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TX-Traveller

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Everything posted by TX-Traveller

  1. Yes, I've been reading about this strategy alot and will definitely try it. I didn't realize it would be allowed (backing out and making a new bid).
  2. I've often wondered about this. I believe that it may depend on the market. I think the idea of bidding early may be a good one, but I've heard several anecdotal tales of people paying too much in advance for hotels in cities I paid very low prices for just a day or two before arrival. Here's my theory on this: I think thereuare may be correct on recommending advance purchases for many areas. However, IF you are wanting to stay in a big city that is a popular convention city, and IF you are planning on staying downtown in a nice hotel that is typically used for convention business, THEN I suspect that later may be better. Here's why I think so: Conventions work by organizations making arrangements directly with hotels or with a city's convention bureau. They schedule the convention center or hotel meeting rooms (depending on size of convention/conference), and make a major deposit. They also are granted a block of rooms at a convention rate. This block is held up until a certain date. Until then, the hotel can't book the rooms for anyone else. Once that date is past, then the rooms become available. If you were to try to book a room well in advance, then the room might not be available. But once the release date has passed, you might get it. In fact, if the conference is undersubscribed, there might be quite a few rooms available at distressed prices. That's the theory, anyway--however, note that rooms are released many weeks in advance, not days, so I'm not talking about the difference between a week before your arrival vs. a day. Another thing I've seen, however, is that for large business meetings (not so often conventions), a company might book a large block of hotel rooms in a major hotel. They pay their deposit. They may end up postponing the meeting and rescheduling it (they can usually rollover their deposit, perhaps with an additional fee, to the new reservation). Their rooms now become available, and if they cancellation was close to the meeting date, the hotel may be more desperate to sell the rooms. I doubt these are factors in many towns and markets, but in large cities and major hotels, I believe they may be a factor. In any case, I tend to book the week of my arrival.
  3. A friend has twice had bad luck getting good hotels on PM in San Antonio, so when I needed to go for a weekend, and wanted to stay at a nice hotel on the Riverwalk, I just stuck in a high bid. (I'm generally pretty cheap in my bidding, so $70 for me is high). I bid $70 off the bat for a 4* and got it. The Marriott San Antonio Downtown Riverwalk is on the Riverwalk and across the street from the convention center. Since San Antonio is very popular on weekends all year, but especially summer, I was pleased with the deal I got, and the hotel proved nice though I'd probably give the rooms a 3* for size and comfort. BTW, my bid was for 2 nights, F and Sat, and the total was $171.24 after 31.24 in taxes/fees.
  4. One other tip I haven't seen mentioned is to simply have 2 accounts on PM. They do check for duplicate credit cards and personal information, I think, as you can't just create a duplicate account with your own information repeated. I'm not suggesting that you lie or commit fraud, but if you are married or have a friend travelling with you, there is no reason I can think of why they shouldn't also be able to bid. In my case, my wife has a PM account using a separate email address and credit card, and if I fail, then she can try.
  5. This is a good strategy that I've used several times. However, one caveat that wasn't mentioned (maybe it is obvious to everyone) is that you may get trapped in the wrong part of town IF your higher bid still doesn't work and you end up having to lower quality rating to keep bidding. For instance, in the example given by thereuare, if you bid 4* on Zone ABC and fail, then add Zone XYZ and bid 4* again, with a higher bid, then if THIS bid also fails, what do you do next? Maybe there is yet another zone with only 3*, but you can only play this game so long. If you run out of zones to add, then your next step is to lower the quality rating to 3*. But once you do that, XYZ and the others are now in play, and you may get stuck there. If you don't want to, then you better not continue bidding. Use Hotwire or something, I suppose. Incidentally, this trick isn't restricted to large cities with multiple zones. You can also do it in small towns with a single zone. For instance, if you add City A that has a 4* hotel, and your bid fails, you can abandon the bid and then bid on a nearby city ("B") with only 3* or less. Often PM will give you a screen that encourages you to increase your chances by selecting from one or more neighboring cities. You can then choose City A and you are then playing the same game. I did this in south Texas using Harlingen and McAllen. I wanted to stay at a Marriott Renaissance in McAllen (which is a cool hotel) and Harlingen didn't have anything with as high a star rating. When my first bid in McAllen failed, I cancelled out and then bid on Harlingen and included neighboring McAllen, and with a higher bid, got my hotel.
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