mrxow

I just did some test partial bids in a zone I know with one hotel at 1 star. I didn't check the city bed tax, but I think it is 10%. They wanted 11.35 in fees for a one night bid, 16.01 for 2 nights, 20.67 for 3 nights, 25.33 for 4 nights, 71.92 for 14 nights. So if the bed tax is $3.40 or so, they want $7.95 to make a bid for a night and add about $1.25 per night for each additional night. So you save $6.70 per night by including it in a longer stay versus bidding for it individually. That could be over $100 a month for what you are talking about doing.

Having a longer stay, especially one that includes both weekday and weekend nights can impact your chances, but you never know. You can at least try booking the whole thing up to an amount you are comfortable with. If it starts looking like it is going to cost more than you like, maybe try to break it up. You might want to look at some retail prices and try to determine if it is the weekend or weekday nights that are hanging you up, if that happens. Weekends are obviously more in Vegas and weekdays are almost given away in some places. But there could be a convention or something or some other reason why particular hotels that participate have a high occupancy mid week, too. Compare the midweek prices to other midweek prices near the time of your stay and do the same with weekends. Be aware, though, that Memorial Day is a week after your trip...

PL changes around its bidding structure and I haven't done lots of multiple night bids in a while, but when I did, it seemed that fees for 2 nights were more than fees for one night but less than fees for 2 nights booked separately. They wrap the taxes in with the fees and don't break it down any longer to intentionally make it harder to discern what they are doing now, though. If I have time later I will do some test partial bids and compare the fees at certain star levels for various numbers of nights, subtracting out known bed tax based on bid amount and see what kind of correlation I can find. I do know that when I bid for one night, even when the accepted bid is in the low to mid thirties, the overall cost is around $50. When I used to bid for a week or more at a time, the same accepted bid per night generated a cost per night more near $40. You have to consider, too, that bidding more nights in blocks can preclude you from winning a particular hotel if they have no inventory in the system for one of your nights. The chances of this happening might be higher with each night longer your stay becomes. Longer stays mean less hassles, though, too, especially if you end up in a kitchenette and have some food in the refrigerator. You might want to carry a cooler in the car, but that is still a pain. Certainly don't want to do that all the time and if you aren't sure you are going to have the same refrigeration capabilities in your next room, it's hard to buy something you won't use all at once and needs to be refrigerated or frozen.

Not being able to get a room just doesn't ever even enter my mind. So many times I have grabbed something last minute when I needed it. I suppose DC might be different at certain times, but I don't think you'd have problems frequently. Extended Stay lists 10 hotels in DC. Homestead lists 9. All are potential participators in the PL bidding system. There seem to be others at the low star levels, too, though not a lot has been reported. From the hotel list, there seem to be a lot of 2.5 and 3 star options, too, if that is more what you are interested in. Might have to pay a little more, but you might like the accomodations a lot better. In Orange County, California, where I have done most of my bidding as an interim living arrangement, we have the fortunate circumstance that at the lower levels, most zones only have Extended Stays or Homesteads, so you pretty much know what you are going to get. It doesn't appear DC is that way, but in some zones it might be. I think ESA and Homestead would be fine for one person. Two is pushing it, sometimes. Just a little small. If you are going to try for lower star levels, you might want to do some short test stays to see what comes up. If you can figure out some places you like and think you can count on getting them, maybe do some longer stays so that the fees get spread out over more nights and your average nightly rate can go down.

As far as I know, if you absolutely have to have a suite, the only way using the opaque sites is to grab a HOTWIRE offering that indicates it is a suite. I have ended up in suites on Priceline, but that is the exception. IF you got the Hyatt, maybe they would upgrade for a fee, but that isn't a sure thing. You can expect a standard room, sometimes even with only one bed, when you book on PRICELINE.

How far is the house? Is it just you or are there others? I have a lot of experience with this, though it is on the west coast. Maybe people who read this can help with a list of hotels and star levels that generally offer free breakfasts. Then you can check that against the hotel lists for the zones you are interested in. I know La Quinta sometimes does. Embassy Suites. Summerfield Suites. Hampton Inn. Townplace Suites offers something small. Springhill Suites. If it's just you and you get an Extended Stay or Homestead or any other place with a kitchen, the money you save eating some things in your room would pay for breakfast. With fees on longer stays you might get something under 40 bucks a day total. If you don't need it every night, you might be able to do it for about a grand a month.

