Irish80122

Thanks for the advice, that sounds good. I have only been in DC for about 24 hours for an interview way back in the day, so I don't remember much about the mass transit. Can I stay pretty much anywhere in the city and be able to get there via mass transit? The midnight cutoff won't be a problem, it is all during the day. Thanks again for your help!

I began bidding on Dupont Circle just to see if I could get lucky and get something within walking distance. I used your PRICELINE link and bid for a 3.5* or better with bids of 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100 Since we have had no dice in this region I will start looking for hotels around it that may have shuttles that could take us to the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, where our event is being hosted. Thanks for your help!

I apologize for my slow response time, I clicked all four of the links in your message. We are hoping to get two rooms, check in June 8th, check out June 11th. In our grant we budgeted for $720 in hotel costs. Thus, when you build in taxes, we are looking for something in the realm of $100 per night. Not sure if that is even possible in this area, but I figured I would ask here first before paying out of pocket.

Been trying to get a hotel in the Aurora/Denver Tech Center area to go to Denver from 3/12 through 3/16. Started bidding down south in the Denver South Park Meadows area a few days ago, but had no luck (bids: $42, $46, $51). I shifted back to Aurora, as I had won the Red Lion previously in this region, and while not spectacular, it was fine and a good value. I used Evergreen and NE Denver as re-bidding zones. I bid on the 3* Aurora property with a pool, free parking, and a business center. Bid $39 with no luck, $41 with the option of accepting $51, and then lastly bid $45, which was accepted. Pretty happy overall with the win, my only regret is I forgot to use the tool in the forum. Do you guys have a paypal donation page setup? If so, I would be happy to send you a donation since I was a goof and forgot to use your links. Thanks for all of your help, and the service you provide.

Good evening, everyone. I am hoping a local or someone with local knowledge can help me with a dilemma I have run into. I was fortunate enough to receive a grant, and some of the grant funds are to attend a conference in Washington D.C. Sadly I made a mistake with writing my budget, and have grant money only to pay for 2 nights at $180 per night. The conference hotel is the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel and the conference will require me to stay for 3 nights. Oops...I am a day short, plus about $40 short for the two days I have funding for. Thus, it is time to get creative :). Are there any decent, safe hotels in the area that have a free shuttle that I could take to the Washington Marriott Wardman Park, or any that are easy to navigate with mass transit? I would love not to have to pay out of pocket for my goof. Thanks for your help! I appreciate your site and will be sure to use your bidding links.

We were looking for a room for Christmas Day and were able to snag this one. It is at a hotel we have stayed at before, thanks to Priceline, and really like. I started at the price people got a few years ago ($47) and bid up in 5 dollar increments until I got $72 accepted on my third try today. It looks like the same hotel is $84 on Hotwire, so we were able to save about $12 that will go toward more Christmas gifts. Please let me know if there is anything I missed. Good luck with the Michigan bowl game, since I remember you guys are fans. I will be cheering for my Irish, though I think we are about to start a new bowl loss streak.

I finally have a resolution for you. I kept increasing my bid, added in Redwood and Mountain View, and dropped my star preference to 2.5 (actually hoping for a Holiday Inn Express). However, I got up to 66 with all three of those areas selected and still was having no luck. I did a search on HOTWIRE and found that there was a 2-star hotel (1 star on PRICELINE) listed at $43 per night. Using your wonderful list, I was able to determine this was the Ramada Limited Mountain View. Looking at the hotels website, it looked like it would meet my needs, but the reviews were a bit sketchy. However, I figured that for half the price, it would be worth it. Since the asking price on HOTWIRE was $43 dollars, I took a chance and put $33 per night into PRICELINE for January 17th through 19th. My $33 dollar bid was accepted, so I will be staying at the Ramada Limited. I will be interesting to see how it really is, since the reviews are so mixed. I am not a very picky person, so I will probably like it just fine. So that is my update. I didn't get the star level I was hoping for, but overall, I am very pleased with the hotel and the price I paid. Thank you for your help!

Alright, here is the plan. I am shooting for the 3* in Palo Alto and am using Mountain View to get a re-bid. Since I have a few days and I didn't see any previous wins, I decided to start low, so my first offer was $46, which was rejected. I re-bid $51, which was also rejected. I will try again tomorrow since all of the other areas have 3 star hotels.

I was able to get into where you can bid even though the non-opaque doesn't show any availability (I didn't know you could do that, I always went through the non-opaque site and then hit name your own price. For some reason I always thought of the links up top as ads instead of a way to get into PRICELINE, sorry, but I will use it now. I am going to do some research on the hotels in Palo Alto and the neighboring regions and will report back. Thank you for your help thus far!

