BEAV

Hotwire Reno changes per vacation package search Jan 9-11:

Reno/Tahoe (Downtown Reno)

Harrahs - upgraded 3.5 to 4 stars.

Casino

Fitness

Pool

Restaurant

Spa

Reno/Tahoe (South Reno-Reno/Tahoe Airport)

Peppermill Hotel Casino Tower - upgraded 3.5 to 4 stars

Casino

Shuttle

Fitness

Pool

Restaurant

Business

Internet

Golf

Tennis

Spa

Thanks for posting your details and congratulations on your bid success! Sounds like a great package....

There are 4 known 4-star Priceline hotels within the Embarcadero zone. Their rack rates for your dates are as follows:

Hilton Financial District:

$269 Thurs night and $159 Fri/Sat

Le Meridien:

$389 Thursday and $209 Fri/Sat

Hyatt Regency Embarcadero:

$199 each night Thurs/Fri/Sat

Omni

$269 Thurs and $229 Fri/Sat

With the exception of Thursday night, your dates fall over Memorial Day weekend. The Embarcadero zone encompasses the Financial District, where weekend/holiday rates are typically low and often easy to target on Priceline (and often under $100 as well).

I think your rejection up to $105 may be for two reasons (or a combination of both):

1. Booking too early -- hotels haven't yet released inventory to Priceline.

2. Thursday May 21, being a regular business day may command a higher Priceline rate (at this time) than Friday & Saturday nights.

If you need to get this done now, you may have to bid higher in order to hit the target price for Thursday night. But doing so will require overbidding for Fri/Sat nights (in my opinion). If you can, I'd sit back and wait awhile. Perhaps try bidding once every 10 days or so.

Good luck!

New Hotwire amenites at the River Terrace Inn (Napa-Sonoma/Napa zone) per vacation package search Jan 8-10. Still rated 3.5 stars.

Amenities:

Smoke-Free (new amenity)

Fitness

Pool

Restaurant

Business

Internet

Spa

Complimentary breakfast is no longer displaying as an amenity, although appears to be a standard feature per the hotel's website.

Although I'm familiar with Luxury Link, I've never (yet) bought or bid on any of their packages. But I've seen some good deals from time to time. Can you provide a link or any specifics of the package you're looking considering?

Started bidding at $85, moving up $1 per bid until success at $89. Received counteroffers at $85 and $87 to add $22 to my bid.

Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress

Disney World Vicinity

One Grand Cypress Boulevard

Orlando, Florida 32836

Check-In Date:

Mon, Jan 26, 2009

Check-Out Date:

Sat, Jan 31, 2009

Your Offer Price: $89.00

Taxes/fees: $71.65

Total Charges: $516.65

Bid placed through the BetterBidding link to PRICELINE.

Hilton Financial is no contest for the Omni, so, yes, make the switch with my blessing, slruud! :)

Happy New Year to you and the Mrs, and to Colfax, too!

I plugged in BetsyBug's dates and what appears to be the Fairmont for $95 is still displaying. And, yes, the Spa icon displays, but only after you click "see all amenities".

Could you please post the Hotwire per-night purchase price? Thanks!

Judging by your bid history alone, I think you did great for New Year's Eve in San Francisco. Obviously, this is an "off" year as evidenced by your success at the Hyatt Regency. What's interesting is this hotel usually throws an elaborate New Year's Eve ball annually, however a co-worker of mine said just today she couldn't find any information on it for this year. It's definitely slow this year as rack rates at places like the Marriott, Hilton and Parc 55 are currently below $200 for New Year's Eve.

Enjoy your holiday!

Note to thereuare:

Move this thread to the LA Hotwire board?

Never mind -- I found the Macy's link. :)

http://www.Hotels.com/property.do?TSRC=1&al=DealFinder-Results-Select&mtnHotelID=279631&PSRC=OT2

This appears to be a 24 hour sale today, Tuesday, Dec 9. For anyone interested, there is a one night cancel penalty as long as you cancel 72 hours prior to check-in date. Less than 72 hours prior it's non-refundable. Minimum 3-night stay required for Macy's gift card.

Thanks for everyone's help - Hotels.com is running a special - I was able to get Le Meridien for $119 including a $50 macy's gift card . . . so I went with that for now.

Congratulations on finding a great rate at one of SF's nicer hotels. I've stayed at Le Meridien (formerly the Park Hyatt) many times and it's very nice. I was able to locate the $119 rate on Hotels.com (as well as Expedia, which owns Hotels.com), but cannot find anything about the $50 Macy's gift card. Can you provide a link to include the Macy's card? Thanks, and enjoy your stay.

Westin St. Francis

Amenities: Fitness, Restaurant, Business, Hi-Speed Internet, Spa

The Spa was the give-away with this one - set it apart from the other 4* in that area.

I'm glad this worked to your advantage if the St Francis was the hotel you were trying to target. However, just a 'heads up' to anyone reading the Palace Hotel in USE also has a spa and was very recently downgraded from 4.5 to 4 stars (the hotel list has been updated).

