Blackmagic

Yes, that's really what they call this hotel...Courtyard by Marriott Durham near Duke University/Downtown, 1815 Front St., Durham, NC 27705 919-309-1500 Bid $45/night -- $90.00 plus $19.87 taxes and fees... total $109.87 This is a new hotel for the list --- and I found it using the savingsbarn.com website!

$54 bid, $ 14.28 Taxes and fees... total $68.28. Bid the same day with no rebid zones so I matched a recent wins bid price and was accepted. As always started the trip at savingsbarn.com ... thanks again!

It's hard to beat the Courtyards, but in this case, the "Midway" name trumps the "Best Western" - the Midways are a mini chain of hotels in Wisconsin - Iowa that are usually pretty nice and feature a 10,000 sq. ft. atrium housing the pool, hot tub and lots of tropical trees. We've always had good stays with them. I wish they'd show up on Priceline in La Crosse... Here's a link to the "Midway" web site: Midway Hotels Web Site

The Badgers are playing a home game in Madison, so this is a pretty good deal. Was turned down at $55 yesterday. Bid $50 today and got a counter offer of +$14, opted instead to add Madison South for a free rebid and was accepted at $55. Details: Your Offer Price: $55.00 Number of Nights: 1 Taxes & Service Fees: $15.16 Total Charges*: $70.16 We are doing a high school football game in the area and tried to get a 2* hotel in the Wisconsin Dells area. We bid up to $45 in the Dells and turned down each bid. In Baraboo we got $12 counter offers from $42 thru $44, but no success. We would have bid higher in Baraboo had we been turned down at $55 for the Crowne Plaza. At least it's an idea of what bid might be accepted in the Dells area. Of course, we started our trip at savingsbarn.com...

Bidding from www.savingsbarn.com, was expecting to get the Brookfield Courtyard and was surprised to win the Best Western Midway instead! Your Offer Price: $42.00 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $42.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $13.36 Total Charges*: $55.36 This appears to be a new hotel for the list.

Amazing - most hotels in LaCrosse are sold out this (and every) weekend. I bid this on a lark before dropping down to 2* and the Radisson La Crosse accepted my $56 bid. Taxes and service fees are $14.14 making the total $70.14. As always, I started the trip at SavingsBarn.com

New Hotel In LBV - Disney! My first bid was $35 in WDW, got counter offer +$9, so I added Kissimmee instead and bid $36 - accepted. Hampton Inn - Disney World Vicinity 8150 Palm Parkway Orlando, Florida 32836 407-465-8150 Your Offer Price: $36.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $36.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $11.65 Total Charges: $47.65 As always, started my trip at www.SavingsBarn.com Thanks for a great site!

Hello Hanna, I know this stay is long past, but others may benefit from this little trick. Someone once suggested that by using certain small towns in Wisconsin, you can get many rebid opportunities. Germantown is one of those towns - if you start your Priceline request for Franklin, WI they'll tell you they don't have hotels there, but offer you a list like this: Sturtevant Wisconsin 19.9 Menomonee Falls Wisconsin 22.8 Burlington Wisconsin 23.2 Racine Wisconsin 24.4 Germantown Wisconsin 26 East Troy Wisconsin 28.9 Delafield Wisconsin 31.3 Kenosha Wisconsin 31.9 Ya, that's right - even includes Kenosha - a long ways from Germantown. The first three and Kenosha only have 1-*'s so it gives you many rebid opportunities (even if one is grey'd out). This seems to work for some other small towns in WI as well. You just have to experiment a little.

Your Offer Price: $42.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 2 Subtotal: $84.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $20.05 Total Charges: $104.05 Bid $37, countered + $10, closed browser. Bid $40, countered +$12, closed browser. Bid $42 Accepted. We like this hotel because it's clean, staff are friendly and it includes free internet. Usually get it at $37-$38 - maybe the price is going up. The best AARP rate here is $127. The Priceline rooms are usually near the outside doors which is convenient but can be a little noisy. All in all, a great deal! Thanks for a great site.

Your Offer Price: $56.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $56.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $14.02 Total Charges: $70.02 Started from the SavingsBarn.com website looking for a 3* in La Crosse. Bid of $50 got me a $14 rebid offer. Closed browser and was turned down at $52 and $54 and finally success at $56. That seems to be the magic number. Thanks for a great site!

