g-man

You have received a counteroffer from PRICELINE. The winning price could be any number between $71 and $85. Generally, you can get the room if you split the difference (i.e. a bid of $77 or $78). There are 8 free rebid zones in the Newport Beach area. Those are zones that do not have anything higher than a 3.5* hotel. You can safely add these zones when bidding because you know that it's impossible to win a 4* hotel in those zones. Theoretically, you could bid 256 times each day with that many free rebid zones. That seems a bit unnecessary. ;-) If you like, you could actually bid in increments of $1 starting at $70 and working your way up to $85 ... all in the same day, or spread it out over 2 days. It all depends if you want to make sure that you don't overpay by a few dollars. You should also note that even though you received a counteroffer today, it might be gone tomorrow.

Unfortunately, there is no way to accurately determine the number of hotels at a particular star level in any given zone. You can only determine whether there are 4* hotels in the zone or not (and you already know how to do that). Two suggestions ... 1) You can look at the recent wins reported by other users in that zone by searching the Canada forum here. Some of the hotels in the hotel list have not not been reported in a while (i.e. years) and might not participate in PRICELINE anymore. 2) Look at the retail side of PRICELINE. Although the retail and opaque sides could theoretically have completely different hotels at the same star levels, the reality is that there is quite a bit of overlap. In other words, some or most of the hotels on the retail side also participate in the opaque side. Neither one of these suggestions is scientific or foolproof. They are only meant to give you SOME idea of the hotels that you could possibly win in any given PRICELINE zone.

You can pay with any card. Just make sure that you enter the correct name for whoever is staying in the room. The hotel never actually knows YOUR card number. You are buying from Priceline and Priceline is "buying" from the hotel with their own card.

You can find out what zones have a particular star level by doing this: 1) Go to the screen where you select the zones. 2) City Hall - Downtown Vancouver South is the first zone listed. Click on it. 3) You will see the available levels listed below (in the "Step 2: Choose the star level for your hotel" section). The City Hall zone has 3, 2.5, 2 and 1-star hotels available at this time. 4) Uncheck the City Hall zone. 5) Click on the next zone (Coquitlam - Burnaby). You'll see that it has 3.5, 3, 2.5, 2 and 1-star hotels available. 6) Repeat for the rest of the zones, unchecking the zone you just looked at. Knowing which zones have (or don't have) a particular star level is used for free rebids. You could use the 2 zones mentioned above as free rebids for your 4* hotel because they don't have any 4* hotels. So, let's say you place a $50 bid for a 4* in your preferred zone (Downtown). It gets rejected. You can then add Coquitlam to your bid (without worrying about getting a 4* hotel there ... because there are none). You would increase your bid to $55 (for example) and it gets rejected too. You can still bid because there's the City Hall zone available. In fact, there are 5 zones that do not have 4* hotels. This allows you to bid up to 32 times every day. Go nuts. :) Read through this Priceline Re-Bidding Explained thread for more details on combination bidding. Good luck!

The good news is that you didn't do anything wrong. The bad news is that you got "upgraded" after accepting the counteroffer. This is one of the bigger complaints with Priceline. You can be upgraded from any level to any higher level. I won't advise you what to do with your reservation but I will share a story with you. A friend of mine had the same thing happen in January. He bid on a 2.5* hotel for us in the Buffalo, NY Airport zone. We were trying to avoid the 3* level because there's one particular 3* hotel that has very mixed reviews. About half of them say that this is the worst place ever in the history of the world and the other half say that it's pretty good. There are very few middle-of-the-road reviews. Of course, he got "upgraded" to the hotel we wanted to avoid. Does this sound familiar so far? Anyway, we decided that since we were literally only going to be there for about 6-8 hours because we were catching a very early flight, we were going to tough it out. Lo and behold, we ended up with one of the good rooms. It was very nice and clean and even had a balcony to an atrium. All this for a $34 bid. There have been two other similar instances over the years that I recall and both times, the hotels in question were fine although I was worried beforehand. I'm sure that others on this board have had the same experience a number of times too. So, depending how bad those reviews are (and how many of them there are), you might consider keeping the reservation and hope for the best. If you do decide to go, be pleasant with the person at the desk. They have the ability to give you a good room or a bad room. Don't give them a reason to give you a bad one. Good luck with whatever you do!

Your guess is as good as mine. :) There is plenty of evidence on these forums that you can save more than 50%. Just look around and you will find examples of winning bids of $40 when the rack rate is $159 (i.e. about 75% off).

