deejub

Sorry, I forgot. :) Amenities are: Swimming Pool Courtesy Breakfast Non-Smoking High-Speed Internet And the Travelocity link is working just fine -- I used a shortcut I had stored in my browser for it and somehow one character got cut off when I ported bookmarks from Firefox to Chrome.

$46.15 per night, $156.30 with fees. Good deal for this property. The up-side of Travelocity Top Secret: Rates after fees are almost always better than Priceline bids or Hotwire, at least where I'm looking, and you can usually avoid a clunker. The down side: *huge* zones. This zone was only listed as Tampa (though some properties showed Westside or Busch Gardens zones, their maps were identical to this one). The zone was massive. It basically took in all of the area east of Tampa Bay, and branched up and around to somewhere near Tarpon Springs. P.S. Link from here would not work, gave error page when I was booking at about 5 a.m. EDT.

Stayed Easter Saturday 2011. Older hotel, privately operated. Very clean, huge rooms include two TVs which, while not flat-screen, have very large selection of channels. Fridge, microwave. Small bathroom. Rather few guests on Easter Saturday night. Other than hotel restaurant (which we did not try), no immediately nearby dining options spotted (though there are plenty across the bridge in New London). Internet connection very good. Very convenient to both Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun (15 minute easy drive to Mohegan Sun, a bit longer to Foxwoods). Definitely a better choice than the few overpriced option that are only slightly closer to the casinos. Recommended.

2.5* Groton Inn and Suites Amenities: Suite, Restaurant, Hi-Speed Internet, Business, Laundry, Golf, Kitchenette (same exact as previous poster had) Used the HOTWIRE link from here as always. Older hotel, privately operated. Very clean, huge rooms include two TVs which, while not flat-screen, have very large selection of channels. Fridge, microwave. Small bathroom. Few guests on Easter Saturday night. Other than hotel restaurant (which we did not try), no immediately nearby dining options spotted. Internet connection very good.

$50 with fees. It's a bed, which is all I need for that night. As long as there are no bedbugs (which one reviewer somewhere said there were, but not others) and the TV gets at least a few stations, I'll be happy.

Total 4 day price with fees $100 on the nose. Used the link pl here as always, which I've bookmarked. Hotwire for same size car with fees $124 Best economy car rate I found on Travelocity $165.10 with taxes/fees. (And yes, I don't usually like the teeny economy cars, especially the lovely (not) Chevy Aveo. But tiny cars are a lot better in HNL, especially in my hotel's parking lot. Of course, with my luck they'll be out of economy cars and give me a minivan.)

For some reason, PRICELINE would not let me bid on this at all. The message was vague, did not say why. Prepaid rate on Budget's website was $62.16 including taxes/fees for same car. Happy with deal. Will try PRICELINE for car on Oahu.

Full title of property is Holiday Inn Express Lehigh Valley Airport. Been there before and was positively impressed. Seems to be a rather easy catch on weekends, at least. (I'm the third person recently to post it here...) $41.40, $45.54 with fees. Amenities listed were pool, complimentary breakfast, shuttle, non-smoking, internet. Hotwire shows a remarkably similar property -- meaning I strongly suspect it is the same property -- at $49, but $59.72 with fees. Best price I found non-opaque was $74 plus tax.

First bid was $31, bidding 3* in Clinton - Lebanon, declined Added Basking Ridge, upped bid to $35, accepted. With fees, $47.53 Standard Priceline/Travelocity rate $89. $85.44 on hotel website. Link for Priceline used as always.

This one's got a few interesting points. First, Top Secret's Biloxi-Gulfport area reaches all the way to Bay St. Louis in the west. It does specify casino when the hotel has one. And of course it's rather easy to poke the site around with the ratings given. Then it lists the amenities as swimming pool, high-speed internet and non-smoking. This is a casino hotel. It's seriously not smoke-free (none of the MS ones are, in the casino or the hotel). What the listing of "non-smoking" for a hotel apparently means throughout Travelocity is that it offers non-smoking rooms, as does about every hotel in the country today. And using the opaque Top Secret side, there is no guarantee you will get a non-smoking room. (I know from the last TSH booking I made, though that hotel was glad to swap the room for a non-smoking one.) That said, it is indeed the property I sussed out before I made the booking. Cost/fee details: $27.83/night averaged * 2 nights. Fee charged by Travelocity $5.81. Total charged $61.47. (The hotel will also charge a $5.60/night resort fee upon stay.) Non-opaque, but prepaid at Travelocity would have been $62/night plus $12 Travelocity fees (total $136) plus resort fee. Orbitz $210 total price (not including resort fee). Hotwire, with a perfect 7-amenities match for Isle, is at $85/night plus $31 fees, total $201 (and again that would be plus the resort fee). (This could be Treasure Bay or the Grand Biloxi, though, as they could have all the same amenities and could be a 3* for Hotwire. I doubt the Hard Rock or Beau Rivage would be a 3* and it's definitely not the IP.) Isle website $238 plus tax plus resort fee. I'd say this is a seriously good deal. Better Bidding Travelocity link used. smile.gif P.S. It's also important to note that the listed amenities can vary markedly from search to search. The high-speed internet vanished, for example, when I searched on different dates and got what I am sure is the same property (with identical ratings for each area of services etc). I searched again and it came back but the pool vanished.

