tilepusher

I think it's too early to book something non-refundable; I'm sure that better deals will come up if you wait.

In the future, please include the dates of your stay when asking for assistance. This hotel has not been identified, and assuming that I'm looking at the same hotel that your are (without dates, I can't be sure), there isn't enough information to make a guess that I'd be very confident with. My best guess is that this an extended-stay property that would be rated 2* on Priceline, such as the StudioPLUS Seattle-Renton or Extended Stay Deluxe Seattle-Renton. If you give us more information about your stay, perhaps we can make a better guess or suggest alternatives. If you decide to book this hotel, please use the HOTWIRE link to begin your purchase.

The above promotional code still works, though the link from Yahoo! Canada is now gone. I've now been able to find rooms at the Delta Vancouver Suites for $119/night, which is about as good as any rate you can get on PRICELINE for a 4* hotel in Vancouver.

Please remember in the future to give us the parameters (dates, number of people) you used for your HOTWIRE search. I used the dates from your other thread with 2 adults & 2 children and I appear to have found the hotels you were looking at. My best guesses are: 2.5* Pike Place: Sixth Avenue Inn 3* Space Needle: Holiday Inn (very uncertain about this one, as there's little information to go on) 2* Space Needle: Travelodge by the Space Needle The 2.5* and 2* hotels are both showing Tripadvisor ratings of 2.5; I would stay away from any hotel with a TA rating below 3 unless you know what it is and have a good reason to believe that the hotel has made significant improvements. Furthermore, the rates for these hotels look high (even for Seattle). I would think at you could get two rooms at a better hotel through PRICELINE for not much more money.

Oh, I agree that the Embassy Suites is certainly a possibility (and, I think, the only possibility other than the RiverPlace). My educated guess of the RiverPlace was based on 1. The hotel's known track record of selling through Priceline, and 2. The current renovations at the hotel. But I could very easily be wrong. I hope that somebody can eventually tell us what this hotel is.

According to a recent Tripadvisor review, the pool has been open for at least a week (it was scheduled to be closed until June 15).

Yahoo! Canada has a link to a special Family and Friends rate at Delta Hotels for stays in July and August. Some of the rates -- such as the Delta Vancouver Suites for $119/night -- look pretty good. This offer will apparently be available only for today. The promotional code is PYAH. I tried it out and it seems to work, although I couldn't find any available rooms at the Delta Vancouver Suites through this promotion. I tried a few other Delta hotels and the advertised rates are available at those places.

How would you get the Doubletree by bidding for a room in Downtown Portland? :)

I was actually leaning more toward the RiverPlace Hotel, despite my uncertainty about the pool situation. The Embassy Suites is a definite possibility, but it just doesn't feel right to me. It's a popular hotel that's apparently done just fine without PRICELINE and HOTWIRE, so why would it suddenly start selling heavily discounted rooms through Hotwire? I looked up the listing for the Riverplace Hotel on Hotels.com, and it too lists a swimming pool as an amenity, as well as a whirlpool and sauna (none of this appears on the hotel's own website, though). And it also mentions that the guestrooms are undergoing renovations though August -- a good reason for the hotel to offer discounts on HOTWIRE. The Embassy Suites is currently rated 3* on PRICELINE, though I believe it was rated 4* at one time. I don't expect anyone to report a winning bid for this hotel anytime soon.

I didn't stay at the Doubletree on this occasion (I stayed at the Hilton and Residence Inn RiverPlace -- both were great), but I did stay there on Labor Day last year and had no problems. The standard room I got was small but decently furnished, and was just fine for one night. The facilities were pretty good, and the staff was friendly and helpful. I didn't have a car, so parking wasn't an issue. At Priceline rates, the hotel is a good deal, though there are bigger bargains available in the Portland area through Priceline. As for my friends, they liked this hotel very much. They're a family of four, and I figured that they would have to spend $15/night to upgrade their room. When they have there, they were told that the hotel was fully booked (a little fishy, since the rate on the hotel website was only $99 for this weekend), but they were able to get a room on one of the bottom two floors of the old tower (I think this is the wing adjacent to the pool, though their room didn't have a pool view). The room had two beds, and they didn't have to pay extra for it! Not surprisingly, they were very happy with the rate they have. Overall, I think we Priceline bidders have very little to complain about. Yes, extra fees for parking, Internet access, etc. can be annoying, and we often don't get the best rooms, but think about what the same amount of money will get you booking through any other means.

