nsxtasy

Priceline often has better deals than you can get elsewhere, but not always. And my experience with Denver is a perfect example. I kept increasing my bids every 24 hours, reaching the following amounts which still failed: Economy $13/day Compact $18*/day Mid-Size $19*/day These amounts include $3/day bonus cash, available to me on Priceline from the top menu at My Profile - My Rewards. So, for example, the $18/day bid for a compact car included $15/day as my cost, with Priceline absorbing an additional $3/day bonus cash. Payless is currently running a sale with great rates (economy and compact $22, mid-size $23) with another 7 percent off on all rentals and 10 percent on a compact as specials for the next few weeks. When you compare the bottom line vs Priceline and their higher fees, the difference is negligible ($21.49/day or $120.17 total Payless mid-size, vs $108.16 the mid-size which Priceline rejected) and that's comparing bids that Priceline rejected, so their price would be even higher. And of course, Payless is fully cancellable with no loss involved. By comparison, Hotwire is $35-36/day. Fox and Advantage also have lower rates than Hotwire on cancellable reservations, but they're not as low as the ones at Payless. Hope this info is helpful. As always, it never hurts to shop around!

Just curious - what were the HOTWIRE rates while you were bidding on PRICELINE? Sometimes Hotwire is cheaper than you can get on Priceline; not always, but sometimes. I'm going to be there the few days after your visit (7/23-26), and when I was bidding a week ago, Hotwire was asking $71 for a 4* downtown. Now I'm getting e-mails saying that they're down to $65 for 4* for my dates. Granted, for your dates it's possible they're all booked (or close to it) and not honoring their typical PRICELINE rates, but don't forget to check Hotwire too! EDIT - I just realized I can check HOTWIRE myself, so I did. I see that there is nothing available on Hotwire downtown for your dates. Nothing! Which means they're definitely close to full, which is why you had so much trouble. Oh well, timing is everything!

I needed a hotel downtown and didn't want to pay a lot of money. I've read the bad reviews about this hotel (really bad), so I knew in advance that this was probably where I would wind up. I was willing to pay a bit more for a 3.5-4.0 star, but not enough to make it happen, so I broke down and bid on 3*. As noted in the title, my bid for $41/night for a 3* hotel downtown was accepted for the Millennium. Oh well, the location is convenient (especially since I'm going to several games at Busch Stadium) and the price is right. Here are other bids I submitted that were NOT accepted: $52 for 4* for St. Louis (Downtown) $50 for 3.5* for St. Louis (Downtown) $40 for 3* for St. Louis (Downtown) $40 for 2.5* for St. Louis (Downtown) $35 for 2* for St. Louis (Downtown) I knew I was close with the $40 bid for 3* when it told me it would give me a one-time offer to allow me to rebid for $47. So instead of taking that offer, I used a "free rebid" for $41 by combining downtown with another area that didn't have a 3* in it. I'll try to post a review after my stay.

Never mind. I decided to risk bidding on a 3* hotel and ending up in the dreaded Millennium, and that's exactly what happened. Oh well, it will be convenient, and the price is right.

I'm bumping this topic because I'm in a similar situation, and I'm not having a lot of luck. I'm trying to get a room in downtown St. Louis July 23-26. I've been rejected on Priceline bidding $52 for a 4* and $50 for a 3.5*. I don't want to go higher than that because I'm trying to keep the hotel cost with taxes/fees under $200 for the three nights. I'm disappointed because I've seen several reports here of people getting 4* places downtown for $43 or so per night, but those rates are obviously not available for the dates I need. (I tried bidding for two of the three nights and that didn't help, either.) I don't want to bid on a 3* because, as noted above, I'm likely to get stuck with the Millennium, whose reviews are indeed truly awful. Obviously I can keep bidding downtown, either bidding higher (which I would prefer not to do), or hoping that something will open up, perhaps at the last minute, but that's a risky strategy. I won't have a car, so I'd like to stay close to a Metrolink station to make getting around easier. At the moment I've got a confirmed res at a highly-reviewed hotel within walking distance of a Metrolink station on the IL side of the river that keeps my total cost under $150, but I'd be spending time and money for the Metrolink, so it's not as convenient as staying downtown within walking distance (and Google tells me the walking area is iffy). I'd consider bidding on something in Forest Park-Clayton but not all the hotels there are near Metrolink (the ones right off I-44 are not). I'm open to any suggestions that anyone has. TIA!