I highly recommend this extended stay location (booked for $45, $50 after fees, on Travelocity Top Secret). Full kitchen in room, dvd player with dvds to check out at front desk, decent selection of snacks and food in pantry (for which we were given a $5 coupon at checkin), 24/7 workout room, pool is indoor, very comfortable beds, flawless wifi, friendly staff, very clean. Even the in-room coffee was better than the usual mud. Besides the hotel's airport shuttle if carless, the hotel is right amongst the off-airport parking lots for easy access. Maid service is only weekly, but towels will be replaced at front desk upon request.

$50 with fee (which is, as usual, less than the equivalent fee on Priceline or Hotwire, which matters when comparing). Only amenities listed in the Travelocity Top Secret area for the property were swimming pool and shuttle. I highly recommend the place. Full kitchen in room, dvd player with dvds to check out at front desk, decent selection of snacks and food in pantry (for which we were given a $5 coupon at checkin), 24/7 workout room, pool is indoor, very comfortable beds, flawless wifi, friendly staff, very clean. Even the in-room coffee was better than the usual mud. Besides the hotel's airport shuttle if carless, the hotel is right amongst the off-airport parking lots for easy access.

Stayed one overnight (8/12/10). Rooms clean, beds comfy. Not deserving of higher than a 2.5 star rating, but definitely fine at that level. I paid $50 including fees as a Travelocity Top Secret Hotel and suspect it was also available on Hotwire at a slightly higher price based on the amenities/location when I searched there right before booking. Continental breakfast consists of standard muffins, cereal, coffee, and not much else, but was clean and ready. For this price in this area, it's a very solid deal. *However*, the hotel is very hard to see and harder to get to after you miss it. (It took me fully 45 minutes of back and forth -- albeit in the rain -- to find it.) Though this is hard to explain without a map, I'll try. If you are headed northbound on 23, it's barely visible behind a car dealership, and by the time you can see it (if you do) you are past the exit you needed to take. If you bear to the right just after a shopping center with Michael's craft store in it, you'll be on a service road and you'll see the hotel shortly right in front of you. If you pass Kohl's and the car dealership while on the main road, you have gone too far and will have to go up to the next jughandle and come back south on 23. If you are southbound on 23: The crossroad that you see that looks like it should lead into the LaQuinta is one way the wrong way. Go just past Kohl's (on your left) and you will see an exit sign that says Service Road, some other road I can't recall, and U-Turn. Go into that jughandle, then as you cross 23, turn left to go north but *immediately* bear right into the service road described above. If you don't go into the service road immediately upon turning left, you'll miss the hotel again and repeat the experience described above for missing the hotel. Just like I did, three times. :)

It was in the original (glitched) topic... 8/12-13. Thanks!

Please fix the topic. I have *no* idea what happened to it! I know I didn't type what's there.

This was a Travelocity Top Secret Hotel purchase. La Quinta Inn and Suites Wayne 1850 RT 23 Wayne, NJ 07470 Amenities: Breakfast, non-smoking, internet. One night room rate $43.70 Tax Recovery Charge & Service Fees $6.79 Total: $50.49 The zone was listed as "Parsippany--Wayne," though it reached down to Morristown. Travelocity calls this 3 star, which would seem a bit high for Priceline/Hotwire on this property. The price was better than Hotwire... Hotwire had a 2.5 star in Fairfield - Wayne - Haskell -- which might well be the same property -- for $49 + 13.38 = 62.38. Priceline bids at $40 ($53.36 after fees) were rejected for 2.5 star in Wayne - Fairfield - Totowa. Thus, best deal for this trip was the Travelocity option. I used the Travelocity and other links here for all.

I did and always do. :)

This one makes a substantial update to the hotel list. This is the Clifton LaQuinta (265 Rt 3 East), the former Wellesley Inn -- but it's definitely not a 1* as suggested in the hotel list, but rather a 2.5*. (That's not to say that I'm unhappy with it -- it's a location and quality upgrade over my safety hotel at the same price after taxes/fees -- but rather to advise that an update to the list is definitely needed.) And the star rating is in line with other sources - it's 3* on Orbitz, 3* on Travelocity.

