lowballer

Yup. I was in Arches NP a couple of weeks ago and shot that myself. It came out kind of dark, but looks much better wallpaper size. If I have time I'll try to brighten it up tonight. BTW, if it's not obvious, for whichever town you enter, all three of the zones I listed above pop up ("Merrimack-Nashua" is one zone). As it turns out this particular hotel isn't terribly far from the MHT airport, so it could be an option if one wants to be near it.

LAX-SLC is $173 on DL for your dates. SLC is the closest big city to Jackson, about a four-hour drive. Is flying there and renting a car an option? There are a lot of Mother's Day specials out there for this weekend. July is when everyone on the planet wants to be in Jackson, so I wouldn't expect any great deals.

Here's a new one for ya. I'm a bit surprised I got this, but I doubt I overbid by too much. Published rate is $79. Total = $33 + 10.12 = $43.12. Failures: Concord and Manchester 2

The blues festival won't affect hotel demand. NeoCon and the candy show back-to-back, though... that's going to be rough.

Those are the five days a year when Chicago has perfect weather. Before then it's too cold, and after then it'll be too hot. Just kidding. But not by much; June and September are the two best months to visit.

There's a Ramada at ORD... or maybe a Daze Inn? For a typical Saturday you should be able to get a solid 3* at ORD for less (usually $36 or so) on Priceline.

As for the 19th... the restaurant show runs from the 21st to the 24th this year and is one of the two or three biggest Chicago conventions every year. A lot of people will come in a day or two early, so it's no surprise if the 19th is tight. A 14,000 convention doesn't really show up on the radar in Chicago, although it is ironic that something called "Digestive Disease Week" takes place immediately before the restaurant show. :)

They call that "Hyannis/Yarmouth"? Huh? That definitely isn't Yarmouth and most Cape people wouldn't call it Hyannis. Hyannis usually means below Route 28. I'd call it Barnstable.

Not sure what this should be filed under; the hotel is located in Arlington, Virginia but is part of the DC bidding area. My stay here was more than a month ago, but I'm bored today, so here goes. This hotel is located at the southern end of Crystal City, making it slightly less convenient than any of the other hotels in this area (more on this below). 2

This place is a steal at $35. This was for a Friday evening; the shuttle from ORD was filled -- some people had to stand -- with Continental Airlines crew and people who had mechanical delays on their flight. Still, the place was deserted. When I'd look around the atrium not a single person would be on any hallway. I got a ninth-floor corner suite with a scenic view of a McDonald's. (I guess the rooms that have a view of the Grand Tetons go to normal-paying guests. Just kidding.) The suite could easily accommodate several people (hanging around, not sleeping). The minibar was more like a vending machine type thing than a standard refrigerator; soft drinks were $1.75, relatively cheap in minibar terms, but only $1 in the vending machine down the hall. One "design flaw" in my suite was that a big TV was in the front room and a small TV was in the bedroom. I would have switched them. The bed was comfy and had oodles o' pillows. I briefly contemplated intentionally missing my flight to sleep in. :) The pool/ hot tub/ sauna is open from 5am to 11pm. The pool was quite warm. The "fitness center" is just a few exercise machines beside the pool. The shuttle leaves the hotel for ORD every half-hour before 6am and every 20 minutes after 6am, ie, 5am, 5.30, 6, 6.20, 6.40, 7.... This property has its own shuttle; don't use a shuttle for a different Starwood property. It doesn't stop at the Rosemont L station and it's not a reasonable walk there either, so the best way into downtown is to take the shuttle to ORD and take the L from there. I don't think parking is free, because there was a manned booth at the entrance to the lot. Maybe you can park in an adjacent lot on weekends or something (it's in an office park). Maybe. I live in Chicago and stayed here because I had an early flight the next morning and wanted to cut down on the hassle. This turned out to be a good plan. :)

In case anyone cares about Visalia... 3* failed at $50 and 2* failed at $38. Probably the only 3* is a Radisson, which is showing a $92 published rate. A handful of 2*-type places are around $80-85; Daze Inn type places are around $55. PL piggybacks Visalia onto Fresno so there are a few rebid zones for 3*, but none for 2*. There's availability everywhere, so usually something would hit at my bid levels, but everyone is being stingy I guess. I have one bidding cycle left but won't go much higher. I guess if I really want there's still Fresno.