I haven't tried to do any bidding yet, I will give it a shot tomorrow. I just want to get as close as I can to the VA. I know I can't assume that I will get 45 in San Fran, but that doesn't mean that I won't try :). Thanks for your help, I will check back with results.

When I try to login through the non-opaque version it will tell me that there are no hotels with availability in those cities. However, it seemed odd that there were absolutely no vacancies in Santa Clara, for instance, unless something big is going on. That is why I was wondering if there was another city or area I should be searching. My ideal budget is 40-45 per night, that is what I have done in other cities, but I have accepted that I will have to go higher and will do whatever it takes because I need a place.

Hi all, I am hoping someone knowing San Francisco can help me since I have never been there before. I have an interview at the Palo Alto VA and I am trying to find a reasonable hotel in the area, preferably through PRICELINE since I can't afford to pay too much. I would love to have a hotel with free parking and free breakfast, so probably a 2* or 2.5*. I will have a rental car, so distance isn't a huge issue, but traffic in the morning may be since I have to be at the VA at 8 for the interview. The problem I am running into is when I search Palo Alto, Santa Clara, etc. it keeps telling me that no hotels in the area have any availability. Therefore, I have been looking at the San Francisco (San Mateo) hotels, but that still seems like a long ways away. Does anyone have any advice? If not, I may just book the Motel 6 in Palo Alto. Thank you very much in advance, I really appreciate the help!

I actually changed my mind and went with the 3* which was the Country Inn and Suites as we suspected ($49 per night). When I called they had me in a king smoking room and there were no non-smoking rooms available. However, they did offer to upgrade me to a non-smoking suite for $10 more per night which I did. I hope that is helpful to someone! Thanks for your help and know that I always try to use your PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links even when I am just searching for deals.

I think that deal will work, thank you very much for your help!

I likely could get away with just one round trip every day. The Hilton is around $200, the one I believe is Comfort Inn is $50. Do you ever see it where hotels come open once you get closer to the date? I would love the Regal Sun Resort but it may just not be an option on HOTWIRE for those dates :). Thanks for your help!

Perhaps I just needed a place to talk all this through. The 3* looks like the Country Inn and Suites, so I am looking up how close that is. No idea on the 2.5. I haven't seen the Regal Sun Resort :). EDIT: The Country Inn looks to be about a mile away so I will wait to see what people think on here before booking. Perhaps there is something a little closer? I just don't want to walk a mile in a suit.

Here are a couple places that look interesting. I have excluded condos but let me know if I should include them. 3* complimentary breakfast, fitness center, pool, business center, laundry facilities, high speed internet. 4.0 trip advisor rating. 2.5* fitness center, pool, restaurant, business center, laundry, high speed internet, tennis court nearby, children's programs. 4.0 trip advisor rating.

Hi all, First of all, thank you for this great site, it has been a great help to me. I have been slowly working through this problem but I thought I would post to see if someone who knows a bit more can help. I am going to a conference that is housed at the Hilton Walt Disney World (by Downtown Disney) from April 20, 2010- April 24, 2010. Because of this I have been doing a lot of back and forth with HOTWIRE to try to find a hotel that is in the area (preferably with a shuttle that would go to the other hotel or within walking distance). I don't care about the star rating, I just need it to be close. The primary hotels I have been looking at are the Buena Vista Palace and the Regal Sun Resort as it seems like they are right across the street. Are there others I should be looking at? I will post updates as I work through this and have new Hotwire results. Any help is greatly appreciated!

I wanted to post that my bill was broken down as $45 for Friday night and $65 for Saturday night, so they may have higher requirements for weekend nights. We will see what happens on Sept. 12th. It is hard having a frosh quarterback starting. Remember when Chad Henne was a freshman in Notre Dame stadium? I believe Michigan was number 3 at the time...

The nights of 7/24/09 and 7/25/09

I was bidding on a Friday and Saturday night about 5 days before as we are heading to Williamsport for a funeral. I tried bids of $45 and $52 but those were rejected. My third bid of $56 was accepted for one room. The in-laws then decided they would like a room so I tried the $56 bid again and was successful. For comparison, HOTWIRE would have been $75 (I think it would have been this hotel). Thank you for this board, it is a great resource. However, it is a shame that the mod seems to be a Michigan fan. All I can say to that is GO IRISH :).