Bidding history (in each case with fees and taxes total for 2 days, rounded): 5/21/10: 3* University 38/96,not accepted Added Concord, same price, not accepted Went to 2.5 stars, 40/101, not accepted 5/23/10 3* Charlotte-University, 44/110, not accepted Added Concord, same price, not accepted Added Fort Mill-Carowinds (free rebid zone), 50/124, not accepted Tried the same exact bids as 5/21 on 6/1, none taken. Today: University, 3*, 39/98, not accepted, offered chance to bid $10 more/night, declined Added Concord, 43/108, accepted at Charlotte Courtyard University. Total cost $108. OK with this, though I wish it had Wifi (Internet is wired). AAA rate on hotel would have been $89 plus tax. Links to PRICELINE here used as always.

Since I tried last week, the Travelocity deals stayed the same, but the PRICELINE deals got better. I've posted the priceline accepted bid in that area.

I'm holding until Tuesday. I've recently learned that there's a small chance the trip could be canceled; I'll know for sure Tuesday. If it's not, I'll make the call then -- first seeing if the bidding on Priceline's gotten better, then checking Hotwire and Travelocity.

The Travelocity Top Secret Hotels do look promising on my search as well. Looking at Charlotte NC, University Place area, 6/17-6/19, listing in each case the per night rate followed by the total cost including fees for the two-night stay: Travelocity: 3*, Traveler Rating 4/5, Pool, Non-Smoking, High Speed Internet, 50.60/117.64. Ratings by category (e.g. Staff and Service, Room Quality, Activities, etc.)perfectly match Holiday Inn Charlotte-University Place, and no other property, assuming the traveler ratings are consistent across Travelocity Also, 3*, Traveler Rating 3/5, Non-Smoking and High-Speed Internet, 46/106.96. Except that the traveler rating is 3.5/5 on regular Travelocity, the ratings perfectly match Candlewood Suites Charlotte University. (Of course, Travelocity says it's non-smoking in the summary, but lists smoking rooms to book.) Finally, there's a 3* at 68.95/160 that is almost certainly the Wingate -- again, the ratings match perfectly. Hotwire: 3*, Fitness, Pool, Restaurant, High Speed Internet, Business Center: 59 per night/142.73 total cost. This, too, is looking like the Holiday Inn. also: 2.5*, Fitness, Laundry, High Speed Internet, Kitchenette, 54/131.13 -- Could be Candlewood, TownePlace, or maybe Residence Inn. Priceline: I can't get it to accept 50/124.30. I'm not yet sure I'm going to book any of these this time -- but on my search as well, Travelocity has Hotwire and Priceline beat.

I don't think there's a whole lot of properties in the Carteret zone itself: A Radisson ($79 on regular PRICELINE); a Holiday Inn ($93 on regular PRICELINE), and, unless I am missing something in searching for nearby properties on Google Maps and other places, that may be it. (Even the Rahway properties on 1&9 are in the Edison/Woodbridge zone, and the Linden and Avenel properties (e.g. Hampton Inn near Linden Airport) appear to be outside all zone boundaries. ) If I'm right -- and someone please check on me -- I would guess that limits the likelihood of a "hit" unless you broaden your geographical area.

Thanks -- I'm not bidding the zone LGA because of the parking cost, with all or almost all the hotels in that zone charging substantial parking fees. That's in contrast to the last trip via EWR where I stayed overnight at the Hojo. There, I had an early morning departure with my wife, hence getting out in the morning took longer and being close to the airport mattered. Plus, because of the timing of the flights and arrival, I was able to park the car at Vista Parking, which is adjacent to the HoJo, without paying for a full extra day. (That would not be the case this time.) However, I have stayed at the Country Inn and Suites by Jersey Gardens and the stay was quite good and the parking indeed free while staying there.

dahammer, thank you! I didn't even look on the other side of LGA. In Flushing-Whitestone, the 2 possibles I found are the Fairfield Inn and ESA, both of which would be fine.And when I looked closer, I see that I can rather safely bid 2* in Elmhurst-Corona (Days Inn or PanAmerican, both with free parking, look like the only reasonable possibilities) and maybe Bayside (though the Ramada there looks like it has issues, it's one night). All closer than Jersey. I just bid these and got nothing, but I started out with lowball bids and will keep trying. If I get something on these bids, I assume I should note that here to close this thread and then post the bid in the Priceline area? P.S. I looked at the Ramada Bayside / Queens Conference Center on Expedia. The description stated the following: This casino hotel is situated in Bayside, near Adelphi University.... In addition to a casino and a restaurant, Ramada Bayside / Queens Conference Center features a bar/lounge, complimentary parking, and conference rooms." I didn't notice there being a casino in Queens yet, and the one they want to put at Aqueduct wouldn't be near this hotel! I called Expedia to report this, but I'm not sure the guy on the phone really cared. :)