Your Offer Price: $50.00 Number of Rooms: 2 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $100.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $22.56 Total Charges: $122.56 Well, this was a struggle, but it yields a new hotel for the board, and a nice one at that. Started out looking for a 2.5* in Brookfield last Monday. Bid $37 - rejected, took free rebid at $40 - rejected. The bad news being that these bids blocked me from my normal Sheraton-Brookfield at 3*, at least for the time being. So I thought I'd settle for the Holiday Inn Express in Germantown at 2*. Starting at Franklin, WI gives you 32 free rebid's for a 2*, so I started at $35 and rebid adding a dollar each time. Rejected 5 times before I gave up when $39 was rejected. Discovered today that this weekend in Milwaukee there is a rock concert, the Milw. Brewers at Miller Park, and Nascar and USAC races at the Milwaukee Mile, thus a lot of hotels are full. The Sheraton seemed to have rooms available, so I decided to just go after a room there with a $45 bid - rejected with a counter offer of + $13. Took my free rebid at $48 - rejected with a counter of + $14. He's toying with me... Added Pewaukee zone and upped my bid to $50 - I'll show them - Congratulations, you got your price of $50 for a 3-star hotel room --- The Marriott Milwaukee West in Waukesha, WI! This is a very highly regarded new hotel (opened 2004?) in the Pewaukee zone, just up Hwy 94 from Brookfield, so all's well that ends well. It's rated very highly in Trip Advisor, and if it's as good as the reviews, we may have a new favorite in Milwaukee. As always, started all these bids from the SavingsBarn.com. Thanks for a great site...

Your Offer Price: $48.00 Number of Rooms: 2 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $96.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $21.26 Total Charges: $117.26 Got this on my second bid using the SavingsBarn.com website. First bid at $45 rejected. Very happy to get this hotel again. Thanks for a great site...

You're right, many of these offers are available by simply going to the properties web site and clicking on the offer. The point is that one can review many offers (32 currently) by going to one site rather than going to 20 or more individual sites. It's just another tool, not as valuable as betterbidding.com in my estimation, but a useful tool just the same. And the $59 offer at MGM seems "special" to me... of course I'll book thru the board's links above whenever possible!

Mandalay Bay has $119.95 rooms on 8/14, 15, 16 and $129.95 ON 8/11, 17, 18 and it includes half price spa and show tickets. Just go to the Mandalay Bay Web Site and click in the "Enjoy a Summer of Fun from $129.95". Your days are even less than the $129.95 advertised - have no idea why. If you join the MGM Grand's Slot Club, they have a member's only offer of $59 weekdays - go to "reservations" then enter SLM034 as the "Promotion Code". You can join the slot club here: https://www.playersclub.com/ before you make a reservation. Thereuare - can you rework the URL's so you get credit?

Found a new site which lists Las Vegas hotel special offers. They are currently listing some pretty good summer deals - eg. MGM Grand $59 weekdays with $35 food credit, 2 for 1 Spa, Premium View room, etc., Mandalay Bay at $129, Paris $109, LV Hilton $59 weekdays, $89 weekends, etc. They have 32 special offers at many of the LV properties listed as of tonight. Most of these properties don't do PL so this is another way to save. I actually did a similar MGM offer at $59 last April - it was a great value and we enjoyed the trip, but at that time there was nowhere that one could find all of the available offers. If this new site keeps the offers updated, this will be a great resource for us. http://www.vegashotelspecial.com/ ps. I have nothing to do with the above site - just think it is a great resource...

Your Offer Price: $38.00 Number of Rooms: 2 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $76.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $18.78 Total Charges: $94.78 Started from the SavingsBarn.com website looking for a 3* in Brookfield. Bid of $43 was turned down with an offer of an immediate rebid if I would add $12. Closed browser and started over at the Barn with an offer of $48 adding Milwaukee Northwest as a rebid zone. Turned down with an offer of an immediate rebid if I would add $14. Since I had no more free rebids at 3*, decided to start over at the 2.5* level. First bid of $38 accepted. Note this is a new hotel that can be added to the list!

Your Offer Price: $56.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $56.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $14.27 Total Charges: $70.27 Started from the SavingsBarn.com website looking for a 3* in La Crosse. Bid of $50 got me a $14 rebid offer. Closed browser and was turned down at $52 and $54 and finally success at $56. I've been trying for a Priceline hotel in La Crosse for some time - happy to finally have a win in LaX! Thanks for a great site!

