geoherb

Purchased room at the Seatac Radisson Hotel for next month. My Priceline bidding attempts to nearly this price point were not successful. Amenities listed were: Free Internet Pet friendly Indoor pool(s) Airport shuttle Fitness center Pool(s) Restaurant(s) Business center Self-service laundry Internet access Additionally, there was an icon indicating "Bed choice available" below the list of amenities. I did not see any accessible amenities until after booking. Best going rate would have been around $30 more per night including taxes.

I tried bidding through the PRICELINE link and going through the HOTWIRE link here on Better Bidding, but I ended up booking for less directly on the Hilton website. I placed bids for a 4* on Priceline looking for the Downtown zone. I started at $85 and worked my way up to $118 using the free rebid zones where there are not any 4* properties (Coral Springs, Airport North, Airport, Fort Lauderdale North, and Miramar). With taxes and fees, the total was $140.31. On Hotwire, there was a 4* offered for $122. With taxes and fees, the total was $150.36. My room booked through Hilton was $124--$137.64 with taxes. The good news is that I can cancel that reservation and try again using the links through here before our trip to see if prices will come down.

I'm not seeing the "see all" button. I did find this info: This Hotel features the following amenities: Free Parking Free Breakfast Free Internet Pet friendly Pool(s) Business Center Self service laundry Internet access In-room accessibility Accessible bathroom Handicapped parking

I received the Comfort Inn Airport/Cruise Port South on Hotwire for $71 for the Saturday night before Christmas. My previous Priceline bids of up to $90 for a 3* and $63 for a 2.5* in the airport and downtown areas were not successful. Amenities listed on Hotwire were free parking, free breakfast, free internet, pet friendly, pool(s), business center, self service laundry, internet access, and in-room accessibility. The best rate I saw on the Comfort Inn website was $134 for the senior/AARP rate.

My bid of $94 per night for a 4* hotel in downtown Annapolis was accepted by Loews Annapolis Hotel. My first bid of $80 was not accepted, and I was offered acceptance if I rebid $104. I did a free rebid of $94 by adding Arnold zone instead. Self-parking will be an additional $20 a day, but I knew that upfront before bidding in this zone. The total for the three nights is $60 less than the government rate would have cost me. The new BiddingHelper.com is great.

I wanted a 4* in the downtown Quebec area for the second Friday in May. I used my free rebids, starting my bidding low at $50 and upping it by $10 each time. I gave up after $90 because I saw a $100 property available through HOTWIRE. (I posted my win for the Hilton over on the Hotwire-Canada forum.) The great thing with a 4* in downtown Quebec is that currently all other zones are free rebids.

Here is the complete list of amenities: Pet friendly Fitness Center Pool(s) Restaurant(s) Business Center High-Speed Internet Access Accessible for the blind Accessible for the deaf Accessible path of travel In-room accessibility Accessible bathroom Handicapped parking The ones I listed first were visible on the acceptance screen. I did not realize the other list was there. Thanks for the tip.

I used the HOTWIRE link and got the Hilton Quebec for $100 ($126 with taxes and fees) for the second Friday of May. Before winning, it said hotel "Compared to the Auberge St-Antoine by Relais & Châteaux." Other hotels in the compared to popup window were Hotel 71, Lowes Le Concorde, Hilton Quebec, and Grand Times Hotel. Amenities were Pet friendly, Restaurant(s), Accessible for the blind, Fitness Center, Business Center, Accessible for the deaf, Pool(s), High-Speed Internet, and Accessible path of travel.

I followed the HOTWIRE link from here and got the 3* Hyatt Place North for $59 plus taxes and fees for a total of $71.37. We're staying one night--12/19/10. It's great to be able to break the code by using the list of hotels here.

I bid up to $87 for one night (12/19) for a 4* hotel in the downtown Fort Lauderdale area. I used the PRICELINE link here to start my bidding low and used all of my free rebids to make it up to $87. I was hoping the Hilton Marina or Renaissance would accept. We stayed at the Riverside last time we were in Fort Lauderdale, and I don't like that location. That kept me from bidding on 3* hotels. But fortunately, I followed the HOTWIRE link from here and got the 3* Hyatt Place North for $59 plus taxes and fees for a total of $71.37.

I followed the PRICELINE link here and had my $62 per night bid accepted by the Doubletree. We want to stay near the airport, since we have a late arrival and have relatives nearby. My first bids were $45 and $50 on Monday, using the free rebid zone of Kirkland, which has 2.5* hotels as its highest level. This morning, my first bid of $55 was rejected with a counter-offer. I could bid $15 more to have it accepted. I declined the offer and tried my luck with the $62 bid with the free rebid zone of Kirkland, which was accepted. Thanks to this forum, I knew that the Doubletree was offering a $79 rate on HOTWIRE. It always helps to know that price before starting my Priceline bidding.