If you make your trip to Barcelona or Madrid at the beginning or end of your trip, you can roll the cost of going there into the cost of getting to Porto. There are nonstops to both places from the states. Madrid, especially, might work well. The prices are lower and I think I saw US Airways with a route. You would leave RDU, stop somewhere (philadelphia?) then head straight to Madrid. I think the direct price was about 970 for that. You might be able to win it on PL for less. I'd be more optimistic than on the Air Portugal route, but of course it is worth tryting to get the Air Portugal route - just you have some other options. The Ryanair flights from Madrid to Porto are 40+ dollars less than the ones from Barcelona. You might be able to get the Barcelona trip pretty cheap later on when they have a sale, though. Right now, Madrid to Barcelona on Ryanair is 80 bucks, plus maybe some fees if you check any bag(s). You could arrange to go to Madrid on the way over or back, then wait for a sale price that falls within your stay in Porto and grab that and go to both Madrid and Barcelona. :) I am not sure bidding for Fridays has the best possibility of success. Often tuesdays, wednesdays and maybe saturdays are less crowded and maybe more open to deals. Make sure the routes you want are operating on the days you bid, though. I know Air India does not fly all its transatlantic flights every day. It's a little nerve wracking to wait, but looking at the Iberia page, they are offering flights from the US to Madrid or Barcelona for as low as $505 from Boston or $574 from DC for flights by the end of April - not sure when that sale was first offered. Eventually there might be prices like that offered near your dates of travel. Your leave date is a little close to the summer rush. I saw, for instance, a price drop of over $100 on some flights between September 5 and the 8th, for instance...

Ok, thanks for that. The moderator will adjust you post title accordingly so other people will be able to easily understand what you won. Now, first of all, you need to know that while the last nine wins reported in your zone have been at the Crowne Plaza, two years ago, people won the Sheraton 4 Points. This link should take you to search results which show a lot of the 3* wins reported in your zone. Now you see why we wanted all that information? Aren't you glad other people posted their wins? Don't worry about the Holiday Inn listings - that is what the Crowne Plaza used to be called. http://www.betterbidding.com/index.php?act...wntown+-amherst Somebody won your hotel last April for $45. Someone also won the hotel last month for $45. You, however, already bid the zone and know that you did not get it at $60. So that is probably a good place to start. The retail side is offering your hotel for $116 on your night. When you start your priceline bidding, ignore the retail stuff or take the direct link to the bidding side. Click on each zone INDIVIDUALLY and see which ones do not show 3* or above as an option. When I just checked, there were two zones that met this criteria. Downtown was not one of them! :) These are the zones you can safely add for rebids. You cannot win hotels in these zones. So pick your starting price for the Niagara zone and see what happens. Then raise your bid and add one of the free rebid zones. If you want an extra rebid, start the whole process over from the beginning on a fresh Priceline homepage, raise your bid again and pick Niagara and the other free rebid zone. If you still haven't got your hotel, Bid Niagara and both rebid zones. Do the same thing in 24 hours until you get what you want. Make sure to use the site's PRICELINE links and post your win info.

We still want to know what day you made your booking (we realize it is now cancelled) and for how many nights. This information helps people that actually want to be in downtown Buffalo. It's a you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours around here. :) Since you are asking for one night on the 28th in Niagara, can we assume that is what you got in downtown before you cancelled it?

I am sorry you are upset about getting a hotel you didn't want. However... When you added a zone, you indicated to Priceline that you would be ok with getting a hotel in that zone. There is more one three star hotel in downtown Buffalo. Any hotel could possibly be on the PL bidding system. Many hotels that participate in the bidding system do not show up on PL's retail side. Priceline does not say anywhere, and most anyone here could tell you, that a hotel you might win will not necessarily be listed anywhere on PL's retail pages. The Crowne Plaza is not the only hotel you could have won in Niagara, either. The hotel you received is a 3* hotel on PL's scale, not lower than 3*. And it appears to be 20 minutes from Niagara Falls, not an hour, unless there is some nasty traffic in that area. Priceline would not be able to exist if they allowed people to add any zone they want indiscriminantly, then had to field complaints and make refunds to everybody that wasn't happy with a hotel that matched the star level and zone they agreed to stay in. I realize you are a new member here, so I don't know if you have looked at this board before this happened, but what you experienced was easily avoidable. Certainly ask questions next time and things like this won't happen. How can you trust them again? This seems like a really silly question when they lived up to their end of the deal and you got what you agreed to. This situation is entirely due to your lack of understanding of how Priceline works. You can absolutely trust Priceline to give you a hotel in a zone you pick at or above the star level you specify. Absolutely, every time, you can trust them to do that. You cannot "trust" them not to give you a hotel that isn't listed on their retail side. The retail side and bidding side are separate. What should you do now? First you should post your win information so other people using this service can learn from your situation. We need to know the dates of your stay. Then we can explain to you how to avoid this in the future and how to get a hotel you want in the zone you want. It is highly likely you will still save money booking through PL versus going direct, even when you add in the $47 you will be out.