Thanks for the suggestion thereuare, but I think the Days Inn is a 1* in La Crosse. I'm basing this on the ratings in the Priceline direct booking option. I just discovered the new Priceline direct booking option and when I tried using it for September 16th, it gave me a lot of hotel choices in La Crosse, including six that had star ratings. The six are: 1* - Super 8, 1* - Days Inn, 1* - Scottish Inn(Sparta), and 2* - Hampton Inn(La Crosse), 2* - Hampton Inn(Onalaska), and 3* - Radisson Hotel La Crosse. Now I don't know if the * ratings are the same for the opaque service, but it was the same for the 3* hotel I just won - yippee - we finally have a winning Priceline bid in La Crosse, WI. I'll post that win for all to see, but to complete this discussion, the win is at the Radisson - the same 3* as above... now that's interesting. I was thinking the 3* was the Holiday Inn Suites, and that was messing me up in my bidding strategy. Thus it appears that the star ratings in the direct booking service may give us a clue as to which hotels might be participating in the opaque service by star level. I'm going to try for a 2* as well, but I don't get all the free rebids at 2*, so that may take me a while... but I will get one... so we'll have at least one 2* in LaX identified as well. What do you think about the direct booking star ratings giving clues to which hotels are in the opaque service? Was this the exception or is it pretty normal? Thanks again!

I've been trying for a 3* in La Crosse for some time. By starting in Sparta, WI, I get up to 8 bids. Over the last couple of weeks, I tried bid ranges from $35 to $55 with no wins. Today I increased the bid range to $55 - $80 and had no success. I quit at $80 since I have a backup at $89. La Crosse seems to be tough to find bargain rooms - I need a room on 8 Friday nites this fall and haven't been able to get any wins yet (I've only bid the $35 - $55 range so far). The occupancy rate seems to be pretty high - in fact the Holiday Inn Suites - LAX is already full many of those Fridays. Maybe I'll have to drop to 2* and see what I can get - I wonder what the 2* hotels would be there - any ideas? Anyone have unreported wins in La Crosse?

Thanks for asking - yes, we attended Summerfest for the first time last year - I just retired this year and you can bet that my wife and I will be the oldest "fans" at the Mountain Dew Rock Stage!

We decided at the last minute to go see the the giant but malodorous titan arum . Tried an unsucessful strategy to get the Radisson in the West zone using the link at the SavingsBarn as follows: Bid 3* West $35 - rejected, added 3* South as free rebid zone at $42 - rejected, added 3* East at $48 and got the Crowne Plaza. We're happy with the CP as it is a very nice hotel but I really wanted to try a Priceline hotel in the Middleton (west) area. The state girls softball tournament is in Madison this weekend also on the west side of Madison, and our local high school team is defending the state title they won for the first time last year, so we'll be taking that in as well, thus we were hoping for a hotel in the west zone. The last bid in my "strategy" was going to add "Downtown" at $55 and if that had failed, I'd go to Hotwire which had what I thought might be above Radisson at $61. Is there anything I could have done to improve on my "strategy"? If there was more than one hotel willing to sell me a room for $48, how does Priceline choose the hotel that we get? Perhaps I should have ignored the past wins of the Radisson in the $35 range and started a little higher with my first bid in the west zone? If these questions are not appropriate for this part of "BetterBidding", just remove them from the post, I'll understand! I'm just trying to get better at this. Thanks for a great service!

Your Offer Price: $55.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 2 Subtotal: $110.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $23.99 Total Charges: $133.99 Started from the SavingsBarn.com website looking for a 3* in Brookfield. Bid of $50 was turned down with an offer of an immediate rebid if I would add $13. Closed browser and started over at the Barn with an offer of $55 adding Milwaukee Northwest as a rebid zone. Accepted @ $55. This is Summerfest and the holiday weekend, so we're very happy with this result, even tho it is a little more than we have been paying for this hotel. Summerfest is a huge music celebration in Milwaukee that attracts a million or so visitors over it's 11 day run, so getting this hotel at this price is great. More on Summerfest here: Summerfest Thanks again for a great site...

Your Offer Price: $43.00 Number of Rooms: 2 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $86.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $20.08 Total Charges: $106.08 Got this on my first bid using the SavingsBarn.com website. Milwaukee North now has a 3* hotel which somewhat limits rebids, so I decided to just start at $43 (which was my last winning bid). Very happy to get this hotel again. Thanks for a great site...

If you do decide spend all five nites at the Excalibur, this link will get you in at $ 408 for your five nights: Excaliber Specials Basically $56 $56 $56 $110 $130 for the 5 nights. (Edit by thereuare: fixed link... nice find!)

The Hilton has some fantastic summer prices for Sunday thru Thursday at $49/nite. I think the weekend days you are looking for will be about $116/nite. You need to book the $49 room by May 23 to get that rate. I know you wanted the other end of the strip, but the Hilton is a Monorail stop if that helps. And if it just doesn't work for you you, maybe it'll help someone else. I don't know how to book this thru savingsbarn.com, but maybe thereuare can update this post? In the meantime you can use http://dir.travelzoo.com/Lodging.asp?intCa...ry=22&id=189384 for the $49 Sun-Thur nites and hilton.com for the Fri-Sat nites.