fly_up_front

That's a great price for that hotel. Welcome and thanks for posting.

Hi and welcome to BetterBidding. Hard to say if anyone here will have experience with that exact route. I looked up a couple of things that might help. The best fare on Expedia for this route now is $288. If you are willing to fly to Baltimore, Southwest has PHX-BWI for $216 certain days. If you bid this on Priceline, remember that you can get $10 bonus by using the link at SavingsBarn.com. Since your bid doesn't include taxes and fees, I bet it will take a bid of at least $150 plus bonus for a flight in the next month or so (for a total of about $190). You have two re-bids if you have flexibility on National or Dulles or BWI.

Miami and Ft. Lauderdale each have a lot of posts which is why I suggested a zone for them (and the keys).

Many thanks to "Welldone Rumproast" for his helpful post on this hotel. Called before I bid to confirm I could leave my car parked for a while. First bid of $25 was rejected. Re-bid of $32 was accepted. Used SavingsBarn.com. Congratulations, you got your price of $32 for a 2

Needed something cheap at the airport before an early morning flight to Singapore. This was a first bid and I think $25 is the minimum acceptable for a 3*. Used SavingsBarn.com. Congratulations, you got your price of $25 for a 3-star hotel room. Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport San Francisco Airport (SFO) 1333 Bayshore Highway Burlingame, California 94010 650-347-1234 Check-In Date: Tue, Jul 15, 2003 Check-In Time: After 03:00 PM Check-Out Date: Wed, Jul 16, 2003 Check-Out Time: 12:00 PM Your Offer Price: $25.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $25.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $8.86 Total Charges: $33.86

If layout is a problem, perhaps a switch to regions rather than alphabetical sorting. A "Great Plains" region of ID,MT,Dakotas,NE,KS,OK,WY,CO,UT would have combined fewer posts than any divided CA or FL zone. A "Great Plains", CA-North, CA-South, FL-North, FL-South, "Great Northwest" (OR,WA AK), NY, TX, PA, "New England" - - that's 10 zones and I bet less than 20 zones would make for a manageable number of posts and perhaps help the site operation. There's currently around 40. On the money issue, I was thinking about that yesterday when I saw the Cancer Fund announcement (I'm very sorry about your friend and classmate). It does seem like there should be a more direct way to fund things than through SavingsBarn but it's a tough thing to figure out how. Especially since many folks feel misled about how TOBB was so cloudy/vague about asking for donations while actively seeking profits.

LOL - I'm glad for your last post. I had searched for LAX again and got responses when I hadn't earlier this morning. Glad to know I'm not going nuts. A standard of 3 letters solves it. Nice job. I'm probably the only one who would do this but I've tried searching in the past for "3*" or "4*" in Calif. and you can't do that. I think the "figuring out location" problem would be self-solving if the two regions were clearly defined as the poster would know where the town is located (probably). I think there would be limited instances where you'd have to move one or make a call. In CA, most of the posts seem to be in LA or SF so that would be an easy distinction and a lot of folks refer to towns as being Northern California or Southern California. In FL, most posts are either Orlando/Tampa or MIA/FLL/keys. If FL-South is clearly defined as MIA/FLL/keys, I think there'd be limited problems. Of course, to initially set these areas up, you would have to get out your map. I'm a teacher though so getting folks to look up stuff is one of my hobbies. I do think the end result would help folks bidding in these states.

"Do you and others (i'm opening this up for discussion, although it may not generate much input as i haven't received many response to a board layout question i posed HERE) think that the search feature solves this issue?" Not if you're searching for "LAX" or other airport codes for an airport hotel (criteria #3 above).

With close to 200 posts in each, is it time to split FL into FL-South (MIA, FLL and Keys) and FL-North (everything else). Also, a CA-North and South? Consolidate the Dakotas to make room?

First, a small rant. While there are several LAX posts here, they were of limited help because they usually don't include bidding info. or taxes and fees. Without the bid history, there's no way to know where to start. Until our most frequent posters start setting an example and providing this info. (hello squeege!), TOBB will continue to set the standard for providing info. and we'll be the nice guys in second place. On this LAX bid, I saw that some here had won at $31 but that seemed like an odd price and had no idea if they were all first bids or what so I tried $30 and rejected and then $31 and rejected. Both said I could re-bid if I increased by $8. I then went back to TOBB and found one who had bid $32 and got the same re-bid message and they were accepted at $35 so that's what I bid. Congratulations, you got your price of $35 for a 3-star hotel room. Crowne Plaza Los Angeles Airport Los Angeles Airport (LAX) 5985 W Century Blvd Los Angeles, California 90045 310-642-7500 Check-In Date: Mon, Jul 14, 2003 Check-In Time: After 03:00 PM Check-Out Date: Tue, Jul 15, 2003 Check-Out Time: 12:00 PM Your Offer Price: $35.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $35.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $10.61 Total Charges: $45.61

It sounds like you're saying if I had bid $33 for a 3*, it would have been accepted and upgraded. I'm thinking it was not available for $33 for my days; others' experience reported on Flyertalk supports this. If true, this would be different than US bidding. In US, if you bid too low, it sometimes won't even go through the process or if it does, it's instantly rejected. In my 4* Singapore bidding, it did consider it and I got the old 15 minute screen and it took about 10 minutes to get rejected.