My bid of $108 for a 3* hotel for the night of March 12 was accepted by the Riverside Hotel. I started out with bids trying for a 3.5* hotel since there are so many free rebid zones, but then I lowered my sights to 3* hotels in the Fort Lauderdale Downtown zone. There is only one free rebid (Airport North) for that level. My high bid of $80 was rejected. Yesterday I tried bids of $90 and $100 and both were rejected. There was one 3.5* hotel for $116 plus taxes and fees showing up on Hotwire. I identified it as the Riverside Hotel by using the great info on these pages. It was going to be my backup. Fortunately for me that they accepted my $108 bid, since the Hotwire price is now $135. It wasn't my first choice for location, but since nothing else was coming up, I'm glad to have this booked. I used the PRICELINE link for all my bids. Room Subtotal: $108.00 Taxes and Fees: $20.94 Total Room Cost: $128.94

I kept trying, bidding $90 and $100 yesterday. I was successful today with a $108 bid. That turned out to be very fortunate, because the price on Hotwire went up from $116 to $135. I'll post a separate message with the info from my winning bid.

I am trying for one night March 12. Yesterday I tried for 3.5* properties in the Fort Lauderdale Downtown zone since they offered so many free rebids (Coral Springs, Airport North, Miramar, and Pompano Beach). My high bid of $95 was rejected. Today I lowered my sights to 3* hotels in the Fort Lauderdale Downtown zone. There is only one free rebid (Airport North). My high bid of $80 was rejected. I will keep coming back here to use the PRICELINE link for bids later this week. There is one 3.5* hotel for $116 plus taxes and fees showing up on Hotwire. I've identified it as the Riverside Hotel by using the great info on these pages. I'd rather get a hotel closer to 17th St. since we're getting there too late in the evening and leaving on a cruise the next morning.

I got a refund through my credit card company when the hotel I booked in Asheville, N.C., was outside of Priceline's zone. Priceline refused to cancel the reservation, even though I finally got one of its employees to admit that the hotel was not in the zone shown on their map. Since then, Priceline has extended the zone on the map to include that hotel.

My $70 bid for a 3* hotel in the downtown Fort Lauderdale zone was accepted by the Hyatt Place Airport North. My bidding strategy started a few days ago. I originally was aiming for a 4* hotel, but we are only going to be staying one night before a cruise--and when bidding $100 did not get me a room, I decided to rethink my strategy. I started bidding at $47 and rebid $52 by adding the Airport North zone, which is the only free rebid area for 3* hotels. (I managed to get a lot of free rebids when aiming for a 4* hotel: Coral Springs, Airport, Lauderdale North, Miramar, and Pompano.) The following day, I tried again, upping my bids to $55 and $59. I started today at $63 and received a message that if I increased my bid by $17, it would be accepted. I decided to try just $70. HOTWIRE is offering this hotel at $89 for the same date before taxes and fees. With taxes and fees, the PRICELINE total on my $70 bid ends up at $85.92. Thanks to Better Bidding for offering this forum. I almost messed up and went through the email link on my successful bid. But then I remembered and came back through this website's PRICELINE link to increase my bids.

We had a very nice stay at the Westin Hilton Head Island Resort and Spa. The resort fee is now $16 plus tax, which brought it to almost $18 a day. They no longer require you to check out towels with a card. You can just pick up as many as you need. As with a lot of beach hotels, the Westin needs a bit of work. They were working on the indoor pool during the four days we were there. It looks like it will be a few weeks or months to have it open again. There are bits of frayed carpeting in the hallways. Overall, though, the hotel is nice. Our room was on the second floor overlooking the pool area. I could barely see the ocean if I stood on my tiptoes. The hotel now has a rule against smoking. It would have been great except that the staff did not enforce this rule. The people above us smoked on their balcony. We reported them several times. The bed was nice. If we had stayed longer than three nights, I would have requested all feather pillows for it. The bathroom was slightly shabby--the sink was cracked and also slow to drain and the shower had some discoloration. We also had a problem with housekeeping not cleaning our room on our last full day. A housekeeper knocked around 8:30 before we were ready for her. We spent the morning on the beach, drove away for lunch, and then went back out on the beach early in the afternoon. She did not come back until I was returning from the beach and about to take a shower. I asked her just for clean towels and more soap. The beach in front of the hotel is beautiful. We did not rent the chairs and umbrellas, although plenty of people did. The company that runs the rental concession pays for the contract to the town of Hilton Head--not the Westin. The pools are also beautifully landscaped and in better repair than last reported. There were plenty of lounge chairs around them. We never had a problem finding available ones.