This, I believe, is the 4* property that Colfax was referring to in this thread started by nameht: Portland Oregon (those were the icons showing at the time, if I recall, but they've now changed, so I can't be sure). If it is, I don't think it's the Marriott Downtown Waterfront because the Marriott was one of the many hotels that was sold out for the dates that nameht was bidding for. Hotwire's description for the pool icon does not specifically say that the pool must be on the premises, unlike the description for the restaurant icon. If the pool can be off the premises, then my best guess is the RiverPlace Hotel, which offers use of the pool in the nearby RiverPlace Athletic Club. Travelocity's listing for this hotel shows a pool as an amenity as well. If the pool must be on the premises, then the Embassy Suites is the most likely candidate. It's quite plausible that Hotwire would rate it as a 4*, but nobody has reported getting this hotel before through either Hotwire or Priceline, and I don't see why the hotel would suddenly start selling through Hotwire. I don't think it's the Hilton, unless the Executive Tower is now being listed separately from the main building.

My best guess is that the 4-star hotel is the Sheraton (the Westin is also possible) and the 3.5*-star hotel is the Silver Cloud Inn Stadium. If you decide to book one of these hotels, please use the HOTWIRE link to begin your purchase.

OMG -- Hotwire rates this place as a 3*!? :) The hotel was renovated last year, and the Tripadvisor reviews of this place have improved markedly since then. But from what I've seen and heard about this hotel (I haven't stayed there myself), the renovations were necessary just to get it up to the level of a decent 2*; there's no way it should be rated 3*. You should find out what room type you've been assigned. The best online rate for their cheapest rooms (standard queen) is $89.10, so you may be able to get some money back from HOTWIRE (double the difference) if you contact them with 48 hours from the time you booked this room.

I think the rate drop you saw when you checked for four people was just the result of a bizarre coincidence. I just performed the same search and the $134 rate is coming up for two people as well. One other development is that, since June 1st, the Best Western Executive Inn has been offering a free hot breakfast. So it appears that all of the 2.5* hotels in Downtown Seattle now have a complementary breakfast.

I'm sure their answers were accurate, but not very enlightening (when you called each hotel, did you specify that you wanted to know if that hotel was available through Name Your Own Price? Hotels wouldn't have a problem admitting that you can book rooms there through Priceline's retail service). They only tell you what is possible, not what is probable. To do that, you need to do some research (rates, past winning bids, frequency of reviews by Priceline customers, etc.). It appears that you would very likely be accepted at the Residence Inn if you were to get anything, but that's not a certainty. What you have to ask yourself is, are the savings from using Name Your Own Price worth the risk of getting a hotel that you don't want? That's a question that we can't answer for you, because everybody's risk tolerance is different. I would agree with previous advice that your best option may be to expand your search into downtown and see if you can get two rooms at a rate that's within your budget. The 2.5* hotels downtown seem to be fine (I recently stayed at the Springhill Suites and thought it was great -- and I ended up getting a room with two double beds, which are more expensive on their website than the single king rooms), so it appears to be safe to bid for a 2.5* or better. While I'm on the subject of 2.5* hotels in downtown Seattle, I noticed when I was there that the conversion of the Pike Street Suites to the Homewood Suites - Convention Center - Pike Street is now complete.

When you decide to lower the star level of your bids, you're almost always better off to start a new bid rather than lower the star level on your existing bid. In this case, if you had started a new bid for a 3* after your $80 bid for a 4* was rejected, you would have been able to add the Lynnwood-Edmonds and Lake Union zones to that bid, giving you at least two more bids (you can actually get 32 bids for a 3* by using your rebid zones, if you're willing to start a lot of new bids). And you could have freely used the UW, Renton-Kent, and Seatac zones for your 4* bid. I have seen $75-$80 wins for 4* Downtown, but only in the winter. I agree with Colfax that if you're looking for a 4* hotel, you should consider bidding for one in Bellevue. Rates in Bellevue are low on weekends, parking is a lot cheaper (the Hyatt Regency, for example, has free parking on Friday and Saturday nights), and you're only about a 12-15 minute drive from Downtown Seattle. I'm sure that you can still get the Hyatt Regency for $80, and there's a good chance you could get it for a bit less.

