crito

The best way is to visit TicketsNow or StubHub. The former is a little cheaper. If you buy from these (or other) reputable web sites, you won't have a problem with counterfeiters. I would not buy from scalpers on the street, though.

There is a lengthy Better Bidding thread about Last Minute Travel here. I have used the tricks explained there to book a 'secret' hotel with full knowledge of which one it was. They are not linking with PRICELINE or HOTWIRE. It's a separate operation.

Note that the Bank of America Pavilion is in the (generally cheaper) Waterfront/Convention Center region. You can save a heap of money by staying in that region. It's not a great area for sightseeing or nightlife, as I guess you know.

That Courtyard by Marriott is right near Coolidge Corner, which is a nice area (and it's right on the Green Line). In general, Brookline is okay for public transportation, but it's going to be a little slower; that Green Line is really a trolley line, slower than most of the T system which runs underground. It kind of depends on what things you were planning. If you wanted to spend time in Back Bay and Copley, go up to the top of the Prudential Building, go to Fenway Park, then Brookline would be quite a good headquarters. If you were thinking more of theater, Quincy Market, the Aquarium, the historical areas, then Brookline is a little out of the way. I guess that would matter more if you were thinking of returning to your hotel in the middle of the day, as we always did when we traveled with little kids...

Have you looked at Last Minute Travel? I see some downtown 4* there for a little over $200 (The Palmer House, the Wit, and the Hard Rock are all around $220). If your budget is strict, these won't work, but maybe you'd spend the extra money to be downtown. Oh, maybe I misunderstood and you need to spend $100/night. So then downtown is out of the question.

What looks like the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge is on Hotwire for $260 for your dates. That would be a long walk (maybe 2 miles), and the T would not be super-convenient, but you could take a taxi for about $15. Bidding Priceline for a Cambridge 4* seems like a decent strategy. Copley Square may be an awful mess, even in a month, by the way. And Boston as a whole is apt to be less easy to get around this summer than it usually is. :-(

Here are a couple of issues I've just discovered with LMT. First, the fine print of the contract, if you join the club, says that you renew automatically each year, unless you notify them in writing (not email) 30 days before you're up for renewal. This is so even if you join for free using the code. So beware. Second, LMT does not give you a real receipt. They give you a "Confirmation" stating the price, but the document does not say that the payment is received. For me, this means I can't use LMT for business travel, because I can't get reimbursed without a receipt stating that I actually paid. I tried contacting LMT, but they said sorry, that's the only receipt "our system can generate". This second one was really disappointing because on the couple of occasions I've had to contact customer service the reps were very intelligent and engaged. Seems like someone there could have addressed this problem. Anyway, I don't really mean this as a pure complaint -- I'll continue to use LMT for personal travel -- it's just a warning to others.

That is indeed the location of Mass General. If the OP is looking to be a couple of blocks away, that's a problem -- I don't believe there are any hotels right in the West End neighborhood. If you want to be within a half mile, I think it's possible, but it would be risky to bid the zone in Priceline because you could easily end up quite far away. A good thing to keep in mind is that MGH is on the Red Line (it's right at the Charles St. stop), which makes Cambridge a viable option (especially the MIT/Kendall Square hotels if you try Hotwire), or the Theater District in the other direction.

I would not recommend bidding at the 2.5* level. I don't think there are any 2.5* hotels truly in downtown Providence. The only one I could find in the whole city is on Douglas Ave, an ugly location and not at all convenient to the main part of the city. (If you don't mind staying out of the action, I'd recommend bidding in the airport zone instead.) What seems to be the Wyndham Garden is listed on HOTWIRE for $100. The main problem with it is that it is not in downtown Providence at all, but in Fox Point. It's not walkable to anything, but they do have a shuttle. (The other 3*s in Providence would be far superior, IMHO.) If it were me, I'd keep bidding on PRICELINE at the 3.5* level. The Marriott often shows up, and although it's a bit worn out it's in a good location and would be a good summer hotel, with an outdoor pool and pool bar. And you might luck out and snag the Hilton.

Yeah, Boston ComicCon, I think that's going to make prices extraordinarily high, and the Copley area might be impossible (the event is at the Hynes Convention Center). You might do a little better further away (Quincy Market area or Cambridge), but the whole town will be pricey.

The Hilton Riverside is actually on the border between the Downtown and Convention Center-Arts-Warehouse regions for Priceline. (I have stayed there, but on a convention rate not a PRICELINE or HOTWIRE win.) Any of those districts would have a bunch of hotels that are an easy walk from the Hilton Riverside, but I believe some hotels in each region would be as much as a mile. The French Quarter seems much riskier than the others, in fact, if your aim is to be within, say, a mile of the Hilton Riverside. To be safer, you might try HOTWIRE instead of PRICELINE.

