the hotels will dump some rooms soon.

I tried adding an image to my avatar, but keep getting this error: member_profile_disabled

Sort of like how you get a popup when you start saying something like "Frank H and 56 other people successfully placed winning bids in Los Angeles..." I've got a few days off from work, so I'll try to do a run each day, and I'll continue to update.

And to update that update: I'm still trying for BH/WeHo on Price.line, but went 4.5*. I used the board links and went through the cycle of a bid range from $130 - $180/nt for a 4.5*, using all of my free rebids ($5 increments). I do find it interesting that, when I did the 5*, the price they show as an average dropped even when I selected zones that don't have 5*. This didn't happen for the 4.5*, where it stayed at $259 the entire time.

Just as an update. I'm still trying for BH/WeHo on Priceline. I just used the board links and went through the cycle of a bid range from $185 - $235/nt for a 5*, using all of my free rebids ($5 increments). No luck so far, but I've got two weeks left before the trip.

Thanks yellowdog - I didn't realize that not using Price.line and posting results was going to help. Sorry about that. I've already started bidding both 4.5 and 5* for this zone. It looks like L'Ermitage (the sole 5*) is booking at ~$1425 for the trip, with taxes/fees. With a few weeks before the trip, I'm looking at keeping it around $1000 total for the trip at 5*. I've been up to $220/night using my 10 rebids. I just did my first 4.5* today and went from $135 - $170/night. (There's currently a $196/night at Sofitel's 4.5* hotel listed in the forums for July). This price range is based on Hot.wire's current best price on their 5* in BH/WeHo at $261/night ($1267.14 w/ taxes+fees) with the following amenities: 85% Recommended Free Internet Boutique Hotel Fitness Center Pools Restaurants Business Center Spa Services Accesible for the Blind Since Santa Monica is the only other zone with 4.5 or 5*, I've got a lot of rebids available. I'm not in a rush, and there's still a few weeks, so I'm not panicking to get a reservation made. The 4.5* Sofitel is coming in at just under $1200 for the trip (taxes/fees inc). The 4.5* Mondrian is coming in around $1250 for the trip, with the AAA rate (taxes/fees inc). Steve

Although I didn't end up booking a Priceline/Hotwire deal, I updated that thread. Which, I guess, is likely why I never updated it.

I ended up not finding anything via Price.line / Hot.wire for this trip. The best deal I could get was directly booking through Yotel Hotel. Turned out to be a great place, but I was hoping for some Price.line savings.

I'm interested in bidding on a 5* in LA, but haven't seen any won after flipping through several pages of Priceline wins. Is it really an option? I'll go to 4.5*, which has also been scarce, but was hoping for a 5. March 26 - March 30th. Looking in Beverly Hills/WeHo. Steve

I clicked through the links, as usual for my Hotwire and Priceline searches. I came up with this hotel and amenities for Times Square, and haven't been able to find anything that matches up. Amenities: Smoke Free Rooms, Fitness Center, Restaurant(s), High-Speed Internet Access The price says $302/other sites $179 current Hotwire price. 85% Hotwire Reviews 4 out of 5 on TripAdvisor

We're going 3/24-3/28 and I bid all the way to $200 in Dupont Circle and Capitol Hill/Conv Center. No takers. Ended up going through a hotel's website for a little more, knowing what I'd get which included free internet. It must be the early blossoming cherry blossoms.

I'm doing something similar. If I can get WH-DT cheap, it's my first choice. But it's also likely to be the most expensive. CC-CH is my second choice due to being cheaper than WH-DT, but possibly just a little more than DC-WP. However I think I'm most likely to get DC-WP based on cheap over touristy convenience. And having stayed there once before. So in order to get extra bids where I expect to land (DC-WP or CC-CH), I'm bidding them in order of expected price. That way, after doing all the standard free rebids, I can get one more when WH-DT is added to CC-CH and two when WH-DT and CC-CH are added to DP-WP. Since I've already bid them higher, and would be happy to stay there anyhow, I don't expect them to be accepted when bidding my lower areas. Here's how I've done it using only 4*: WH-DT @ $125 Add AW @ $130 Add Beth @ $135 Add CC @ $140 Add DC-NE @ $145 Add GN @ $150 Add MV @ $155 Add SS @ $160 (none accepted) CC-CH @ $100 Add AW @ $105 Add Beth @ $110 Add CC @ $115 Add DC-NE @ $120 Add GN @ $125 Add MV @ $130 Add SS @ $135 Add WH-DT @ $140 (none accepted) DC-WP @$50 Add AW @ $60 Add Beth @ $70 Add CC @ $80 Add DC-NE @ $85 Add GN @ $90 Add MV @ $95 Add SS @ $100 Add CC-CH @ $105 Add WH-DT @ $110 (none accepted) So as you can see, I had 8 and 9 rebids with this strategy. I've got a few weeks before my trip and have a Saturday night first night, so I'll start revising the bids as I get closer. Right now I'm hoping to get lucky on the cheap side.