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I am curious because I'm looking at two hotels in the same zone with the same star rating, and each of them has a different named "Last person booked" property. I'm sure there's an internal formula, but it's not so easily explainable.

On ‎8‎/‎18‎/‎2011 at 10:09 PM, KoMarik said:

Just to update the board on this...I got the car from Hertz, and it appears they didn't offer any hourly late charges, only daily ones. I did bring the car back about 2.5 hours late, and was charged for one full extra day.

As thereuare stated, the breakeven point is 2 hours, so if you exceeded that, you'd be charged for a full day.

New info: By my experience, it is much easier to extend a rental agreement by incremental days than it is to shift a pickup time, but fortunately enough flexibility is built in to a reservation to allow for most contingencies. One time my flight was 8 hrs late getting in, and fortunately the rental agency offered 12 hours flexibility for RSVP's before charging a cancellation fee. YMMV.

Please remove Millennium from your hotel listings on Hotwire (and priceline) as it has closed this year. Shame it did close and I will miss it, warts and all. I stayed there numerous times and never had a problem. By taking all that inventory off the market, they've made staying in STL a more expensive proposition. I guess it's good if you're a hotelier.

Thanks

Need help identifying 2 stars property now, $60s with Free Breakfast and Internet.

Saw a 4* express deal was in the area for $93, so I offered $80 and won this. Very impressed with the hotel. It is in a prime downtown location. There was no flexibility on rooms, because they were sold out and I got the last room. However, the room had a king bed, and was very accommodating.

Hotel was great.  Room came with full sized bath. Pool, fitness center, business center, and more. 95% recommended.

Convenient to the tri-met's red line transit ($2.50 to/from the airport). Great views from upper floor rooms. Lobby and rooms were extremely clean and all surfaces polished. Self Parking charge was $18 but the street had plenty of spots which are free overnight until 8AM. Property used to be a 3 according to BB, but it has recently been upgraded by hotwire and I agree with the change.

Thanks. Any way to make my original post a 2.5 to correct any confusion later caused?

I agree wholeheartedly with the above. While it does seem that PRICELINE and HOTWIRE are both trying to get a bite of the "pet friendly" business, the risk of finding a hotel that won't accommodate still hasn't been entirely mitigated, and worse I feel that their pretending to accommodate makes matters trickier.  I truly wonder what will happen if I book this hotel and then call them and find out their pet friendly rooms are gone. Does hotwire really accommodate? Would the hotel "create" a pet friendly room for me just because I had been led to believe it would be available?  Or would they shop me elsewhere? And what about the hidden fee for "pet friendly" stays, is that mentioned anywhere in Hot.wire and Price.line's policy?

It has been nearly four years since the original post. Now, HOTWIRE and PRICELINE offer a pet friendly logo on some opaque items.

However, as we should all know by experience, pet policies are ALL OVER THE MAP these days, with some hotels being no charge (mostly La Quinta) and some being more expensive than a room for humans (I'm looking at you, Marriotts and Hamptons). There is no standard, and HOTWIRE or PRICELINE does not appear to enforce any kind of standard. Some chains have "deposits" that are "non-refundable" (an obvious oxymoron) and others have refundable holds.

I just called a hotel to see what their pet policy is, and they said their specific pet friendly rooms are SOLD OUT and that if they had any rooms on a waiting list they'd be for one small dog only, yet they are showing on hotwire right now as being "pet friendly." What to do ? Does the hotel have to honor my needs for a pet friendly room?

I'd like to correct this thread. It was actually a 2.5 stars bid.

2.5 stars, Free Breakfast, Fitness Center, Restaurant(s), Internet access

The "breakfast" was pretty awful compared to competitors in this star range And there were NO elevators :)

I was seeing $34 total price offers on Hotwire, so I bid $17 on priceline name your own price for Philadelphia airport next Sunday. I won on the economy category. After taxes and fees it came to $30 and change, a savings of $4 vs. Hotwire and a 63% savings from "$80 retail."

Avis is a shuttle ride rather than directly in the terminal, but with the savings I'm quite happy.

I finally had one of those Hotwire hell experiences. I thought people just like to complain about not being able to control location. I have never had a problem with my hotwire selections before, and I have used them often.

Add this Ramada trap to your Newport watchlist. The Ramada here is by anyone's standards a 2 star property, but Hotwire calls it a 3. Yes, there is a breakfast, but it consists of only a hardboiled egg and a reheatable waffle or burrito, and pineapple chunks, as well as your choice of one or two picked over donuts (not fresh). It was typical service for a 2-star, not a $180 value like they can get on the weekends. There is no elevator in the building to get to the far reaches of the third floor of this hotel where all the hotwire rooms are located. I don't know how they would accommodate handicapped/seniors?

when you get to the hotel they give you one of the rooms with merely a full bed that has not yet been upgraded just because you had an online discount rate. I thought the hotwire premise is that you are saving money, not losing value.

