WashDC-MKE-SFBay-guy

Thank you--I will stick to Scottsdale.

I've never been to Scottsdale, need help with bids & zones. I bid 37/39/40/42 for 2.5*, adding ApacheJ, PHX-North, PHX-West to get free rebids bid. Rejected. I began about 4 days ago, raising each day's series of bids a dollar or so. I want to be near my reunion site, Chaparral Suites Resort [scottsdale Rd & Chaparral Rd], but can't afford reunion rate of $119. [it is not a Priceline hotel.] What are reasonable bids, or am I in ballpark & then should I keep raising a little each day? [i notice Priceline's advertised lowest rates for 1 and 2* in Scottsdale increased in the last two days from $45 to 64. Their touted 3* rate has remained at $129, I recall.] Or are there non-Scottsdales zones that are quite close to the target hotel? Tempe? Mesa? [i will have an airport rental car, but want don't want to waste a lot of time in traffic daily.] After being rejected, I tried to rebid at 2*, in only Scottsdale, but I couldn't remove the 3 zones I'd added to get the free rebids at 2.5*. Is there a way to do this w/o waiting another day? I'd like to bid first at 2.5*, then fall back to bid 2*, not begin at 2* and raise to 2.5*. I am a little scared of 2*--I notice this includes a gaggle of Ramadas in Scottsdale; am I right to avoid them? Sorry for the multiple questions. Thanks for the handholding; I'm fairly new to this. Appreciate your thoughts.

Re: "One thing I did think about though is that Alamo once wanted to charge me a fee because I had a weekly rental, but I wanted to turn in the car early. Since I had already paid for the day, could a company actually charge you more because you turned in a car early? Has anyone else had this experience? In the end they waived the charge, but I thought it was unusal and a bit crazy for charging someone if they turned in a car more than 24 hours ahead of schedule." I, too, have been threatened with this penalty by Alamo--and another company that I can't recall--but in the end, I didn't return the car early, so it didn't affect me. I see that no one has answered your question, so I will re-ask it. Can a company do this? Has anyone experienced this penalty? Is there a way out of this penalty, other than hoping for a waiver like the one headtrip received?

I know we are consistently told that bidding on cars doesn't usually work, but I persist despite few successes. On Friday, 28 Jul 06, Priceline was displaying Economy prices at Phoenix Airport for 21-24 Sep 06 from $21 to about $31/da [Avis at $26, as I recall], and prices from the mostly off-airport cheapest companies--which Priceline does not display unless one clicks "See more companies" --of $13-15/da]. I bid $10 & failed. I re-bid $11, which I got, not from [off-airport?] Dollar--then the cheapest at $13--but from Avis, which is at the airport. Only a savings of $2/da [or $15/da, depending on how one looks at it], but I was glad for the small victory--only my second with a rental car. Evidently Phoenix airport taxes+fees are very high--they nearly doubled the rental charges.