Romelle

I bid for two rooms for June 3-6 for my brother and myself. We scored rooms on the 8th floor. Copthorne now lists "Standard" rooms as being on floors 1-10, with club or suite or such on 11 and 12. I think they may have refurbished some of the lower floors, as they used to be noticeably less nice. Both rooms were very functional and comfortable for our visit. Breakfast of course not included. BUT the Muffin Man about 1/2 block away on the way to the tube had great breakfasts. There also is a Tesco's full supermarket up on Kensington High Street (turn left on it when coming from the hotel). We had an excellent meal at the Tai Terrace also on the street between the hotel and the tube station. Probably some of the best Tai food I've had, and I've been to Tailand. Big white tablecloths and linens and we were decidedly underdressing in our hiking clothes, but we were very kindly treated. For the record, the street "Scarsdale Place" doesn't show up on the little maps one can purchase at Victoria Train Station, and an information booth person there marked a nearby street "Scardale Villa" instead of the right location. Get a better map, or simply follow these instructions from the hotel web site (slightly amended): DIRECTIONS TO THE HOTEL By tube - the nearest station is High Street Kensington on the Circle and District Lines - 3 minutes away. As you come out of the station (turning left), turn left again down Wrights lane and you will find the hotel at the bottom of the road on the left hand side. Romelle

If you have lots of time left for your bidding, I like just bidding every other day. Then I don't even have to try to remember the exact time. Alternatively, I keep a little document out on my desk top and record date, time, bid amount, and any counter-offers each time I bid. Sometimes I am working a multiple stream of bids, maybe 5*, 4* and 3* with lower amounts at the lower star levels (increasing each * level each day in small increments). This definitely saves on the memory effort. Romelle

My brother and I had two rooms for three nights here. We arrived via train from London a little after 6pm. This was the last stop on a fairly complicated and energetic itinerary and I hadn't bothered to get exact mapping to the hotel, figuring we could just find a map at the train station. Bad idea. Book stores and newspaper stands and any place likely to have a map were closed. Nothing posted on walls. We could of course have just taken a cab, but we'd just hiked over 100 miles in England and were in shape to walk. Might have taken a subway if we'd known which one. Anyway, finally in desperation simply started asking people working in restaurants. Ended up with some fairly sketchy directions in a mixture of languages, but it ultimately did the job for walking. I have to say the people we encountered were very friendly and willing to help. The walk was partly through a dodgy neighborhood and wouldn't have been a good idea after dark. We later learned the hotel is only a couple subway stops from the train station (Louisa stop) and then a couple block walk. Check-in was speedy, polite, and simple. No mention of PL. We got rooms adjacent. For some reason my brother got a large room with a bath tub and I got a tiny one with just a shower? Well, he is lots bigger than me so maybe that was the logic?? He did offer to trade after we realized the difference (I really like bath tubs), but we'd both half moved in by that time. A good selection of TV channels including several English ones. Both rooms were spotlessly clean and had everything we could wish for (other than that tub in mine). Well sound-proofed against city noise. Comfortable beds. Coffee and tea making facilities. The sleek contemporary/art deco styling I've seen in other NH hotels. Blacks and whites and maybe deep reds. Breakfast was not included, and was a steep 16 Euro on weekends (we didn't avail ourselves of it). However, maybe a block away toward the subway station were some wonderful little bakeries and cafes and even a small grocery store. While the name "City Center" is sort of a misnomer, the subway gets you anywhere in the city in minutes anyway. The true tourist old-town center is maybe a mile away, but an interesting walk to get there. If you have time, don't miss the Atomium - a 1958 World's Fair structure modeling the iron crystal. Huge, glistening polished metal structure you can enter and move about in via elevators and escalators. Great views, history, and a wonderful slice of 50's life. A fine PL bargain for my $57 bid. Romelle