Who here wants to admit to making mistakes when bidding on PL and getting stuck with a hotel that wasn't within your original parameters? This has happened to me twice in the last couple of months, so it's gotten me thinking (never a good sign, I know). I don't mean getting an unexpected or undesirable result by otherwise following a bidding strategy well -- such as overbidding by a few bucks or shooting for 3* Hotel X but ending up with inferior 3* Hotel Y in the same zone. I mean things like adding the wrong zone (where you didn't want to stay but wasn't a free rebid) and/or overbidding by $20+ when you were in no hurry and it was safe to assume you could have gotten the "mistake" property for considerably less. I should be more specific: Recently I was trying for a 3* in downtown San Diego and on a rebid accidentally added a suburban zone that offered 3*. Oops, I hit in the suburban zone, which (a) wasn't where I wanted to stay and (b ) probably cost $20-30 more per night than I could have paid for the same hotel. My other mistake was for London. To make a long story short I accidentally accepted a counteroffer, paying probably $25/night too much in a zone that wasn't my first choice when I had a lot of time left. In both cases I was just careless. I mean hey, I've done this rebidding thing hundreds of times and always check the confirmation screen, right? These weren't obvious mistakes such as an extravagant overbid caused by a typo or entering the wrong month. So I accepted them as learning experiences and never considered disputing them with PL. It's part of the risk I took. I know I goofed. I know it was my fault. I know I should slow down. :) Neither of my mistakes ended up being too bad in the end. Both acceptances were still under published rates. The San Diego property was a solid 3* and the location turned out OK. The London hotel ended up having a nearly ideal location, just a short tube ride from where I wanted to be. So who else wants to admit to some buyer's remorse? I want to know whether frequent PL users do this from time to time, or whether I should be straightjacketed and kept away from PL for my own good. :) In my case it could have been a lot worse; has anyone made mistakes costing several hundred dollars or had to "eat" (not use) a reservation because it was completely unacceptable?

Is this, or did it used to be, a Best Western? I got this place a few years ago (before this board existed) for my one night in Hawaii and it was a BW. I think it was a little less back then, maybe $40. Still, that's about the cheapest thing you can find in Hawaii if you don't want to sleep on the beach. Which wouldn't have worked for me, as it rained that night. Unless they've remodeled -- and if they LOST the BW branding they probably haven't -- it's more like a 1*. They charge for parking, too, but maybe you can find a spot on the street for the night as I did. It was all I needed back then and I've certainly stayed in worse places, but in the Hawaii pricing frame of reference you are getting what you are paying for. :)

I've encountered officiousness about non-smoking rooms maybe twice or three times out of 50+ Priceline stays. Once I was flat-out told the non-smoking rooms were reserved for higher-paying folks; I've also been told the place was "sold out" but was 99% sure it was not ... next time maybe I'll call their bluff by calling their national reservation line. Funny this is, this has only happened at 2* places (maybe one was 2

I have an early fight out of ORD tomorrow (Saturday). I have no interest in dealing with Chicago public transit at 4 am, so my options were to get a cab tomorrow morning or find a cheap hotel in the ORD zone for tonight. Failures were $45 for 4*, $34 for 3* and $33 for 2.5*. I used some of the downtown Chicago zones as "intentional underbid free rebids" because downtown has almost no chance of hitting at the above prices nowadays. Total cost $35 + 12.35 = $47.35. This is the Sharaton on Mannheim Road technically in Rosemont. Cab fare would have been $40 or so, but I can take the L out there tonight for $1.75. So practically, a night here is costing me like $9. Looks like a nice place, too, and I get to sleep in a little later than if I had stayed home. Again, this is a same-day bid. I think I did OK. :)

Yeah, the bottom was in 2002-early 2003. Everything has been inching up gradually since then. Cumulatively, some places have become quite a bit more expensive over the past couple of years. Not every night at every hotel is going to see peak demand, though, so one would think there will always be PL inventory, unless the chains decide to lower their rates enough and sell the rooms themselves.