The Westin Palo Alto (Palo Alto/Mountain View zone) has been downgraded 4 to 3.5 stars per a Priceline vacation package search Dec 9-11.

Hotwire has downgraded the Palace Hotel San Francisco (USE zone) 4.5 stars to 4 stars per a vacation package search Jan 16-20, 2009.

Amenities appear unchanged:

Fitness

Pool

Restaurant

Business

Internet

Spa

This leaves the Intercontinental San Francisco as the only apparent 4.5 star in the Hotwire USE zone.

Only amenities listed are Dining, High Speed Internet, and Business Center.

Please help!

What a difference a day makes. Today, for $119 for your travel dates, Hotwire is listing a property with ameneties of:

Restaurant

Internet

Business Center

Spa (new from yesterday).

It also lists a Tripadvisor rating of 4.0 stars with 20 reviews, which makes this discussion identical to the one last week in the thread below:

Hotwire San Francisco Nob Hill

So my guess, and I'm sure Thereuare will probably agree, is the Huntington Hotel.. I would venture to say the SPA icon comes and goes.

Note: Today I used the standard 2 adults in the search. When you enter 2 adults 1 child, you get a hotel that matches the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental (for $122).

San Francisco/Oakland Priceline changes per vacation package search Dec 8-10:

San Francisco (Union Square East)

3.5 Hotel 480 now 3 stars (becomes the Marriott Union Square effective April 2009 -- who knows what it will be rated under Marriott ownership)

Oakland

3.5 Marriott City Center now 3 stars - Major disappointment since Priceline users were previously able to bid 3.5 stars if they wanted downtown Oakland vs the airport.

ScottishDave, first of all welcome to BetterBidding, and thanks for your post. I'm happy to see Hyatt reviving this promotion. It appears to be similar (if not exact) to the promo they ran in late October.

While I don't disagree some of the best "deals" can be found on Priceline and/or Hotwire, I for one appreciate informative posts such as this Hyatt promotion.

When Hyatt ran this promotion in late October, I was able to obtain a Summerfield Suites property for $60. Not only did I earn Hyatt points on this rate, but it also qualified toward their very popular FasterFreeNights promotion (stay two nights and earn one free night at any Hyatt). Two nights at $60 per night at a Summerfield Suites could net someone a free night in high-priced hotels such as Grand Hyatt NYC, Park Hyatt-Highlands Inn Carmel, CA, etc.

This is the proper forum for posting non-Priceline/Hotwire deals, is it not?

Great detective work as you obviously researched TripAdvisor deeper than I did!

When I first read this thread, I was hopeful this is the Huntington. But I figured it was probably the Fairmont since that's a larger hotel with more inventory, a chain that already participates with Hotwire, etc. But with the economy in the toilet, it shouldn't be too surprising that will see new new hotels seeking to sell rooms via HOTWIRE and/or PRICELINE.

To the OP, if you're not familiar with the Huntington, it's a true San Francisco classic!

I agree with the Huntington, but also the Fairmont, as that hotel has spa facilities as well. Also, the hotel displaying on HOTWIRE is rated 4 stars by TripAdvisor as are both the Fairmont & Huntington!

For those bidding the Napa zone, there is a new Westin hotel in downtown Napa to be on the look out for. It is already appearing in Priceline's vacation packages (air + hotel) and is rated 4 stars.

https://www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/prope...propertyID=1997

Thanks for posting and helping to finally get this property on the hotel list!

Can you clarify whether the winning bid price was $100 or $120? The title says $120, but the in the body of the post $100.

Also, if you ever bid 4 stars in this zone again, don't forget the Concord-Lafayette zone also currently offers 4 star bidding, so don't use that zone as a free rebid.

If you do a HOTWIRE Vacation Package search (air + hotel) for Nov 26-28, you'll see the Meritage is an exact match, so I'm with slick_gd on this one.

Researching vacation packages can often be a great tool for identifying opaque hotels.

Overall i think this is an EXCELLENT change... i was never a fan of Boutique bidding as there is/was so much variation in hotel quality. (case in point that some previously rated Boutique hotels are now rated 3* while others are rated 2*... two very different hotel ratings with different expectations for each).

This new 3.5* rating also (in theory) gives some borderline 3*/4* hotels a 'comfortable' home with a realistic 3.5* rating. However, the new star ratings will take some getting used to... i can already see the complaints of a Courtyard (and others) being rated 3 stars as users accustomed to the old star rating will claim that this is 'overrated' (just as many complain HOTWIRE hotels are overrated as they were being compared to PRICELINE's star rating system... i suspect the two services will begin to be much more inline with each other)

I've just noticed two full service hotels, one a Marriott and the other a Hilton, are rated 3 stars by Hotwire, while a Summerfield Suites in the same zone is rated 3.5 stars. It's bad enough there is diverse brand disparity at the 3 star level within Priceline (full service and limited service common-rated) and now we're seeing wierd ratings by Hotwire. I feel sorry for the casual Hotwire/Priceline user who won't be able to tell up from down with regard what type of hotel/motel to expect at these mid-range levels. Now more than ever you've got to do your homework!