As for add-ons... well, one time my flight was moved an hour earlier and the local agent, not in Philly mind you, told me I was going to have to pay about $16 (the daily rate) for picking up my car at 11PM instead of waiting until 12:01 after midnight. I balked, took the car because I was tired, and agreed to these new terms. I was just glad they were able to accommodate.

However, when I turned in the car, the extra fee for the first day was waived! I have no idea if I got the car back to them an hour early and they looked at it as a was, or what. but however it happened, I got lucky. YMMV.

YMMV Your mileage may vary. LOL

Did some last minute bidding and just scored a great deal at Nashville (BNA) Hertz for just $10 a day using name my own price.

Although priceline doesn't allow bidding in the same hour, I set up my pick-up for the next hour, and picked up the car after a short wait with no qualms from the gate agent, conveniently located nearby in the terminal.

My previous time I was in Nashville the gate agent tried to tell me that I wasn't getting the best deal possible with priceline and that I should have used SOUTHWEST POINTS or negotiated with him a better rate, and he beleaguered the point that I could not negotiate with him for upgrades without forfeiting what I paid priceline, and starting over. I had to laugh at the suggestion that I pay for two rental cars just to drive one. I doubt he could see that I was walking out with a less than half price car for only $10 a day. I don't think he knows what the scoop is but I will continue to go my own way, and help others defeat the scam perpetuated by that Hertz employee.

Please use the site's PRICELINE or HOTWIRE links to start your purchases and searches.

Downloaded the priceline app and saw that they offered $11 to 14 for compact cars at BNA for last minute bidding. Perhaps $14 was for a certain brand of car, but $11 was for a class of cars from an unknown purveyor. I didn't like those offers so I went to the name your own price section of the priceline website which I could not even find on the android app, and asked for $9. I won an Alamo compact style car.

Alamo gave me a small 4 door car with great gas mileage, and for the price I could not be happier with that. The Alamo attendant tried to offer me other things in his lot for 30% off and said I probably paid too much with priceline. However, ironically the things he was offering were in addition to what priceline already charged me, which he claims I would have forfeited. So he was talking out of both sides of his mouth but I was smart enough to ignore these offers after entertaining them for a minute.

I just bid $9 and won a compact car at BNA the other day, last minute on a Saturday morning. I am going to post it to the forum of priceline wins. (After taxes and fees, it was more like $19.)

I suspect, from my limited experience renting cars, that the rental car owners put inventory on sale only later in the game when they know they won't be able to sell it otherwise. Unlike hotels where they would love to make plenty of set room reservations in advance and they have an almost exact figure of rooms available, the car guys might not know what inventory they will have that far out, or demand, but only an estimate.

Couldn't get 4 stars for $90, Couldn't get 3.5 stars for $70,

Next bid was a success. 2.5 stars, $59, Fairfield Inn.

I'm thrilled! Happy because it's $129 a night for a weekend summer stay so I saved "55%" according to priceline. However, why don't they advertise what I really saved? Considering the mandatory $5 travel insurance and the priceline fee which really ought to be factored in, I still saved about 40%. Still great! I just like a little bit of transparency. I won't tell my friend we paid half price if we really didn't. I'll talk up priceline for what it's worth, but I also must be completely honest. I don't know how priceline is allowed to tell me that I saved 55% when I know it's honestly 40%.

I just bid $59 for a property for two nights, and on the final approvals page it came to $59+ $59 + $10 = $128, plus taxes and fees. The $10 "travel insurance" is mandatory? Has it always been, and I just didn't notice that?

We bid $48 and won. With fees, it came to $62.

We saved a good deal ($17). On hotels.com, the same property was going for $79 + $10 = $89.

Incidently, I am not too pleased that priceline's fees were, in this example, 40% higher despite a lower starting value. It makes it difficult to make apples to apples comparisons, and it is total B.S. that they can't put their fees in the starting price instead of tacking them on at the end once they have your credit card. The hidden charge makes it hard to know going in if priceline is going to save you as much money at all. Fortunately, I made bank here. But it's not always a sure win. I am becoming used to having to put a buffer in for priceline's hidden charges.

Why don't you try signing up for another account in her name and making the flight in your name. Or sign up for another priceline account and Change your middle initial to full middle name.

Why don't you tell her to fly by herself and give her half the money? Another thing you could have done is booked 2 roundtrips to LA and added her as a fare paying passenger to your middle two legs, LAx-PHL and return, though it is too late for that.

Further, to theraure's point, you help us a little and we'll help you a lot. This site is for everyone's benefit. That's the only way how it is successful.