Are your dates fixed? Do you have any interest in seeing some other places on the way there or back? I would mention that Porto is a RyanAir destination. I have taken a number of flights around Europe with them that cost as low as 30 bucks out the door each way. Right now about the cheapest I see is 105 r/t to Porto from Paris. But they have sales all the time and you might be able to get to Porto from some city in Europe for half that if you keep a lookout. Air India is flying from NY to Paris around those dates for just over 600 out the door. There is a non-stop flight from Newark to Porto on air Portugal. Under 7 hours - tempting even though it costs more. I wouldn't be optimistic that Air Portugal participates, but if PRICELINE guarantees max one stopover that might be the only flight that would qualify. Would be nice to get that non-stop for the price of some horrifying 20 hour travel day... Right now, it is 740 from NY to Porto and you can spend as much time in NY or paris as you like along the way. Just have to get to NY. FYI - be aware Ryanair has some pretty stringent baggage rules.

Well, I may look into what suite hotels are in the zone. In the meantime, if you just want to make sure you get a nice room, have you looked at what people get at 3* on PRICELINE? Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, Crowne Plaza, Doubletree, Hilton Suites, etc. There really aren't any bad ones you could end up with. There is a place called the Anabella, but its not a bod looking property, either. I have eaten in their restaurant. They won an award for being a beautiful property recently. It is fixed up older place, so the room layouts may not be quite up to date. But they have all been refurbished. I know what the place was like before. It was quite a shock to see what they have done with it. Even so, nobody has reported a PL win there in several years, according to the search I did. And people are winning 3 star PRICELINE Disney bids all the time - often in the 60 dollar range. So the chances are extremely low that one would even come up. Chances are you will end up in one of the properties listed above. There is a complete list in the hotel lists section.

Here is another I remember that is not on the list. The zone I am placing it in is where it falls now. I don't know the zone name at the time. It appears the zones have changed around a lot. This hotel is right on the western border of the zone. Really, it could be argued that the hotel falls outside the border, if it is in the border, the distance could be measured in feet. It is a good location next to the freeway and about as close to the Buckhead area as you can get without being in the Buckhead zone. While looking at the hotel list, I noticed there are hotels listed for a Decatur - Northlake zone. This zone does not appear to exist any longer. Northlake is its own zone. Decatur is in the zone I am reporting here. So it is unclear without doing a little research what zones the hotels listed in Decatur -Northlake now fall. Several mapping programs, including the one on the hotel site, are indicating this place is a half a mile south of its actual location. Thanks to satellite photographs, though, I was able to zoom in and confirm this is where I stayed. I could see where I parked my car... :) 1339 Executive Park Dr. Atlanta, GA 30329

There is a new company called Megabus that has routes from Vegas to downtown LA. The departure point in Vegas is the Grayline bus station at Swenson and Tropicana, right at the exit from the airport. The LA arrival point is Union Station, downtown, from where you can jump on the Metro rail if that gets you close to where you want to go, or the Metro Link. Or Amrtak. Or there is a Flyaway bus service to LAX that is pretty cheap direct from Union Station, if you need to get there. The best part is that the bus tickets go up in price as more people book tickets on a particular route and time. And the first ticket or two costs... ONE DOLLAR!!!! I have been back and forth to Vegas from LA for a dollar each way several times. The trip is under 5 hours (suppose some Sunday trips back might be longer because of traffic) The buses are new and not that crowded - haven't been on one yet where I could not have two seats to myself... Admittedly, snagging that dollar seat for a Sunday return might be a trick - have to pay attention to when that day becomes available. Much of the time, dates further out get added day by day 45 to 50 days in advance. But sometimes they open up blocks of dates all at once. Even if you can't grab the dollar seat, you likely could do it for 9 or 15. 30 would be absolutely the worst. Depending on where in LA you need to go, considering check in and security and all that, the airport might only save you 2 hours for your $120... If you want more info, ask.

