dahammer

Can you conclude your Key West topic? Are your plans firm for this Uniondale stay? The "pinned" list only gets updated when board members report all their wins, it's about give and take, not just take.

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Welcome! Are you willing to accept any 5* hotel in this zone? You cannot bid for a specific property. This is a holiday weekend, what are the conventional rates that you have seen? What is your backup plan if your maximum bid is not accepted? Please click this PRICELINE and HOTWIRE link before your reply and please use the links on the board when you search and commit to a purchase.

Yes, there are hotels in DC that have indoor pools and free parking, but you cannot bid for a specific hotel with PRICELINE. Your may want to consider HOTWIRE where it is possible to identify a hotel by matching the amenities with those posted on the HOTWIRE hotel list. Once you ID the hotel, check and see if they have an indoor pool. That said, there are no guarantees! You may also want to consider conducting a conventional search for a hotel near a metro stop in a suburban area like Chevy Chase or Arlington so you can be assured of a pool and free parking and maybe free breakfast prior to purchase. Please use the Support Links on the board when searching and purchasing accommodations.

Romelle, Thanks for the tip! As it turns out, there is a free iPhone ap for this! I downloaded it to my iPad and used it recently to search flights for a trip to Florida. B) I was trying to find a deal into Miami for a trip to Key West, I was able to plug in up to 3 departure airports and three arrival airports. I ended up saving about 50% by flying direct into Ft. Myers from Atlantic City on Spirit. I even joined the $9 fare club to save a few dollars on checked baggage and get alerted to future fare sales. This will be my first Spirit flight experience, so I am prepared to aim low and not disappoint myself.

The administrator has twice requested of you to click the afformentioned links.

Well done, Sir! A short walk from the Hyatt is Positano Coast, you might want to check it out for dinner.

Greetings Will, sorry for the additional questions, but would you consider the Historic District/Penns Landing zone? Philadelphia is a very walkable city, and this is, IMO, the most walkable part of the city and the best area to do the Tourist stuff. More zones yield greater opportunities to accommodate your budget. How about the Rittenhouse zone? PS, it has been 16 or so years, but we had a port-a-crib and we took it everywhere!

Welcome! Do the previously reported winning bids in this area match up with your dates of travel? Also, how many adults and children will be in your party? PRICELINE only guarantees accommodations for two and it is up to the discretion of the management to upgrade you to a room with two beds. Using HOTWIRE, you may search for up to 4 guests per room. Will you have a car for this trip? What is your maximum bid? Would you consider other zones if your maximum bid is not achieved?

Welcome! Can you please start by sharing your PRICELINE win so that your winning bid could help others seeking similar accommodations? Thanks!

I'm not sure if Stuart airport in Newburgh is an option for your travel plans.

Welcome! Please post your dates of travel.

Kudos for another great tool. Biddinghelper allows me to quickly scan rates from HOTWIRE and hotels.com which gives me a feel for market rates. It allows me to re-access PRICELINE quickly when I run out of rebid zones or I have bid down to my star rating limit. A BIG thank you for this improvement!

My previous bids of $43 were rejected at the 3 and 2.5* level, so I dropped to 2* and was successful. Offer Price: $40.00 Taxes & Fees $13.35 Total: $53.35 The rack rate was $70, so this is a decent win, but with more time, I may have been able to get it for less. This was the first time I bid using the Bidding Helper link at the top of the page, and I could not be more pleased with the ease of use. This allows me to quickly check HOTWIRE rates among a few different bidding zones that I had considered for this stay. One of the other features that I like is during a marathon bidding session and I have to close the browser and re-access PRICELINE, I can quickly resume bidding. I also like the new format to report a win as it is much simple and quicker. As for the Homestead, it is an aging property and it appears that the lobby is getting a makeover, the rooms are quite spartan and getting a little run down. That said, I could make this work for an extended stay, it's like a small apartment. However, I awoke with the smell of my neighbors cooking, not too offensive, but just a reminder that I'm in an Extended Stay type hotel. Overall, this hotel has a good location right off the Garden State Parkway and near the NJ Turnpike and I would stay here again at this rate. However, many of the Extended Stay America properties are rated as 1* and this Homestead Suites was rated as a 2*. I cannot find any difference between the two brands.

Welcome! Can you please repost this with just the amenities and leave off the description? It makes it easier to read and render advice. Please click on this HOTWIRE link before you resubmit this request. Thank you!

Not wishing to be macabre here but..... did we see the corpse? I really love the speculation surrounding this ad campaign, to have the likes of CNN carrying PRICELINE's water creates a priceless buzz and is a dream come true for the PR types. Did Bill Shatner escape? Time will tell, but my bet is nothing changes regarding Name Your Own Price. I think I read somewhere that a hotel needs 65% occupancy to break even, so for many properties there will be ample supply of unsold rooms. Kind of like an over-ripe banana, its good today so sell it at a discount because it's garbage tomorrow.

No doubt, this has become an interesting thread, but whether "the negotiator" is offed in a bus crash or makes it out alive, hotels will still have unsold rooms each night. Selling these off via opaque sites such as PRICELINE or HOTWIRE or some of the more recent entries brings incremental revenue to a property for rooms that would have sat empty. It increases occupancy levels and the added room revenue covers variable costs while driving business to the bar and restaurant, myself excluded! :P By not identifying the name of the property beforehand, the hotel can sell rooms below discounted government and corporate rates and not upset these large customers. mbstone: As for the shop and compare side of PL, this is a great idea for folks who are intimidated by the bidding process or for those who have bid unsuccessfully. It allows PL to capture this business that might have gone to Expedia, Orbitz and others; the traveller still needs a room, PL figures why let them walk? Also, I would not place much credence in an email generated by some customer service robot in Mumbai. As for PL not making money on your $60 bid, I would say if your previously rejected bid was $59, PL will only make their booking fee margin. But don't forget, this is an automated transaction and requires very little in the way of labor, so if they make $6, that's 10% in my book. I think travel agents make (or made) 15%. Frequently, I will check out using the interactive system on the TV and occasionally I can find out what PL remits for room and tax for my stay, in some cases the difference is 20% of my final price charged to my credit card. My only regret is after using PL for about 7 years, booking hundreds of rooms, saving myself thousands of $$ with the help of this great BetterBidding community, that I didn't buy PRICELINE stock. I seriously doubt they will change their business model and give up Name Your Own Price. However if they did, I am sure someone else would pick up the slack. Capitalism has a way of inviting competition which makes things better.