My brother and I had two rooms at the Manchester Airport Marriott May 15, 2009. For starters, the Manchester Airport had easy to find ATMs and computers. The hotel is quite a ways from the airport and is served by shuttle service. The 5 GBP rate mentioned on their web site is actually for a round trip ticket. One way is 3 GBP. While it probably is easy to find the pick-up points when not totally jet-lagged and sleep deprived, I misunderstood the directions the first time and did wander outside for quite a while. The second set of directions ultimately did the trick. No mention of PL on check-in, just a murmur that my room was pre-paid. My brother was arriving several hours later, so when I checked in I asked if maybe we could have rooms reasonably close together (some hotels call it pre-blocking). Somehow "...that wasn't possible to do with their computers"?? The hotel is huge and winding about, and we actually ended up in totally different wings and at least a 5 minute walk apart. The rooms were well appointed, attractively decorated, nice linens, comfortable bed, wonderful soaking tub, quality toiletries, and spotlessly clean. Lovely greenery, statues, flowers, fountains and winding paths outside. Coffee and tea making facilities in the room, and even some cookies. A very nice 4*. There were no little restaurants or shops in the immediate area. The hotel restaurant was on the expensive side. The front desk gave us walking directions to a little strip mile perhaps a mile away and we walked there. Bakery, fish and chips shop, small grocery store, etc. And the walk was through a very up-scale neighborhood with gorgeous houses and landscaping. We took the shuttle back to the airport the next day to continue our journey via train. Right at the airport is a fairly major train station. Trains go in all directions from there. Downtown Manchester is the next stop on trains heading in that direction. While it might have saved a bit of time if we had gotten a hotel truly right at the airport, the shuttle worked well and even gave us a bit of sight-seeing. Drivers were good-natured and courteous too. All in all, a terrific PL bargain at $47! Romelle

Try doing a search on brussels up in the QUICK SEARCH box (top of screen). You will see results of bidding and other member submissions. I did just stay in a Brussels 4* hotel a few weeks ago. My winning bid was $57, but the dollar was stronger against the euro then, and rates might be higher in the summer. For rooms starting June 28, you only have three days in which to bid - 25, 26, and 27 (I just tried, and couldn't do a "same day" bid for Brussels, so am assuming you can't bid on the 28th although the time zone difference might be causing that). There are various ways you can play this, but I think with the short amount of time left it might be wise to just jump in at the $60 level for the 4*. You could maybe try the $55 first, and then raise your bid when the 24 hours is up if you are willing to get that close to when you need the rooms. And if you still aren't successful, you could then lower the star level to 3.5* and then 3*. Hope it works for you. Romelle

With Hotwire, the advertised price is what you are going to get (plus their fees and taxes and stuff). The only unknown is which hotel, and this site usually can give you a pretty good guess beforehand. It isn't "bidding", although sometimes people call it that. With Priceline, there are two separate sides. One is just like Hotwire where you know the price but not the hotel. This is sometimes referred to as the "retail" side. The other side is the one where you actually bid. You submit a dollar amount, along with city/star level/zone/date(s), and the is a pause. Eventually, PL comes back and either tells you that amount is successful, or it isn't. PL of course also has the various fees and taxes to add on to your original bid amount. If your bid is unsuccessful, you can change something like zone or star level or date and bid again. You can't make exactly the same bid until you have waited 24 hours. Romelle

I'd like to post reviews for hotels in Manchester, UK and Brussels, Belgium but not sure just where in the hotel area to post them? Other Countries? MA-chester? UK? Great Britain? Please let me know how to head them up so they land in the right spot. Thank you, Romelle

At $1.65 per GBP, your budget is $132. (I'm assuming the strategy you will get will be in US dollars, and thought I'd supply the conversion.) Romelle

UziO, After you've gotten your hotel, a good place to look for transportation and transfer information is the hotel web site itself. They often have very good maps and detailed info on how to get to them. And the airport sites usually have a lot of good information on getting to and from them. http://www.paris-cdg.com/transportation.html might be a good start for you, but there are lots of others. Romelle

4* London (Kensington-Earls Court-Knightsbridge) Copthorne Tara, $72 ... 6/4/09-6/6/09 Sorry for the after-the-fact posting, but this bidding was done three days before, on the fly after a change in plans. Also had minimal access to computers at the time, and until now when I'm home again. Two rooms for two nights each. I bid in $2 increments from $62 (didn't expect to get a hit that low, but I purely hate to overbid). We scored rooms on the 8th floor. Copthorne now lists "Standard" rooms as being on floors 1-10, with club or suite or such on 11 and 12. I think they may have refurbished some of the lower floors. Both rooms were very functional and comfortable for our visit. Breakfast of course not included. BUT the Muffin Man about 1/2 block away on the way to the tube had great breakfasts. There also is a Tesco's full supermarket up on Kensington High Street (turn left on it when coming from the hotel). We had an excellent meal at the Tai Terrace also on the street between the hotel and the tube station. Probably some of the best Tai food I've had, and I've been to Tailand. Big white tablecloths and linens and we were decidedly underdressing in our hiking clothes, but we were very kindly treated. For the record, the street "Scarsdale Place" doesn't show up on the little maps one can purchase at Victoria Train Station, and an information booth person there marked a nearby street "Scardale Villa" instead of the right location. Get a better map, or simply follow these instructions from the hotel web site (slightly amended): DIRECTIONS TO THE HOTEL By tube - the nearest station is High Street Kensington on the Circle and District Lines - 3 minutes away. As you come out of the station (turning left), turn left again down Wrights lane and you will find the hotel at the bottom of the road on the left hand side. When I was bidding, the British pound was $1.65. It has since dropped a bit so one might do a little better now. Romelle