The Boston Marathon is on 4/15, and a lot of people will arrive for the weekend leading up to it.

The Westin Providence has been sold and is now the Omni Providence. Apparently Omni is trying to collect hotels that are associated with convention centers.

Yeah. (I did join, with the free code.) But I'm not going to shop for hotels if it takes me ten minutes to find out what the price really is for each hotel. I guess I would if HOTWIRE weren't available. But I really don't like the bait-and-switch, it rubs me the wrong way. As it happens, the apparent offered price and the actual price were on opposite sides of my boundary (I have a discounted rate through another source).

I did phone. They said they had run out of inventory at the listed price, and that the hotel is supposed to change the listed price(!), but their own system determines the actual price of the available inventory for the credit card charge. Weak answer. This never happens on HOTWIRE, so I don't see why it should happen on LMT. This makes me much less likely to use LMT in the future.

Hi, I joined, using the free code trick. Excellent. I just tried booking a hotel, and ran into a strange problem. The room cost (for three nights) is $536.46. I got to the end of my booking, at the Review and Confirm page. The taxes/fees come to $106.77. In the "Reservation Details" box, the correct sum, $643.23, is listed. But in the "Review and Confirm" box, it says my card will be charged $681.39. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of discrepancy? What's going on? (As it happens, for this trip the difference is very significant -- at the lower price I will book on Last Minute Travel, but at the higher price I will make a different reservation, not sure exactly which.)

Providence is definitely not a high-demand city for hotel rooms, but it does have BrightNight (downtown NY Eve festivities) as I guess you know, so that one night is a tough one. I can't tell if you know Providence or not. The Wyndham is a long walk from downtown -- almost two miles. There is a little trolley-like bus that runs almost to the Wyndham, though, which MAY be free that night, an in any case is very cheap regularly. It's the #92 bus, but easy to identify because it looks like a trolley.

Hey, just for the record, I think the header is still wrong: the Sheraton is a 3.5* (and the poster seems to have got it at the 3.5 level).

I'm almost certain I did use the Better Bidding links to start my purchases (and searches!). Is there some reason to think I didn't -- or was that just a general reminder? (I'm not averse to being reminded!)

Le Pavillon New Orleans - Downtown 11/14 - 11/16 $93 per night Free Internet Fitness Center Restaurant(s) Business Center Internet Access In-room accessibility Accessible bathroom Roll-in shower

Sounds like The James.

Right, it's not something you do, really -- PRICELINE will sometimes give you a hotel at a higher rating than what you bid -- as you say, a 4* hotel has sold their rooms to PRICELINE for less than any 3.5 in that zone for those dates. Apparently the Copley Sq. Westin did that for other dates. I'm not sure I would bid on a 3.5 in the Commons area, though -- take a look at what's been won there recently at the 3.5 level, to make sure. I see what is likely to be either the Hilton or the Sheraton in Copley Sq for your dates on HOTWIRE for $140, by the way, which suggests you should be able to win a 3.5* on PRICELINE for somewhat lower (and if not, you can just grab the HOTWIRE deal).

Northeastern is really in the Fenway district (it's just off Kenmore Square), but that's not a good zone for hotels. It's at least a half mile from the Copley/Back Bay hotels, and up to a mile. I would add the Commons zone and her friend can put her on the Green Line, which really doesn't feel like a subway and would get her to the Commons area in just a few minutes. But really what I'd do is bid on 3.5* hotels in Copley/Back Bay. Most of them are 4* quality, and as you hinted you might get an upgrade. (The Back Bay Hilton, the Sheraton, and I think the Marriott is a 3.5 on PRICELINE, although it's 4* on HOTWIRE -- those are the hotels I have in mind and I think you'd be quite happy with any of them even if you've been thinking 4*.)

If you have no plan to sight-see and you're flying in, then I think it's pretty clear that your #1 option is the airport zone. It's not really true that you can rent a car cheaper elsewhere -- I would say that even with the extra fees and taxes you're hit with at Logan, it will still be cheaper to rent there. (But you might check into this first -- plug your rental dates into Hotwire!) Second option would be the Waterfront/Convention area, because there are nice hotels there, it's sometimes cheaper because it isn't a good area for tourists, but it's extremely convenient to the airport (the Silver Line goes directly from Logan to the Convention Center and it will actually be free going out of Logan).

It seems to me that the BU Med School (which is in the South End) is technically in the South Boston area. But, I don't think you should bid in that area, because (again, as far as I can tell from the Better Bidding Priceline Maps) nobody has won a South Boston hotel anywhere near the BU Med School on Priceline. Your best bet is actually Back Bay or Common/Theater -- the hotels there are closest to the BU Med School, and you get lots of good possibilities in those zones, too. The bad news is, that area (BU Med and South End in general) is woefully deficient in T stops.