tilepusher

The biggest news for those using Priceline to bid for hotels in Portland is the addition of the Convention Center - Lloyd Center zone, separating the old Downtown Portland zone into two zones. This will certainly make Priceline much more attractive to those looking for a hotel in the downtown Portland area: there is no longer the risk of getting one of the 3* hotels near the Convention Center. Vancouver, WA is now part of the Portland bidding area as well; this will provide extra bids for 3* Vancouver.

I couldn't find a hotel matching this description when I searched Hotwire. However, looking at their vacation packages, the hotel is a match for the Red Lion Hotel Seattle Airport, so that would be my best guess.

I would strongly recommend against bidding below 2.5* on Priceline unless you've thoroughly researched the area (or have no other choice). The chances of landing a poor-quality hotel at the 1 and 2* levels is simply too great in my opinion. You might want to avoid the airport zone as well; the Red Lion, which seems to come up most frequently, gets rather poor reviews on travel websites. Here's a fairly simple strategy that should get the job done: Bid 3* DT $33 Add NW Portland bid $35 Add Beaverton-Hillsboro bid $37 If these bids fail, exit and start a new bid for 3* DT + Jantzen Beach at $40 Add NW Portland bid $42 Add Beaverton-Hillsboro bid $45 If you're looking for the lowest price on either Saturday or Sunday, you could have a Saturday bid in one window and a Sunday bid in another and alternate bidding between the two. Or, if you prefer to keep things simple, use the above strategy for Saturday, then try for Sunday if that fails.

I took a look at Hotwire's Vacation Packages; there's a good chance that the 3* is the Residence Inn Portland South. I have no idea what the 2.5* hotel is, but I can guarantee you that it's NOT the Embassy Suites. I would definitely take the 3* if you're going to purchase a room on Hotwire.

It showed a retail price of $109 when I checked. My best guess would be the Hilton Garden Inn Portland/Lake Oswego.

If the Benson is going for $129 on HOTWIRE, now might be the time to try bidding again on Priceline. There's a decent chance that you could land it, or another hotel, in the same price range that you were bidding in before ($85-105).

This one is a stumper. My best guess is the Pan Pacific; it's a fairly new hotel, which might explain why it hasn't been reported before. Don't worry about the lack of TripAdvisor information; most of the time, the reasons for not revealing it have nothing to do with poor reviews (and sometimes the information is revealed when the hotel HAS received many bad reviews).

By Priceline bidding standards, your travel dates are a long ways off. Better deals will likely come up as you get closer to those dates. If fact, many of the best deals on PL have come from bids made within a few days of the check-in date. For now, I would suggest being patient. Don't bid more than once every three or four days until you're within a month of check-in, and don't go higher than you've already bid so far. In fact, with so many free rebid zones in Portland for 4* bids, I think I would start even lower -- I don't like winning a room on my first bid. If the idea of not having a room booked until days before check-in makes you uncomfortable, I would also suggest making a fully-cancelable reservation as a backup (actually, you should probably do this whatever your feelings, though I typically don't :) ).

I was just able to win two more rooms at the Hilton for the same dates at the same $50/night rate. Total was $349.26 after taxes and fees. I forgot to mention last time that the rate for those dates on the Hilton website was $149/night. I used the Savingsbarn link this time.

My best guess is that the 4* that slruud found on Hotwire is the Benson and the 3.5* is the Hilton. If you're willing to stay in rooms with only one queen bed (which is probably why the 4* disappears when you select 3 adults), you may want to see if you can get it on Priceline for $75 or less. I was able to get the Hilton on the Labor Day weekend for $50/night on Priceline when Hotwire was showing $93, but with the Red Lion available on those dates for $120/night, I wouldn't bid for a 3* on those dates.

It seemed like the ideal time to bid, since the Red Lion was not showing any rooms available for all three nights and the Doubletree's rates were $179/night. I bid as follows: 3* DT - $39 (new bid) 2.5* DT - $42 2.5* DT + NW Portland - $45 (back to original bid) 3* DT + Beaverton - $47 3* DT + Beaverton + NW Portland - $50 Total was $150 + $27.79 taxes and fees = $177.79. Be wary about using the above bidding strategy in general: you should NEVER simultaneously raise your bid and lower the quality level unless you've really done your homework.

If you go up in $1 increments, you might not have enough bids available to assure yourself of a room. But the counteroffer indicates that you won't need to bid more than $122. I'd probably use the following bidding sequence: New bid: 4* Vancouver + Coquitlam-Burnaby - $104 New bid: 4* Vancouver + Delta - $106 Add: Coq-Bur (to rejected bid) - $108 New bid: 4* Vancouver + Langley - $110 Add: Delta - $112 Add: Coq-Bur - $114 New bid: 4* Vancouver + Surrey-Pitt Meadows - $116 Add: Langley - $118 Add: Delta - $120 Add: Coq-Bur - $122 Of the above zones, only Vancouver as 4* hotels, so there's no danger of getting a hotel in another zone. I would recommend sticking to 4* hotels only if you want to be sure of getting something downtown.