WillTravel

TripAdvisor has made a mistake. If you go to maps.google.com and enter Novotel Paris Les Halles, Paris you'll see its real position north of the river.

The Novotel Paris Les Halles is not in the Latin Quarter. It is north of the Seine River. If you look at the Latin Quarter zone map, doesn't it look to be south of the river to you?

There are two ways to try to get a good idea of what a hotel is. One is to look at the list of Hotwire hotels in Rome, which is included here: Hotwire Hotel List Looking at that list, you can see the list of amenities does match the Intercontinental. Another way is to set up a dummy Flight + Hotel package which matches your date range (with an extra day at the start to allow for the flight), and see what hotels show up. This is not foolproof, as the hotels listed for the vacation packages may or may not be the same as you get when doing a regular search. Doing this, you also see that the 5* Intercontinental comes up with the same amenities. It's hard to get a nice, well-located hotel for a cheap price in Rome, so I think this is a pretty good deal.

The website www.hrs.de is very good for backup hotels. I would also consider dividing your stay. You can see my post on this forum about my good luck with www.ameropa.de for Vienna.

Yes, all four tickets will be on the same itinerary - provided you bid for all four of them in the same bid.

With an amenity that common, you will never be able to tell for sure, but based on the vacation packages, the Mercure Paris Montparnasse 3m is a definite possibility, as "Restaurant" is displayed as that hotel's single amenity also.

I think that based on the Vacation Packages for your dates, the Bettoja Hotel Mediterraneo is more likely, as it is 4* and has exactly those four amenities. "Tennis Nearby" does not really mean much, in my opinion, because whatever tennis courts are nearby that hotel will have to be nearby some others.

I know it can be unpleasant to get an extra charge, but this is very standard for Europe. What I like about this hotel is that it has good air conditioning and is close to many metro lines, so although it may not be your best deal ever, you should be fine there. It sounds like the amount of the charge has still not been resolved. Looking at lemeridien.com, the hotel's cheapest website rate is 329 Euros during this time, but a room with two double beds is 374 Euros, so from that point of view you got a huge discount off the website rate. If you want to resolve this now, you could telephone the hotel and ask for the cost to be upgraded to a room with two double beds, or you could ask the cost of a rollaway. However, in the room we had, I'm not sure a rollaway would have fit. If you don't resolve it, take a sleeping bag or an air mattress for your child and hope for the best when you check in discreetly.

I would definitely check to see what your best deal without HOTWIRE is. For Venice I have found HotelClub often has good deals, at least in the winter, but I would check HotelsCombined.com too. I notice tha the 4* Boscolo Bellinin on Expedia offers a double room with breakfast for an average price of $167 per night. However, this couldn't be the HOTWIRE hotel, as the Bellini has no restaurant on site. The point, though, is that maybe you can get a good deal for a known hotel outside Hotwire, and that might be your best bet for a 6-night stay.

You can look at the list of winning Priceline hotels in Brussels to see what people have reported so far. The important thing is to look at the zone map for Brussels and decide if you would be happy with any 4* hotel that is in that zone. It's also possible you could get a hotel that has not been reported yet. What I would definitely do is book a cancellable backup hotel, if you aren't sure what you want to do, because any availability is quickly disappearing. If you are concerned about price, you probably can't be too picky about location, given the circumstances.

Although this is still very high, if you look at venere.com, you can get a rate of 243 Euros per night at Hotel Bristol Stephanie. I don't expect this to last. Venere says it is 5*. So I suggest booking something now. Hotels.com has B Aparthotel Montgomery for 138 Euros per night. I am not sure of the 4* rating, but it might work for you.

Vienna has a good transit system, but I wouldn't see Strawberry Hostel as super-central. It's near the West train station. I think for Munich I did not get a successful bid several months out, but did approximately 1 month or so out. Who knows why.

That's a good bargain for the Ibis. These are basically like 2* hotels, but usually in good shape and modern, unlike some 2* hotels. For Vienna, I got a great deal at the 4* Lindner am Belvedere using www.ameropa.de . But the website is only in German, so I found it a bit tricky. I got vouchers for the hotel by postal mail. But I'd suggest looking at that website anyway. For Frankfurt, I think you can cancel a Starwood C&P room up until fairly late, right? So you still have a chance to bid if you want.

Just to be safe, I'd take a look at a site like www.hrs.de and book some cancellable backups. German hotel prices are generally quite reasonable if there are no huge events (and I don't think you are actually intersecting any big events, but just coming close). I'd also take a look at some other sites, like www.hotelscombined.com and see what prices you can get without Priceline, although the cheapest ones there will probably be prepaid. Actually my main concern would probably be Paris in September, so that's where I'd be especially sure to make a backup. I don't think you'll find any 2-3* in the Latin Quarter that's particularly cheap - prices have gotten quite high, and September is generally the most expensive month. I'd expect 100 Euros per night as a bare minimum with those criteria, and probably more.

What dates are you looking for?

Note that for your dates you can get the newly renovated and reopened All Seasons Paris Lafayette Opera, through Accorhotels, for 75 Euros per night total, including breakfast and Wifi. BB has an Accorhotels link on the support page. (I'm not saying this is the greatest hotel, particularly as I haven't been there, but it is a good deal and I like the area.)

The price on the Priceline and Hotwire Calendar of Wins is the bid price. There are always additional taxes and service fees, but you are informed of these before you actually complete the bid.

Which terminal will you be using? That would affect the recommendation. I think PRICELINE or HOTWIRE is not a good option for this, because I don't think a single hotel that is walkable from Heathrow has shown up. You'd need either a bus or cab.

The BW Executive Inn would not be advertised with a suite icon, though.

This is going to depend on your expectations for a hotel, whether you should get a 3*, 4*, or 5*. Of course your budget is important too. Note that if you have in mind a "true" luxury hotel like the Dorchester, none of these will be satisfactory, but definitely not a 3* or 4*. How good a hotel do you want? If you aren't used to budget accommodations, then you probably should get at least a 4* hotel. If you read some of the reviews here and on TripAdvisor, that will give you an idea.

I have often seen the Angleterre for cheap prices, both directly like in this example and as a "top secret" selection on lastminute.co.uk, which is another site worth checking. As for the coin-operated laundry, there seem to be many instances in Europe where the hotel does not actually have that amenity, even though HOTWIRE posts it. I'm not sure if there is some sort of cultural misunderstanding or what, but I wouldn't take it seriously.

I don't have time to comment on the rest of your post, but I would not expect the Dorchester from Hotwire. It's outside the league of typical Hotwire hotels, even for 5* options. There are several other options that are far more likely than the Dorchester.

As you suggest, there's no way to be certain, given the lack of information. If you go to Expedia for your dates, the cheapest 5* hotel that is in Mayfair is the Park Lane. So that's possible, but very far from certain.

Digame, you asked about getting two beds. I think if you read the history on this board, that it's not guaranteed in NYC, but maybe someone else can guess what your odds are.

I don't know which hotel it is, but Expedia has several 4* hotels in central Florence that are cheaper than that for your dates, so I doubt Hotwire is a great bargain here.