This may sound ridiculous, but does Hotwire have some kind of burn-after-reading thing encrypted into their emails, for the same reason that they don't tell you the name of your hotel? Has this happened to anyone else? We wouldn't even consider using Hotwire again but a friend of ours went to a concert in Atlanta recently and got an amazing room really cheap from Hotwire. When we told her what happened to us she was shocked.

Any advice would be great here. Mostly I want to know if this happened to anyone else. To this day we have never had an explanation or refund from hotwire.

I have a few scenarios that could have occured:

1) Yahoo mail, and perhaps other services, have had many bugs with their search feature. If you were searching for a specific e-mail, it might not come up in the filter. Are you able to search for other e-mails?

2) Hotwire swears up and down that you weren't charged to begin with. What refund do you think you are entitled to? If so, the burden of proof is on YOU, not them. You need to come up with a bank receipt or credit card statement which you can fax to hotwire and help them in their investigation of your missing hotel.

3) You said you saw another person's name on the e-mail, but thought nothing of it at the time. Were you intoxicated? I mean, sorry, were you using a public computer, that may have had someone else's log-in, someone who may or may not have cancelled your room depending on whether they have notice that a hotel had been booked on their account?

4) The delete button on an email in microsoft applications like outlook and hotmail and msn mail is an "X" that looks like close but it is really a delete button. You could have also inadvertantly deleted your emails, or they could be in your spam or delete folder. Any chance at all that you could contact your internet service provider to locate an email? (This would be easier if a work computer, but also I believe yahoo mail and some others used to have a rollback

option that you could use by request.)

It will be interesting to see what scenario turns out to be your case, not likely any of the above 3 but just ponderings on my part. You could have any number of answers for this, and if you research a little more, let us know what comes out of it. Did you check your credit card statements for the time the purchase was made? Hotwire charges you the same day but it might post the next business day, as well. Don't rely on customer service on the phone to track your reservation down, when it could be subject to their error in defining the search as well as your entering the dates and names at the time of reservation.

Incidently, Hotwire once gave me $25 back because a hotel double billed me, even though this was not hotwire's fault nor could they have prevented it, really. They also gave me $100 once when a hotel was sold out but had not notified hotwire in time (or else perhaps there was an error in hotwire's inventory system). So your suspicions of hotwire doing shady things are not necessary.

Booked a Two night minimum stay (there are hardly any vacancies at any of the hotels directly on that weekend!) for $101 in Dayton Central

3.5 stars, Fitness, Pool, Restuarant, Business, Internet, Golf, & Tennis

11/4/11 to 11/6/11

Dayton Grand, formerly a doubletree property

Saw hotwire was selling a 3.5 for $93 on 1/28 so that was the ceiling. I visited priceline and set the bid for $85 and was accepted by Wyndham Grand. This is 54% off their promotional $179 rate. I could have, should have, and would have, used rebid zones to find out if I could get more off the top, but I am truly surprised as I thought I was already lowballing it and was going to need some rebids to take $1 or $2 steps up for $93. Just satisfied with paying half price for one of my favorite locations in town.

3.5 New Grand Hotel in Dayton, OH (Central)

formerly the Doubletree

I have never stayed at the Dayton Doubletree before, but I hear it is now an unaffiliated place called the Grand. It is still a fine 3.5 star hotel with indoor pool, and its website looks promising. Will post reviews and a calendar of wins if I do bid on this property in a few weeks. My experience with independent hotels has been very good with Hotwire, because in order to generate a buzz for themselves and generate any demand they have to offer deeper discounts than the established hotel brands which already have loyalty points subscribers and lifelong returning guests cutting into their own supply of rooms.

Will use the preferred PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin all future travel purchases. Thanks for the source of great info.

Thank you for sharing your success and thank you for using the site recommended links to make your bids. Please always try to use the standard message format in the forums that will allow the stay to be automatically found in the 'calendar of wins' (search engine). For the title, the star number should go first, followed by the name of the hotel and the bid zone it is located in. For the subtitle, list the winning bid and the stay dates. Otherwise, we wouldn't know which Embassy Suites this even is (I'm just assuming this is the Pittsburgh Airport zone), or how to find it in future searches.

High Speed wireless Internet is available in the rooms. An additional charge is not disclosed on the site, and I don't presume there is a charge since it is listed as a standard amenity.

After losing my 3.5 star bid for $55 I lowered the thresholds and got a win. It came down to $48 before taxes and fees, ie $63.24 after taxes and fees.

The Millennium is reliable and in a most convenient location near the riverfront and arch. I have stayed there 3 times now and been pretty satisfied with the stays. My favorite hotel in the area is the Hilton downtown but I often get charged over 100 there so this is a nice savings and still right down the street from everything.