The Tripadvisor information didn't appear on the listing I saw, though the amenities were the same. Assuming that it's still the same hotel, my best guess is the Whistler Village Inn and Suites. If you decide to book this hotel, please use the HOTWIRE link to begin your purchase.

My best guess is the Park Inn and Suites on Broadway (formerly Park Plaza), with added amenities since it was last reported (according to the hotel website, the Park Inn recently added a fitness room). If you decide to book this hotel, please use the Hotwire link to start your purchase.

Thank you, Colfax. The process was complicated by the fact that I was also trying to get room(s) for two other people that I'm travelling down to Seattle with (they were willing to share a room, as long as it had two beds). They were willing to bid up to $90/night for one room, and I probably could have gotten a 3* for about $70 a month ago; but since I thought we could do better, and I couldn't be sure that any room I booked would have two beds, I held off. One of them was getting rather antsy when I still hadn't closed the deal with less than two weeks to go; I did my best to assure him that I knew what I was doing, but I was praying that I hadn't messed up. Thankfully, everything worked out in the end; I was able to book two more rooms at the Springhill Suites for the same rate (I used the PRICELINE link for that bid as well).

I bid as follows: 2.5* DT $54 (counteroffer of +$15) added Lake Union $56 2.5* DT + Everett $58 (counteroffer of +$17) added Lake Union $59 -- accepted at Springhill Suites. The total came to $212.00 after taxes and fees. The rate on Marriott.com was $139/night. I had been bidding for a room in Downtown Seattle since early April; the rates at several of the hotels that come up frequently on Priceline were not particularly high (by Seattle standards), so I decided to keep my bidding low and wait for the right deal. It took a lot longer than I thought, but I'm relieved that my patience paid off. I started my bids from the PRICELINE link.

If the one you're referring to has these amenities: smoke free rooms, complementary breakfast, fitness, pool, restaurant, laundry, high-speed Internet, kitchenette, it's probably the Residence Inn Vancouver Downtown.

I bid for this on behalf of friends who will be attending the same event at the Holiday Inn Convention Center that I will. My bidding went as follows: 3* Convention Center: $30 + NW Portland: $32 3* CC + Jantzen Beach-North Harbor: $33 + NW Portland: $34 3* CC + South Waterfront District: $35 + NW Portland: $36 3* CC + Downtown $37 -- accepted Total was $91.23 after taxes and fees. The rate on the hotel's website was $99/night. I'm not sure if I made the best use of my options. I may have been able to get the Vancouver Hilton for a good price: the hotel was available on HOTWIRE for $64/night, and the Red Lion on the Quay, when I checked, has no rooms available for that weekend. However, I didn't want to take the small risk of getting something else (I tried to get the Hilton the same weekend last year, and wound up at the Red Lion for $46). The Doubletree is a lot closer, anyway, and for that convenience it might be worth having to pay an extra $15/night for an upgrade. As usual, I used the PRICELINE link to start my bids.

I found out that I will have to leave for Portland earlier than expected, and will need a room for Thursday (and possibly Wednesday). My attempt to extend my stay at the Residence Inn RiverPlace for two more nights was rejected (with a counteroffer of $140/night! :) ). I then tried to bid for both nights and was rejected at $50 for a 2.5* and $55 for a 3*. The next morning I tried for Thursday only and my fourth bid was accepted at the Hilton ($50 was rejected for 3*, $45 for 2.5*). Total was $69.51 after taxes and fees. The rate on Hilton.com was $189. In retrospect, I think should have tried a higher bid at the 2.5* level, but this will do nicely for one night (and given the counteroffer, the Residence Inn almost certainly wouldn't have accepted a lower bid than $55). I used the PRICELINE link to start my bids.

The HOTWIRE hotel appears to be the Sheraton (Customer Favorite - fitness, pool, restaurant, business, high-speed internet, spa). You can probably do better on PRICELINE if you wait, but if you want to secure a hotel room now and are willing to bid up to $98 on PRICELINE to do it, then I don't see a reason not to take the HOTWIRE deal.

My best guesses for these hotels are, respectively, the Residence Inn Downtown Entertainment District and the Four Points by Sheraton Toronto Airport. If you decide to book one of these hotels, please use the HOTWIRE link to start your purchase.