This was a first bid but I think $35 is the going rate. Congratulations, you got your price of $35 for a 3-star hotel room. The Mayfair - A Wyndham Historic Hotel Downtown St. Louis 806 St Charles Street Saint Louis, Missouri 63101 314-421-2500 Check-In Date: Sat, Jun 28, 2003 Check-In Time: After 03:00 PM Check-Out Date: Sun, Jun 29, 2003 Check-Out Time: 01:00 PM Your Offer Price: $35.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $35.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $10.91 Total Charges: $45.91

BB is mentioned in today's USA today article on hotel bidding as a site to check. The first print mention of BB I believe. Congrats to thereuare!

Yes - my roundtrip airfare to Singapore is $320 on Northwest. With bonus FF miles, I'm getting a free domestic for taking this trip.

Saw at TOBB that someone had won this for $33 in June and someone else at Flyertalk for $40 in July so tried $33 and rejected. Dropped to 3* and bid $36 - disco. Congratulations, you got your price of $36 for a hotel room, and we've upgraded your hotel quality level to a 4-star hotel! Concorde Hotel Singapore Central Business District - China Town - Marina Bay Outram Road Singapore, Singapore 65-67330188 Check-In Date: Thu, Jul 17, 2003 Check-In Time: After 02:00 PM Check-Out Date: Tue, Jul 22, 2003 Check-Out Time: 12:00 PM Your Offer Price: $36.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 5 Subtotal: $180.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $36.42 Total Charges: $216.42

Congratulations, you got your price of $40 for a hotel room, and we've upgraded your hotel quality level to a 2-star hotel! Fairfield Inn Quincy 4315 Broadway Quincy, Illinois 62301 217-223-5922 Check-In Date: Wed, Jun 4, 2003 Check-In Time: After 03:00 PM Check-Out Date: Fri, Jun 6, 2003 Check-Out Time: 12:00 PM Your Offer Price: $40.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 2 Subtotal: $80.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $17.64 Total Charges: $97.64

Yes - swimming pool icon only.

I'd won this hotel for $28 in the past on PL and so started there and went up. Used 9 bids on my way up to a $40 bid for a 1* that got rejected! At that point, I decided to use Hotwire. I had tried them in the past but always been given prices that I could beat with PL. In this case, the total amount is $48 on Hotwire while a total bid of around $52 was rejected by Priceline. I'll be checking Hotwire more often now. Location: Jackson, TN City Area: Jackson Hotel Quality: 2-star Economy Lodging Baymont Inn & Suites - Jackson TN 2370 N. Highland Jackson, TN 38305 (901) 664-1800 Check-in Date: Thu, Jun 12, 2003 Check-out Date: Fri, Jun 13, 2003 Number Of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Price per night: $36.00 Subtotal: $36.00 Total Taxes and Booking Fees: $11.95 Total: $47.95 Date Purchased: Jun 11, 2003/10:48AM PDT

I'm not much on reviews unless there's a problem or important detail and in this case, it's the importance of joining Wyndham by Request. After winning this hotel a month or so ago ($27 + bonus), I joined their frequent stay program. At checkin, I was assigned a king suite with: free high-speed Internet, free local and free domestic long distance calls, free bottle of chardonnay, fruit and cheese welcome plate, a couple of free bottled waters, free USAToday and WSJ, and free faxs and copies if necessary. The first day freebies add up to about $20 - more if you get on the phone to all your friends. Quite an extraordinary deal and lots of amenities in the room. Hotel has a great downtown location. Very definitely a 3* hotel. This is a situation where winning this hotel on PL will cause me to seek out this hotel chain in the future.

This is in KS but it's a suburb of Kansas City. Congratulations, you got your price of $20 for a 2-star hotel room. Candlewood Suites Kansas City

The guidelines for posting winning bids are very good. I think copying and pasting the key info from the acceptance page of PL wins is helpful and avoids errors with which zone a hotel is in, dates of stay, etc. Makes for quicker access to needed info. like taxes, the hotel's website, etc.

To be honest, I didn't realize until the recent postings in FlyerTalk that using those would provide compensation. Thanks for not beating us over the head about using the links but I think it would be appropriate to put an understated sentence under the links that using them supports the site. I use Expedia a pretty good amount anyway because I can get some mileage run routes that aren't available through the airline sites.

Used SavingsBarn for the bid and the Expedia link to buy the plane ticket. Forgot to check my own previous win to see that I could have won this for $26. Not thinking. Congratulations, you got your price of $28 for a 2-star hotel room. Candlewood Suites Chicago Ohare O'hare Airport (ORD) 4021 North Mannheim Rd Schiller Park, Illinois 60176 847-671-4663 Check-In Date: Wed, May 21, 2003 Check-In Time: After 03:00 PM Check-Out Date: Thu, May 22, 2003 Check-Out Time: 12:00 PM Your Offer Price: $28.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $28.00 Taxes: $3.25 Processing Fee: $5.95 Total Charges: $37.20

I like having a profile to see old wins too. One thing though - the only email address I have that didn't receive the bonus money was the one I use with my profile. All the alternatives got one.

Priceline rates this a 3*. It does have really nice public areas though.