Make sure you save a screen shot of the lower price. It could change. I don't know about HOTWIRE, but I had a similar issue trying to collect from another hotel's low price guarantee. I neglected to get a screen shot and by the time they looked at the site, the price had changed and they wouldn't honor their guarantee...

Does it really matter which particular hotel it is? A short list of possibilities could probably be put together. It is probably very nice. And the area it would have to fall within is pretty small... Is there one particular hotel you want or do you just not like the idea of not knowing which one it will be?

Very cool. I tried to see if there were some alternative parking options for you, but the parking lots and structures I saw were all a ways south of the hotel. The hotel seems very nice, but it is a little north of the main Old Town area apparently. Still a lot of people report finding street parking and it may be free to park on the weekends at least on the street. Maybe you can find some other parking options with weekly or monthly rates nearby that aren't showing up on the computer, too. Even if you don't want to leave your car on the street or walk a block to a lot or structure, once you know what other options you have, don't be afraid to try to negotiate down the parking fee since you will be staying so long. Tell them if they don't give you a better deal you will figure out another way to park your car (even if you don't really mean it) They do offer a free shuttle south to the heart of Old Town. Maybe some of the lots down there have weekly or monthly rates. You can tell them you are going to park there and take the shuttle if they don't drop the parking rate for your long stay... :)

Not sure how this is going to work, but I am going to try to post a link to search results that might help you... http://www.betterbidding.com/index.php?act...=%5Ckey+west%5C There are three pages of wins and other stuff going back 5 years 80 appears to be the lowest resort win. Several resorts have participated in the past. Lower star level wins are not reported as much and when they are, they aren't much cheaper, but be aware that resorts may have resort fees. Make sure you use the site links if you try to bid...

With all the info in this thread, I just wanted to make sure you understood that PRICELINE only guarantees double occupancy. You can't be sure you will have room for 3 people. I think you should just take the Hotwire option.

I am not thrilled with either of them, either, but the price just can't be beat when you get it on PL or even HW. They are really just amazingly inexpensive and not horrible. I always think about all the people paying probably 20, 30 or more extra for some hotel they stop at off the freeway that isn't half as good...

Homestead and ESA are basically the same. It is not a step up or down really.

You don't really need to break up your stay if you think this hotel will work for you. I think it will. They might charge you extra fees for multiple bookings anyhow. But if the price comes up cheaper for a week at a time, obviously go with that. The moderator says he sees the whole stay for the same price, though. They do have rooms with two double and rooms with one king. They all have sleep sofas. I am not sure which you would prefer or which they will offer you. Maybe think about it, then decide, then call the hotel after you make your booking. If you think a king and sofa bed is better than two doubles and a sofa bed, you could probably just book the room for 2 adults if it is less on Hotwire. Looks like this should work out well for you! :) It's a 4 star hotel. It will definitely be very nice.

When I put 2 adults and a child in, it tells me it is 76 dollars. I don't know why you are getting the lower price, but more power to you. I also didn't know that different icons can come up when you click to select the hotel. Like I said, I don't use Hotwire much. Now I know something new. It seems to me for your needs you aren't going to beat the hotwire offer. Priceline doesn't guarantee a suite or accomodations for more than two. It seems that all the Sheraton suites have a sofa bed, so maybe you could get by with the price offered for 2 adults only if it is less. It may not be much more to go ahead and put 2 adults and a child or 3 adults, depending on your daughters age and it wouldn't cost much more and you don't have to worry about there being a bed issue. I would just take the Hotwire deal.

Priceline does not have a 3.5 star rating. That is only on Hotwire. I imagine some 3.5 Hotwire hotels are rated 3 on Priceline and some are rated 4. The Sheraton Suites is 4 star on priceline. You should be able to click on the underlined word "PRICELINE" in the above posts and have a new window open to a Priceline page. I don't know if pop up blockers interfere with this sometimes, but maybe somebody else can give you some advice. I am sure the moderator will when he gets to it. Wait one sec before grabbing that Hotwire room. Are you entering for 3 people? I wasn't doing that before. We need to make sure you will have enough beds. Priceline only guarantees double occupancy, so since you need to fit three, that really might not be an option. I am going to look at the Sheraton Suites site now.

I am absolutely certain he uses the links when he bids... :) (I suppose they could have been talking to other people reading the post and not the previous poster)