Counselor4444

I just realized (of course after the fact) that not all of the rooms at the Hyatt are non-smoking. Do you think I will have a problem getting a non-smoking room? Do you think I can email Hyatt and request it? How long do you think I should wait to send an email? Thx.

Successfully bid today for the Hyatt Regency using this forum's PRICELINE link! Started at $98... then $103... then $108. Cheapest nightly rate for the same hotel is $185 using AAA membership. So this is a large savings and we are happy with this selection. It is centrally located and Hyatt is known for having nice properties. Now I still need Maui! Thanks all!

HOTWIRE has the same class hotel going for $203. The best retail price I can find is for the Sheraton Ka'anapali at $259/nt. Last night, I went up to $158/nt on PRICELINE. I got a response stating that if I increased my bid by $25 I may get a win. I decided to then place a bid for $163 without success. Any thoughts? Any idea what PRICELINE may want?

Yes, this is in regard to my trip to Hawaii. I've searched on this forum and seen that resort level hotels on Ka'anapali beach in Maui have sold anywhere from around $130-$185 using PRICELINE. I know that price is effected by many things- number of rooms available, time of year, etc etc. I've bid up to $150 on PRICELINE without success I'm trying to decide if I should wait a few weeks and see if it takes my bid or if I should bite the bullet and up my bid.

For those experts on this forum that study priceline and hotwire pricing, I'd like to know their opinion as to the relationship between bidding price and how much time until you plan to travel. Example: Say, I look to bid on a hotel for a stay in August. I make attempts to bid now but I don't bid high enough to get the win. If I wait and continue to try will the price decrease as my travel dates get closer? Obviously, I know that I run a risk of the hotel class running out of rooms but beyond that, is it possible that say a room on priceline or hotwire that is going for $185 now will go down to $150 closer to my travel dates? or does the price stay the same for the hotel on hotwire and priceline regardless if I bid now or I bid 5 days before my travel dates? any other factors I should consider?

I should note that the Sheraton Framingham was going for $99 through usual travel websites on the night we will be going there. Someone should consider bidding less then what we did to see how low they can go. So we saved 55%!

Using Better Bidding's PRICELINE link, I bid $45 on a 3 star hotel in the Natick-Framingham-Sudbury area and received the Sheraton Framingham hotel on our first try! We are very happy with our results!

I'd like to hear a response to this as well as I did a search and it doesn't seem like anyone has succesfully bid and received the HHV in quite sometime.

As expected airfare went down yesterday. A round trip flight with 1 stop on US Air from EWR to HNL went down to $609 + taxes and fees. I bid up to almost $500 on priceline using the better bidding link and decided that it didn't make sense to keep raising my bid when I wasn't going to save much off the published fare and I cold pick the times I wanted. So, no luck. On to bidding on hotels!

Using the Better Bidding PRICELINE link, I bid amounts up to my top bid of $141 without success for a resort level hotel in Ka'anapali beach area without success. I will wait and keep trying every few days to see if something sticks. If not, I'll look and see what other options I have.

According to fare predictor websites, (and my knowledge about prices from EWR to HNL) current airfare prices are a bit high. Just two weeks ago they were considerably less and I believe they will go down again. I used the PRICELINE link in this forum and tried some bidding. I bid up to $538 per ticket + taxes and fees with no luck. I'm going to wait a few days and see if the price of the air goes down and then try to bid again. I will keep this thread updated! And once I get my airfare I'll begin to bid on the hotels.

I didn't see the 3 hr rule! Great! So, I'm interested in bidding on airfare. Right now, non-stop flights are $882+ taxes and fees=$955 Flights with 1 stop start at 700 +taxes and fees= 800 Although it is my understanding that these prices are going to drop in the next few days a bit. (I saw them last week for less- about $750 + taxes and fees for non-stop and about $650 + taxes and fees for 1 stop) How much are flights discounted on priceline when you name your own price?

I'm a newbie for priceline "name your own price" bidding. I already posted my questions in the hawaii forum for hotel questions... now i am also considering bidding on airfare. I have set dates when I want to go, but don't necessarily care the time of day that I go that day. According to priceline's website, non-stop flights are looked at first by priceline and if none of those are available, i could get flights with up to 1 stop. My first question is: because there is 1 stop I could theoretically end up with a 15 hr stop over right? That's what makes me a bit nervous about bidding on flights. I'm ok with a 1-4 hr stop over, but not more then that. How risky is it that I may get an insanely long stop over? My second question is: how do I figure out how much to start my bidding at? I'm looking to go from EWR to HNL from 8/26-9/4 Over the last few weeks I've seen flights range in price from $670-850. I'd like to get a flight for around $500-$550 plus taxes and fees. Am I crazy? Anything else I should know about bidding on airfare? Thx!