You may also want to check Southwest which has service to Midway airport from BOS And LGA. They let you check two bags for free and have fares as low as $44 each way plus taxes and fees. Southwest does not allow third party sites like kyak, Orbitz and the like access to it's fares, they are trying to drive customers to use the Southwest site. I only fly about twice a year, but the biggest changes to air travel in the past three or four years has been the various fees that are added for baggage. Southwest and Spirit actually charge for a seat assignment. Spirit charges for water, snacks, luggage, seat assignment, and I understand they are looking at outfitting the bathrooms with magnetic card readers so you will have to swipe a credit card to visit the loo. :lol: Just kidding, but I hope I didn't give upper management an idea for a new revenue stream! Unfortunately, baggage adds weight to the aircraft and a heavier plane burns more fuel, so these fees have generated hundreds of millions in revenue and mean the difference between a profit and loss for carriers. You can avoid paying a seat assignment fee on Southwest by checking in 24 hours before the flight. You will be assigned a boarding group and number. There are three boarding groups and about 55 or so numbers for each group. On my last SWA flight, I checked in just at 23:30 before my flight and received an "A" boarding group and number 40. Exit row seats always fill up fast, but I pretty much had the pick of the plane. You will need to check in for your return flight as well to get a boarding assignment, but if you have a smartphone, you can do this on SWA's mobile site. About 4 years ago when I had a BlackBerry, I was at one of the Disney water parks and ran to my locker to use it to check in, I got four "A" boarding assignments for my family and we were able to all sit together. That was a gee whiz moment! Finally, don't forget to check "vacations" on Southwest or American if you will need hotel accommodations, you may be able to save a few bucks. Good luck!

Not so much going on in VA Beach in January, but that is the appeal of winter by the ocean. The Courtyard was fairly new, at check in I was given a room on the 10 th floor, all rooms are oceanfront. The standard room has two queens, flat screen TV and a small refrigerator. There is a sliding glass door and a small balcony with two chairs to enjoy a great view of the ocean, the waves were still rolling in. In the summer, midweek rates are about $300. This property has to rank as one of the top 5 wins I have bid.

Tried unsuccessfully to bid in the Cape Charles zone just north of the bay bridge tunnel, but just like many other small market zones, there were no deals to be had. There was a 1* Budget Host for $54, but it garnered a 2.5 out of 10 rating in 5 reviews so I decided to bid in the Virginia Beach zone. Did some research on the board and saw there was a recent win at the 3* level for $44, so I bid $42 and was accepted immediately. Offer Price: $42.00 Taxes & Fees: $13.85 Total Charged to Card: $55.85 I had a tinge of bidders remorse, but I can't put the toothpaste back in the tube when bidding, so to speak, and I am pleased with the result. Rack rate was $129, but there was a prepaid rate of $109 available.

Wow, that is a great rate, congratulations! I stayed here about three months ago and as a frugal traveller, I thought the Riviera offered a good value. This property charges a daily resort fee of $11, but you get a coupon book and there are two match play coupons, $10 and $25. I also used the bus to get around, but I was solo. Trivia: this is where the original Oceans 11 and Casino movies were filmed. I was too cheap to pay $12 a day for WiFi, so I walked across the street to McDonalds for Breakfast or. Coffee and free wifi. About a block south is the Peppermill which attracts some interesting characters late at night or in the wee hours of the morning, I would recommend a meal there or at least a drink at the fireside lounge. Have a blast!

In the Atlantic City-Cape May region, there are a total of 6 bidding zones. When bidding at the 4* level, Atlantic City West is a rebid zone, but so is Somers Point-Ocean City and Vineland-Millville. Since hotels are always added and removed, you need to determine your rebid zones for each bidding session.

Welcome! First of all, don't get discouraged about overpaying for this win because PRICELINE offers The Big Deal Guarantee. PRICELINE will match the rate, issue a $25 credit to your credit card and issue you a $50 certificate towards a vacation package. That said, you made a bidding error when you added a 3.5* after your first bid at the 4* level was rejected. You should have added a rebid zone, which is an adjacent zone where the highest rated property is less than 4*. Determining your rebid zones is important for making future bids. As a little assignment, and in an attempt to make you a betterbidder, can you name the rebid zones in the Atlantic City area if you wanted 4* accommodations?

This bid went so fast, my head was spinning. I received an email from PRICELINE offering bonus cash, so I logged on using the PRICELINE support links on the board. There was little bidding history in this zone, but HOTWIRE had a 3.5* In this zone for $71. I bid $46 plus $5 bonus cash, and was accepted immediately. Bonus cash $5.00 Offer Price: $46.00 Room Subtotal: $46.00 Taxes & Fees: $14.83 Total Charged to Card: $60.83 Haven't stayed in a Hyatt Place in awhile, I hope that I don't get used to such lux accommodations. The standard rate was $109, so I was pleased with this win.

Welcome! I think that you will have to look for the kitchenette amenity or book direct. I believe that many of the Day's Inns have microwaves and refrigerators.