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Thank you for your advice. I used the PRICELINE link and continued bidding until I got to $260, and then I stopped and booked a room at Harbor Court Hotel (about 3-3.5*). I preferred the certainty since I was not going to get a blockbuster deal. So I guess a 4* hotel in the Embarcadero/Financial district of SF is more than $260 for NYE 2012. I hope that is helpful to someone. Happy holidays to all!

Hello, I used the PRICELINE link. And I love this site. I get better at it every time I use it. I started at $100 and got to $180. But all offers were rejected. I was wondering if there were any thoughts or rules as to the rates you can find on NYE. Is it even possible to get a hotel on Priceline on NYE? Thanks, Andrea

PVD Providence Pick up 11PM 6/14/2012 Drop off 1PM 6/17/2012 Economy car Offered $12, and won on first try (which makes me wonder if I should have tried lower). Won! Total price = $71.14 I did use the car checker link. Please let me know if any other info should be included, and if you have feedback on how to choose the starting bid, I'd love to hear about it. But overall, I think I got a decent deal. Especially because it's Hertz. A good company, I think. Thank you, Andrea

Hello, My travel dates are 10/28/09 - 11/1/09, 1 room, 2 adults. I used the link to get to HOTWIRE, which gave the following three hotels, and I wanted to confirm what you think they might be (two are not on the pinned list, but I'll give some of them a guess). 3.5* $99 fittness restaurant internet (Sofitel??) 4* $153 fitness restaurant business center internet (Westin??) 2* $109 no little icons (wow!) (No guess from me?) Thanks!!

There is an end to this story... Using the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links provided from this site, I looked for the deal from Expedia, but did not see anything about 25% off. With the coupon the rate was $129/night (even when I actually logged into Expedia). On Travelocity, the rate was $149, and on Hotwire the rate had gone up from $99 to $113. So I started bidding on PRICELINE, 4* hotels, 7/31-8/2 and tried $70, $75, $80, $90 (I jumped up $10 even though I didn't need to because I was getting bored.) I got it at $90, 7/31/09 to 8/2/09 Founders Inn and Spa, VA Beach. Could I have gotten it at $85?? We'll never know! Okay, not so important, huh? :) Just ironic, or something. I'm happy with my purchase, and I look forward to my stay. Thanks to everyone on this board for their help. To new people: the more you do this, the more comfortable you get with it. :)

Today, I tried again. I am now looking in the VA Beach Pembroke Area (instead of seaside). Also, I decided to change my travel dates to 7/31-8/2 (might as well travel in the evening and avoid the Sat AM beach traffic! :). I used the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links at the top of this page to start my searches. I started at $50/night 4*, and rebid by increasing by $5 increments until I had used up all my rebids and was at $85 --> rejected. Then I started again at $60/night for 3.5* and up, and rebid by increasing by $5 increments until I used up all my rebids, was again at $85 --> rejected. I guess there are a lot of people going to the beach this summer! Still, I think it was a reasonable try, given that there were other recent wins for $65 (not so last minute as me though) I will try again tomorrow, but tomorrow if I'm unsuccessful, I'll stop and get the Hotwire deal of 3.5* hotel for $99 if it's still available (I think it's the Founders Inn and Spa). If you have any further comments as to my bidding strategy, I'm all ears. :) Thanks very much for this forum.

Thanks very much for your reply. That was a good suggestion to look directly on the hotel site, and good insight as to the 2 night vs. 1 night difference. Your Better Checker is also very nice and easy to use. Thanks! I searched all the 3* and up hotels for both 7/31-8/2 and 8/1-8/2 The holiday inn/express and wyndham were booked for both scenarios. The doubletree and the hilton were available for the two night stay, but not for the one night stay. So I'm thinking that I may be best off with one of the Pembroke hotels.... Thanks again, Andrea

Hello, I'm looking for a hotel in Virgina Beach for the night of Saturday Aug 1. My preference is for an oceanfront 3* hotel, but I will consider the Pembroke Area if oceanfront not working out. I used the hotwire and PRICELINE links to get to those sites. :) Bidding strategy: $80 for 3* only, Virginia Beach Area, rejected $85, with addition of Chesapeake- Bowers Hill, rejected $90, with addition of Norfolk Naval Base- Tidewater, rejected. I chose to start at $80 b/c the "median retail price" for a 3* hotel in the area is $126, according to Priceline (but I think that actually sounds low). I have not seen very many successes on Hotwire or Priceline for oceanfront hotels for July 2009. I also checked Travelocity.com. They list no availability for any oceanfront hotels, except for a Seagull Motel, which has 2.5* ($199) and does not seem to be offered by Priceline or Hotwire (according to the Hotel Lists). Here's my question: If all the oceanfront hotels seem to be gone according to another site like Travelocity, then is it futile to hope I will get one through Priceline? If so, I will be quicker to move onto Pembroke and/or just get a hotel through Hotwire (starting at $141 for a 2* hotel at the seaside... can't even figure out what it is is has pool and restaurant...but I guess that's a hotwire question). A second question: If a 2.5* hotel on Travelocity is actually $199, and I'm supposed to be saving "up to 50%" by using Priceline, then perhaps I'm bidding way too low? (I was guided by the median retail price given by Priceline as above). Thanks for your insight, if you have any. I will keep posting my updates. Andrea