I got this a couple weeks ago. Downtown hotels are expensive/unavailable this weekend because the ACC Basketball tournament is going on at the MCI Center. Traditionally each school (as well as the conference brass) blocks a different hotel. I don't remember exactly but in the downtown zones I failed up to about $80 for 4* and $70 for 3*. For Crystal City, I failed at $40 2.5* but hit at $41. Total = $82 + 18.95 = 100.95. If only I could use Priceline for tickets to the games :)

(Never mind; just now I noticed the OP was back in August)

It most certainly does. I've even swum in it!

Could it be the Westin on the north bank of the river? The lack of a pool rules out the Inter-Continental on Michigan Ave and it can't be one of the Marriott properties because it's Hotwire, right? There's also an Embassy Suites in that zone. Adding... someone just reported they have the W Lakeshore for a 4.5*, could be that too

Just finished a two-night stay here. Nothing was wrong with the place, but nothing was extraordinarily great about it either, and it did reinforce my impression that HGIs are little more than La Quintas with Hilton signs out front. Closer to a 2* than a 3*. I was offered a non-smoking room with a king bed and took it; the clerk mentioned PL but not perjoratively. Nicest feature: the closing time for the pool/hot tub/exercise area seemed to be unenforced. It was posted at either 10pm or 11pm, depending on what sign you read, but my card key worked past 11, and nobody cared that I was in there after midnight. It did get a bit of use while I was there. Worst feature: The continental breakfast was pretty cheesy for the $6.50 they were asking: mostly cold food and pour-your-own-waffles that many Days Inn type places offer for free. There were two breakfast options, actually, with more hot-food choices if you wanted to fork over $8.50 or $9. I passed on both. I could hear noise from adjacent rooms rather well, but it didn't bother me too much. The refrigerator was nice to have, but it could have been colder, and I couldn't find a knob to control the temperature. I was locked out of my room when I fudged the noon checkout time by a few minutes, but the front desk was cool about it and let me back in to finish packing up. I received a free USA Today on Monday, but nothing on Sunday.

Agree that mid-$200s is a good fare from Denver to south Florida in March. You could try flying into PBI or (much less likely) MIA, or if you can do the drive, fly out of COS instead of DEN. Also, try departing on March 10th, because Friday is the peak day of the week for travel down to Florida. However, any savings is likely to be eaten up by the cost of extra hotel nights or driving to less convenient airports. Basically the airlines, not you, hold all the cards on travel from cold places down to Florida in March.

The Westin Santa Clara for $30 during 2001-02. Even though it was the bottom of the dotcom bust, published rates there were still in the $200s on workdays. The Grand Hyatt in downtown Seattle for $40 during the summer, also back in 2002. Back then, tons of downtown 4* Westins and Hyatts were going for about that much on weekends all over the country, but this one sticks out. In the days of the $20/night American Express bonus, sub-$10 bids were commonplace. Internationally, I nailed the Zurich Marriott once for some $60 or $61 for March dates.

San Francisco still works pretty well, although the deals aren't as good as they were a couple years back. Throw in the SFO airport area here too: it seems you can always get something in the $30s at SFO, and all the PL properties are pretty solid. Generally, you can throw in any seasonal-travel areas in the offseason: ski towns or Florida in the summer, Chicago in the winter and so on. Seattle nowadays is a mixed: downtown Seattle is one of the more futile cities in the US for using Priceline but the suburbs tend to have pretty sweet deals. Internationally, PL is mostly useless for Paris. Savings often aren't that much, the zones are pretty large, there have been complaints about a lot of PL proberties and so on. Also for Hong Kong, the best deals usually aren't on PL.

Come now, it's supposed to hit 50 tomorrow (your first night). It's been colder here over Memorial Day. Any time you can stay in Chicago in January and pay less than the temperature, you've got a pretty good deal. :)