Priceline has a new feature called "Hotel Bid Alerts". You can specify a price, area, and star level - e.g. downtown St. Louis, 4 stars, $80 - and they will send you an e-mail whenever someone else submits a winning bid, at that price or less, for the area and star level you specify. This can be useful information. It's actually similar to seeing the winning bids posted here on betterbidding.com except you don't see the actual price. In the example I give here, all you know is that someone bid no more than $80, and you don't know whether their winning bid was for $80 or for $60. So it tells you that you probably won't need to go any higher than the amount you specify, but it doesn't really tell you whether you could get an accepted bid for lower than the amount you've entered. I'm accustomed to starting my bidding really low, well in advance, and then rebidding while increasing my bid by $1-5 dollars every 24 hours until it's accepted. Of course, I can continue to do this, as long as it's not a last-minute reservation, but I'd like any advice about where to to set this alert to give me more knowledge about how much to bid. I'm guessing that it might be most useful if I set the alert for $5-20 less than the accepted bids posted here on betterbidding.com so that it can tell me if/when a lower bid might be accepted, but that's just a guess. I'd be interested in any advice anyone can give regarding how to use this new feature to best advantage while bidding.

P.S. On Orbitz the above hotel is considered three stars, and the quoted rate there is $135/night.

I was bidding for a 2* hotel in two Priceline areas: Langhorne/Levittown, and Trevose/Bensalem. A couple of days ago I tried $35 and was rejected in both areas. I just tried $39 starting with Langhorne/Levittown and it was accepted. They gave me a 2.5 star hotel even though I was only bidding for 2 stars. Offer Price: avg. per room, per night $39.00 Rooms: 1 Nights: 3 + Add nights for the same rate! Room Subtotal: $117.00 Taxes & Fees: $25.44 Total Charged to Card: $142.44 Hampton Inn & Suites Newtown 1000 Stony Hill Road Yardley, PA 19067 215-860-1700 Note: You can't bid on both these areas at the same time, because Priceline classifies Langhorne/Levittown in the Trenton area, and Trevose Bensalem in the Philadelphia area.

I had booked a reservation using a hotel chain website as a backup, figuring I would cancel it if I couldn't get what I wanted on PRICELINE. I posted above after I had finished all bidding on Priceline.

I was bidding on a 2-star hotel (sometimes they give you one with more stars than what you bid) for tomorrow, June 27, through Wednesday, June 29, in each of the following four areas of Minneapolis: $40 ($98.14 for 2 nights with tax/fees) for Downtown Minneapolis $35 ($86.70 for 2 nights with tax/fees) for Midtown Minneapolis $32 ($79.84 for 2 nights with tax/fees) for University/Metrodome $31 ($77.56 for 2 nights with tax/fees) for Airport/Mall of America I had started lower than this and was raising my bids day by day. This is where I wound up, with all of the bids rejected.

I have posted a review of the hotel stay in this topic in the Hotel Review forum.

I just completed my stay in this hotel, for which I created this topic about my accepted bid on Priceline. My room was fine, but I have a HUGE complaint about the hotel charges. The hotel hit me with a required service fee of $16.79 ($14.99 plus tax) per day. This is allegedly to cover various hotel services such as the shuttle bus to and from the airport. My objection is that there should be no required fees aside from those specified when paying for the room by Priceline. I'm not objecting to additional charges for things you choose to do, such as an extra cot, telephone calls, room service meals, etc. But nothing extra should be required. If you bid $20 on Priceline, you don't expect to have to pay $36 for the room. The hotel imprinted my credit card at the start of my stay, as is normal procedure most places, but I did NOT initial the line next to the service fee. At the end of the stay, they charged this fee to my credit card. I have filed a dispute with my credit card company that I did not authorize the fee. I also contacted Priceline customer service to complain, since they should not be accepting reservations on behalf of this hotel in this manner. If I do not get satisfaction from either of these venues, I am prepared to escalate the complaint through various channels. I will post an update once the situation is resolved. In the meantime, beware when making Priceline reservations with this property, as you may find yourself in the same situation. Incidentally, more about the room - it wasn't huge, but the accommodations were nice enough. In fact, I would consider that room to be a 3 star rather than 2.5 star, based upon the room itself, since it had such niceties as a full marble bathroom with a walk-in shower with sliding glass doors, and a big flat-screen LCD television (standard def only though).

No, that's not a typo in the title. $20 for a 2.5-star. I actually was trying to get into a couple of other areas and was willing to bid a few dollars more. And I was willing to stay in a 2-star. I've been bidding on up to four areas in a series of four bids with slightly different amounts based on my preference for the areas. When all got turned down, I waited 24 hours and raised all the bids by $1. Tonight the fourth of my bids was accepted. Here's how it went: Bid $24 for 2-star in Las Vegas Airport Area but was turned down. Bid $21 for 2-star after adding Las Vegas Strip Vicinity South but was turned down. Bid $19 for 2-star after adding Near Las Vegas Strip West but was turned down. Bid $20 for 2-star after adding Near Las Vegas Strip East and was accepted with the above 2.5-star hotel in Near Las Vegas Strip West area.