Thank you. I am happy with my win. Of course I see someone else bid $2 less and got one of the dates, so there is always the question of whether I bid too much or not--but it's a great deal compared to the HOTWIRE rate and all the other rates I saw for the Westin and other Hilton Head Island resorts for the dates we'll be staying.

I used the PRICELINE link to start my bidding for a resort stay at Hilton Head Island. Yesterday's bids of $70 and $76 (with the Bluffton free rebid for resort level) were not successful. I came back through the PRICELINE link here today and started out at $82. I received a counter offer to increase my bid by $22 per night--which would have been $104. I decided instead to try another bid of $92. This was accepted by the Westin Hilton Head Island Resort & Spa. Room Cost (avg. per room, per night):$92.00 (USD) Room Subtotal: $276.00 (USD) Taxes and Fees: $43.52 (USD) Total Room Cost:$319.52 (USD) Price at Westin.com was $149 per night plus tax. HOTWIRE had a 4* resort showing up at $126 per night.

Thanks for the input. I knew something must be going on during those dates. I had not played with changing my dates or searched to see what was happening. I'm thinking now of switching to another vacation option--Hilton Head--since it's within easy driving distance.

I tried Friday and over the weekend to bid for a 4* hotel in the Millennium Park and North Michigan Avenue areas using my free rebid zones (Lincoln Park, Midway Airport, O'Hare Airport South, and Skokie). I started out low--$55 a night--and gradually increased my bids with the free rebid zones. Even a high bid of $118 yesterday did not get me a room. Of course I started off from the link here to Priceline. When Pricelines sends me the email to try again, is going through that link good enough? Or should I come back here to start over?

We enjoyed our stay at the Holiday Inn Express in the Plantation area of Ft. Lauderdale. The hotel lives up to its 3* billing on Hotwire. The rooms are comfortably furnished. We received a king-size bed on request. Our room overlooked the pool area, which is much nicer than looking out onto University Drive. We tried to check in at noon but were turned away. The front desk held our bags for us and we were able to check in after eating lunch in a nearby strip center restaurant. The downside to this hotel is the location. The cost of cabfare from the airport and then shuttle fare to the cruise port was higher than I anticipated. Nevertheless, we saved considerably over the hotels that are closer to both because of the deal we were able to get through Hotwire. My Priceline bids did not get accepted. We stayed a Saturday night during a prime Spring Break weekend, so hotel prices were high almost everywhere in Ft. Lauderdale. The front desk was easy to deal with when it came time to arrange a shuttle to take us to the cruise port the morning we checked out. If we stay here again, I plan to rent a car. It will be cheaper plus give us some freedom. The breakfast was very good--premade omelets, French toast, cinnamon buns, cereal, fruit, yogurt, etc. The business center has two computers. We did not bring our laptops so I don't know how good the wi-fi connection is.

I booked us one night at the 3* Holiday Inn Express in the Plantation area of Fort Lauderdale through the HOTWIRE link for $56. Total with taxes and fees was $68.71. It was great to be able to tell by the amenities listing and this forum which hotel we were going to receive. HOTWIRE listed the amenities as complimentary breakfast, fitness center, pool, business center, laundry facilities, and high-speed internet access.

I was trying to get at least 3.5* hotel in either downtown or the Plantation area for March 14. I started off bidding $52. I added the free rebid zones one by one and gradually increase my bid to $75. No luck. I'm going to follow the link to HOTWIRE to see the Holiday Inn Express is still available there.

We stayed two nights at the Hyatt Regency before a cruise. I liked the email link provided by Priceline. I emailed my request for a non-smoking room and received a nice reply confirming it. The Hyatt Regency still gets 4 stars on Priceline. Our experience is a 4-star bed in a 2-star room. The bathroom area needs work. The faucet handles are very cheap looking. The shower did not have much pressure. I guess they are trying to conserve water, but there are low-flow shower heads that still give a decent shower. The public areas looked very nice. Service was good. There are valet parking, a concierge, and room service--three things we did not need. The pool is a nice size, although the water temperature was a little cool. There is not a hot tub. The hotel is conveniently attached to the convention center. They probably don't accept many winning bids when there are large conventions going on. There's a shopping district a few blocks away--within walking distance. If you're planning on buying wine for a cruise, however, the liquor store only sells bottles--no boxes. But there is a small Macy's if you forgot to pack a swimsuit and drugstores for last-minute ailments. We enjoyed taking the Metro Mover to Bayside. There are lots of different places to eat inexpensively there. We ate at two different Cuban restaurants. The first one is on the back side of Bayside. The food was OK. The mojito was great. The second one was called Mambo. My DH's fish was delicious. The Cuban sandwich I ate was not that great. The seafood chowder I had was tasty. We also got tickets for the Miami Heat against the Lakers. The arena is huge--much larger than the one in our town (Raleigh).