I just looked at your night on HOTWIRE versus the other nights the same week. Your night (May 20) is higher, which indicates your bid on Priceline probably will have to be on the high side of wins in the month. The cruise business, and Seattle events cause a lot of variability in the prices. I suspect your $45 won't be successful, but the easiest way to establish that is to just bid it. Assuming you are ready to commit if it does work, because there is no backing out of a Priceline deal. I'm thinking you are sort of leery of the whole bidding process. The easiest way to get wet is to just jump in. You could try something like $40, $42 and $44 now, getting a feel for that free rebid process. Then tomorrow you could move on up to whatever your budget permits, but you would have had a little experience bidding already. You even can stick in totally ridiculous bids like $20, but PRICELINE usually just rejects those immediately. I do admit I thought once I was lowball bidding in London as I was several months out and quite low, and was quite surprised to actually win. It did work out, but was a little tense for a while as the credit card charges are immediate. Looking forward to hearing how you do. Romelle

You've got the free zones right. And your logic is correct to just add one if rejected, and then if still rejected add the other one, while increasing your bid each time. This gives you three bids in the 24 hour period. There is a way of getting a 4th, but doing the three would be a good start for this day. And you might even win and be done. Romelle

$45 might be a little low, but you won't know until you've tried it. There aren't any 3 1/2* hotels at SeaTac so that solves that problem. Do check the bidding Priceline and Hotwire Calendar of Wins - upper half of page - for comparable results on your date(s). Romelle

SeaTac is a really good place to learn how to bid. Lots of great deals and options. You pretty much can't miss. The airport - SeaTac zone on Priceline, only has 3, 2 1/2, 2 and 1 star places available for bidding. No 4* and 5* places. So your choices are simpler. Hope we hear from you again. Romelle

Spoiltrotten Even with your interesting screen name, I doubt you will be able to find a way to get yourself banned here... Welcome, and hope we hear lots from you - bids, reviews, helping others, general comments, etc. Speaking of things slowing down, cast an eye at the bottom of this site (opening page) and watch the membership grow. Seems to be at a rate of about 50 a day! Lots of links under that Support/Travel Links tab above (in addition to the nicely located top-of-page HOTWIRE and PRICELINE), but all that happens if you miss using one is a gentle nudge (speaking from experience). Romelle

When you got that "add 15 pounds to rebid" at the 70 pound point, the only thing you know for sure is there is something available between 70 and 85. And now you know it is between 75 and 85. You can creep up one or two pounds a day now if you want, just to make sure you don't overbid much. You do still have time to approach this slowly. And of course there still is the 4*s to approach. You might start another run with them, started much lower of course, so you satisfy yourself you didn't miss anything. Nice work so far, and thanks for the detailed reporting. Other bidders will appreciate that. You really never know. It is a matter of how daring you care to be. And it helps one's nerve if they have a cancelable back-up reservation safely tucked away. I read of someone doing a driving trip around the US. Each night he would bid for the next night's hotel in sort of a ring around the various cities within driving distance in the direction he wanted to go. He claimed he had always been able to find a bed. Romelle

I've only done it once, but that extra night option stayed available on my bid for a number of days. I had initially bid for 3 days, but after the first day in the hotel, decided I'd like to stay longer so exercised the option. They do charge you another fee, but it is still a good deal. Check your bid reply carefully to see if it will still let you extend. Romelle

Have you checked the Priceline and Hotwire Calendar of Wins (just above on the page) yet? Or alternatively, used the Search on your city at the top of the page? Either of those will give you a quick way to see what others have reported winning, and may give you an idea of your likelihood of doing something similar. Also, you can put your dates and city in Hotwire (above left hand side) and see what they are offering. Often one can do a little better on Priceline. Of course the easy way to see if a lowball bid will work on Priceline is to just try it. Maybe try $55. And then try your $60 tomorrow. If nothing happens, you can then work your way on up as far as your budget will permit. You can first bid the 5* and then add the 4* in the same bidding session. If you get counter-offers, it usually is a good idea to just ignore them and continue your working your way up. Romelle

Do remember that Hotwire sometimes is more generous with it's stars than Priceline is. While there is a lot of variation, it seems to amount to roughly 1/2*. That $22 counter amount is sort of funny. European bids seem to most often use that number. You could even win with just another dollar or two. Hard to say, but you do yet have a little time to test it. Have you checked the rates for individual dates (Expedia is an easy way to do this)? With a 6 day span you well could be crossing some higher and lower ones. It might indicate splitting your bid if you are willing to risk having to move? I looked for a while at various Expedia rates on your dates. There is some indication your first three days are lower than your last three. On the other hand, some hotels have that first Saturday really high. Of course, when you are changing dates, that lets you bid more times so you could try 1-all 6, 2-first 3, and 3-last 3 dates. If you do start into other areas, recheck results from other bidders so you don't start too high. Mayfair is one of the more expensive zones. Romelle