I changed my strategy completely, and I'm happy to post again in the hotwire section if needed. The Sheraton is the hotel where my conference is, so it was my first choice, although I wanted any 4* hotel in downtown. I realized that the Sheraton is 3* in priceline but 4* in hotwire. I decided that getting the Sheraton through Priceline by going to 3* options was going to be a total grab bag b/c of all the other 3* hotels out there, some of which I didn't like as much. So I decided that if I could not have a $100 4* hotel, I'd rather have the Sheraton at Hotwire's price of $139/night. Thereuare, you must have thought it funny when I said my limit was $116 vs. $130, I later realized that the difference was only about $60. So anyway, I went above my limit to get the $139/night HOTWIRE offering. 8/23/08 to 8/27/08, bought on 8/9/08 San Diego Downtown and Harbor Island Amenities: shuttle, restaurant, pool, fittness center, internet, business center, and tennis. $139 per night This was indeed the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina, just like said on the forum, and by checking the hotel list! I used the HOTWIRE and PRICELINE links for all transactions. The conference rate was $189/night, so I feel good knowing that I am making a significant savings. Thank you again. This has been so educational for me. I know it will be easier the next time I book a hotel, and that I'll definitely be using this site!

Ah, I see it's my work "firewall" or something like that. (I tried all links on the page that I could find). Then I will place my bids at home. This site has been very useful to me. Also, time to work on... err... work! I will keep you posted. Thanks again!

Thank you very much, aaronJB. Your expertise and seeing your thought process is really helpful. Thanks also for your reply, thereuare. $130/night would accomplish the goal of being "within reason", and thus sanctioned by the budget people at work but lower would keep my travel funds from being depleted. So if there is a chance that I could get it for less, I thought I'd try and be thrifty and patient. Your guess of the Sheraton is very appealing...that's where my conference hotel is, and my first choice. I'm going to try bidding again later today. But I wanted to let you know that at my work computer (Windows XP, Firefox), I am still not able to use the PRICELINE link but am able to use the HOTWIRE link. When I try Priceline from Internet Explorer, I get an error page with http://www.jdoqocy.com/interactive as the address. Both links work fine from my home computer (Mac, Firefox).

Today (8/2/08) I started at $95, and got up to $116 in about 5 increments (adding only new zones for free rebids) before I stopped, still have not won, still have not gone higher than $116 because I am still hoping that if I try on a different day I will have better luck. I hope that sounds like an okay strategy. I'm not willing to split the stay at this point. Also, I did use the PRICELINE link (and it worked!!). I was wondering, does the forum get money only if clicking on the link leads to a purchase, or $$ each time a person clicks on the link? I'm wondering whether I'm supposed to leave and come back into priceline between each bid, or if it helps if I use the link to just get to the set up page where I'm verifying the proper zones for free rebids (or if that doesn't make a difference). I hope that question makes sense!

Travel dates: 8/23-8/27/2008 Bid history(today, 8/1/2008)4* downtown only: $95, $101, $111, $116, with only adding free rebid locations, after each attempt. I would like to spend less than $130, and am starting to consider a 3* hotel and going for an even cheaper bid to save money. (Of course I'll get more out of the conference if I'm comfy in a 4* hotel!) Still haven't gotten anything. Am I too early? I see people with better luck around the same days, including Labor day weekend, and including the Omni for $108 per night. Is it because I only want one room? Are there days of the week for which one has better luck? Also, I tried to use the PRICELINE link at the top, and it gave me the following error: "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at www.apmebf.com". Same error whether or not I typed in the dates and city or just clicked the "Priceline" button directly. Thank you for this site, there is still much more for me to surf around on in here, and what I found so far has been helpful.

Thank you for your reply. Your quote of hotel price makes me feel better. And, after a good night's sleep, I feel better about my bid, and I'm excited about my hotel near the zoo, pretty trees, and a metro stop. It looks kind of glam too! And I did learn a lot, and will use this site in the future!

Here's what I did: For October 24-28 (Fri-Tues), washington D.C. 4 star hotel Convention center, $150, rejected Added White house, $160, rejected Added Dupont circle, $180, won Omni Shoreham, which is actually not in Dupont Circle, though it is is the shaded area described Priceline. THEN I found this site and all the wonderful advice. I don't think I got a great deal, compared to others I've seen. Beware that Dupont circle includes the area next to the zoo that it not really near the "night life" If starting from this site, you can use the PRICELINE buttons on the top. Read on this site a little...seems I should have started my bidding at a lower amount! I hope I included all the necessary information. I hope my trip is fun anyway...originally, I was booked at the conference hotel (Jurys Washington at $249/night, so I am saving a little, but could have saved more. At least I'm near a metro stop, though not in the fun night life area.