Priceline and Hotwire are slightly different. With HOTWIRE, if you "bid", you will definitely get the hotel for the price stated ... plus taxes and fees. After deciding which hotel you want, you click on the "Continue" button. That takes you to the next screen. On the left side, you are shown the amounts (rate per night, number of nights, number of rooms, subtotal, taxes/fees and a grand total). You can continue from there to enter your payment information and you'll have your room(s). There is no separate fee to "bid" because HOTWIRE doesn't use that business model. You are always successful at "winning" a hotel. With PRICELINE, you select a zone and star level and then enter your bid. The next screen shows you information similar to Hotwire. If you choose to continue, you would enter your payment information (if you have not already saved it with Priceline). The next step is the major difference between PRICELINE and HOTWIRE. Priceline searches for a hotel in the zone(s) you selected at the price you want. If it finds one, you have just reserved and paid for your room(s). There is also no separate fee to bid on PRICELINE. If your bid is successful, some part of the fees that were previously shown to you go to Priceline (I believe it's around $7). If your bid is not successful, you are not charged at all.

You're not kidding that it was a little more than you wanted to spend. :) You had previously bid up to $123. These 2 hotels averaged $124 for the 8 nights. The good news is that, by splitting your bid, you actually SAVED $9 per night ... because it would have required $133 to get all 8 nights at the same hotel. :)

Generally speaking, the longer the stay, the greater the chance that there is at least one date where the rate you want is not available. For example, the PRICELINE rates for a given hotel might be 100-100-100-100-150-150-100-100 for your 8 nights. It would require a minimum bid of $150 to get them all ... and you're below that at $123. All it takes is one day to mess up your whole bid. San Francisco is often busy with conventions during October. Just Google "san francisco october conventions" (without quotes) and you will see what I mean. Other members of this board have a better handle on actual convention information (i.e. dates and numbers) than I do. Hopefully, they can provide some assistance. If changing hotels during your stay doesn't bother you, then splitting your bid might be a successful strategy.

Oops! The dates are 9/12/08-9/14/08. I tried to edit the topic myself but there doesn't appear to be a way for regular users to do that.

A friend of mine who doesn't know about this board got this hotel today. The initial bid was $65 and that generated an "add $17" counteroffer. She added the East Niagara Falls zone and increased the bid to $70 which was accepted. I apologize that she didn't go through your PRICELINE link but I felt that it would still be useful to add this as new hotel and star level in the Buffalo-Amherst zone of your Priceline hotel list.

I don't believe there is any way to guarantee what you want. What *I* would do is to bid for 2 rooms for the shorter stay and then bid for 1 room for the other 2 days. You would be guaranteed to be in the same hotel for the first part of the trip and then possibly have to switch hotels for the last 2 days. You would have a little more control with Hotwire because you can often figure which hotel you will be getting based on the amenities. If you would be ok with having to change hotels for the final 2 days, this is an option to consider. Good luck!

The Extended Stay Deluxe rooms typically have only one bed and a sleeper sofa. If you need two beds, you should check with the hotel to make sure that they have some rooms with two beds (some of them do) and hope that you can get one, be prepared for a less comfortable sleep on the sofa/floor, or pick another hotel. The reviews for this one are generally good, so the quality should not be an issue.

First of all, I hope you're not confusing "Hyatt Place" with "Hyatt Regency" or "Grand Hyatt". They are different quality levels within the Hyatt chain. Many of the Hyatt Place locations were former Amerisuites locations that have been renovated completely. I don't think anybody can GUARANTEE that it's the Hyatt Place but consider the following: 1) It has previously been reported with those amenities in that area. 2) No other hotel has been reported with those amenities in that area. 3) Have a look at this Hyatt Place Orlando thread from last week. HOTWIRE showed exactly the same amenities and price as the one you're looking at and it was confirmed by somebody else who booked it. In other words, $39 or $42 is certainly a possible rate for a Hyatt Place and, by all accounts, a great deal. Although nobody can be 100% certain of which hotel this is, I think that *I* would be fairly confident that, in fact, it is the Hyatt Place based on the "evidence". If it is, the place has very good reviews. You might feel more comfortable by splitting your purchase into two separate days. That way, you'd know after the first day whether it IS the Hyatt Place and then book the second day. I'm not saying that I would do that but it certainly is an option.

If, in fact, it IS the Hyatt Place, then $39 or $42 is a great deal. The rate on their website is $179 for each night. :) Good luck!

When I entered your dates into HOTWIRE today, I got a 3* Customer Favorite with breakfast, fitness, pool, business center and hi-speed internet at $42 per night. This is a match for the Hyatt Place. Are you sure you noted the amenities correctly?

Well, it sounds like you were doing everything correctly. It's entirely possible that there is very little inventory available for the dates, quality level and zones that you were bidding and whatever IS available is at a higher price than you're offering. As for the problem with waiting 24 hours, when they say "24 hours", they mean EXACTLY 24 hours after the last bid you made in that particular area. So, for example, if you started bidding at 7:00pm and finished your last bid at 7:15pm, you would be able to bid again after 7:15pm the following day. If you did something like bid a couple of times at 7pm, thought about it a bit, bid again, thought about it some more and finally finished your bidding at 11:00pm, you would have to wait until after 11:00pm the following day to bid for those zones again. I hope this helps.