Got it! Thanks for all your help. I plan on trying as soon as I get my flights and will post my results. I also have a priceline airfare question... but I guess that should go under the airfare topic so I'll post there.

Let me confirm I am doing this right before I start to do it! I want a "resort" level hotel. On Maui, Priceline's Zones 1 and 4 offer "resort" level hotels. Zones 2 and 3 for Kahlui and Kihei do not offer "resort" level hotels. And I want a resort in the Ka'anapali section. So, when I bid I'm going to try just the Ka'anapali section for my first two bids. Then, add either Zone 2 for Kahlui for Zone 3 for Kihei and still check off the "resort" level only knowing that since resort level hotels are not in those areas, I will can only get a resort level hotel at Ka'anapali. Right? Am I getting this? I have another question: above I posted I would spend up to $140/nt. But your bidding strategy only took me up to $120. Was this an error? Or am I missing something? And am I correct that even if I am rejected I could theoretically go back and try it again in a day or two and get it if a hotel suddenly offers rooms to Priceline at a lower rate?

I clicked on the link. As far as maximum price... it looks like from my search of this forum that recent bids for these "resort" properties that I mentioned above are accepted by priceline for $133-150 frequently. I'd like to spend no more then $140/nt + taxes and fees. Thoughts?

I can't help you with using HOTWIRE to get this hotel, but I will tell you I stayed at the Marriott in Kauai 3 years ago (and overpaid by the way b/c I didn't use these sites!) and the hotel is fabulous. Have a great trip!

sorry about that! I now replied to those posts.

We decided that we did not want to stay at the Occidental Punta Cana, so we did not use HOTWIRE.

Update: I decided not to use HOTWIRE as I feel that I did not have enough information on hotels in that area.

Hi all, I've used this forum before for hotwire (with success) but I have never tried (or even considered!) Priceline up to this point. I need some beginners insight and advice. I know that it is riskier then Hotwire because you don't have a way to narrow down what hotel you may get using certain indicators (amenities for example) So, I need some thoughts on how I should go about this and what I may get: I'm looking to stay at Kaanapali Beach on Maui for 4 nights from 8/26-8/30. I'd be fine staying at any one of the following: Sheraton Kaanapali, Hyatt Kaanapali, or Westin Kaanapali. (So, the "resort" category) I'm not keen on the Whaler Resort. I saw a thread from February of this year indicating that while of course possible, it was unlikely that someone would get the Whaler because no one has posted that they have the Whaler in a long time. Is this still the case? If it is unlikely that I would get the Whaler, I'm very interested in trying to bid to try to get one of the other 3 resorts I mentioned. A 4 star hotel on hotwire nets me similar hotels for $199/nt and I'd like to do much better. How do I figure out how much to bid? How many bids can I make? Are taxes and resort fees included? What else do I need to know? And of the 3 mentioned above, have any been won more frequently then others? Any one to get an educated guess about what I may get? Thanks very much!

bump

I take that back... I do not know if the 3 Star above is the Courtyard by Marriott because the amenities listed in this forum's hotel list for the Courtyard Marriott Framingham-Natick are different then the ones I came up with. So, any idea what the 3 star is as well?

I'm looking at hotwire for 12/19-12/20 in the area of "Natick, MA" and i'm getting 3 options for hotels that come up in the "Framingham-Natick" area: 2 Star: No amenities listed, says it is 22.3 miles from Boston Logan Airport 3 Star: Smoke Free, Fitness Center, Pool, Restaurant 3.5 Star: Smoke Free, Fitness Center, Restaurant, Business Center, High Speed Internet Access, Golf Nearby I believe the 3 Star is the Courtyard Marriott. Any ideas what the 2 and 3.5 star are? TIA!

Great deal. Booked the 3.5 star hotel at Hotwire for Boston, MA in the Back Bay/Copley area. Was $102/nt and turned out to be the Sheraton Boston Hotel. I am very happy with this deal and this site for helping me figure out what I was booking. I used the HOTWIRE link on this site to book the hotel. Hotwire listed this 3.5 star hotel with the following amenities: No Smoking Fitness Pool Restaurant Business Center High Speed Internet Thanks all!