May I be the first to welcome you here! Regarding "perusing" TOBB, I've found that after a week or so the ban goes away and I can look again directly. However, if I then try to actually sign on I get instantly rebanned. Might be worth checking periodically. And of course there are the anonymizers. A little slow, but do they work. Sounds like you already have a good solution though via your friendly neighbor. Romelle

Humm - with the cruise ships, it might be reserved blocks. A long shot could be when the hotels cancel leftovers from these blocks at the last minute and give them to PL. I don't know anything about the timing of that, but somebody here might have a guess?? The whole thing still suggests bidding up to the last minute, particularly when you apparently have the option of just staying in Kent. Romelle

Well, Hotwire has 2* "Comfort Inn, La Quinta, Days Inn, ....." at $81 for your second pair of dates! Definitely looks like something major going on. On the off chance this could work for you, the airport seems to be a LOT less expensive. Even with cab fare back and forth, the equation could still work. And some of the other outer areas are less expensive also. The basic "make a cancelable back-up and keep trying" seems to be about your only option left. You do have more than 2 months. Especially the very last week or few days might yield a break. To keep frustration down, maybe bid only once a week or 10 days for now? I think my post here is more along the lines of extending my sympathy? Romelle

I always figure there is a "fringe" 5% on either end of any scale. Outlyers that can be safely ignored. I actually read of a San Juan hotel where some employees were fired, and decided to get back at the hotel by posting really ugly reviews where ever they could. Seriously hurt the place's business. Sometimes it is apparent just by what the complaints are that the people have pretty unreasonable expectations. Lack of washcloths in European hotels is a good example of that. Another one is crabby front desk. I figure a lot of that can be how that front desk was approached in the first place. Consig-however-you-spell-that. Expecting those guys to know some minute detail. Sometimes I sort of dismiss a review as just basic "whiny baby" or "spoiled princess". The age of reviews should be kept in mind too. Hotel ownership and management changes all the time. Good ones can slide and problem ones can get their act together. Yup - huge grain of salt. But I really do appreciate the middle ground where real people have taken the time to help both subsequent customers and the hotel (or warn subsequent customers and put the hotel on notice). Romelle

What you want to do first is start a thread of your very own, with your dates and other information. That way, people looking at bids later won't miss yours tucked away at the bottom of this thread. The real point is that with the other hotel safely reserved, what do you have to lose other than a little time? If your budget will allow it, you could inch up to your max. If not, you could keep bidding the $150-$160 range just to see if you get lucky and improve your quarters. If I were doing the bidding, and my budget top was $160, I think I'd do something like bid every other night so I wouldn't have to remember the exact time of the 24 limit (and you have a couple weeks to fool around with it). My pattern might be to start with the Central 5* at $150, and then add the four other zones one at a time while bidding $153, $156, $158, and $160. The other Rome zones don't have 5*s in them so you can freely use them. This pattern sort of sweeps regularly, so if something new is added, you still catch it at a lower number. It wouldn't hurt before your bidding to each time again make sure a 5* didn't crop up in another zone. Lots of variations on this approach, but that would be the general idea. Wins for Rome 5*s are normally rare, and normally a lot higher. This would be the time to try for one. I hope you post again and let us know how you are doing. Romelle

Regarding your Priceline bidding, you were very wise to not jump on the counter-offers. All they mean is there really is something out there, available somewhere between your bid and their counter number. (However, when you are bidding and not getting counter offers, the fact that you were allowed to bid in the zone already means there is something there. You just don't have an added bit of mostly worthless information.) So - another $1 or $2 sometimes can turn the trick after you've started getting counters. You have enough time left to work your way up if you want to go the PL route. You are odds on to win about 1/2 way up. Not necessarily, but probably. No free rebids at the 4* level in Rome, but 4 of them at 5* level, in case your budget will let you explore that a little more. I'd guess with this whole swine flu thing on top of a weak economy there will be some real bargains out there. I'll leave your Hotwire questions for somebody else. Romelle Accepting counter-offers can make sense if you are totally out of time/bids/patience/??. Do remember that the Europe hotels are expressed in Euros, so currency shifts can affect US$ bids. If you see the dollar get less expensive, the same bid that lost before might win now (and vice versa of course). And do check your PL rewards before bidding. People are seeing bonus money lately. Some expired 3/30/09, but you just never know. A good habit.