Priceline Hotel: Should I take an "accepted" bid of 290SG$ for..

[Chris26WI]

Well, after beeing rejected serveral times on PL US for 5-star HK for 1 night, Jan1st to 2nd, up to 145 US$, I went to PL Singapore and started bidding at 180SG$ for 5-star, West HK Island, TST and Central Kowloon...

headed my way up to 265SG$..always rejected.. then entered 290SG$.. and got:

"We found a hotel that would have accepted your offer, however the charge for your hotel room(s) was not approved by your credit card company. If you can use another credit card, you can try this same request again right now by entering the information below."

Including taxes and fees, this would result in a price of 344,20 SG$ per night. Converted to HK$, this would be about 1609.40 HK$.

Currently, I am holding a cancellable back-up reservation for the Inter-Continental Grand Stanford Kowloon for 2203.05 HK$ incl. taxes (side harbour view room, including benefit of "upgrade to Junior Suite or Club room, UPON AVAILABILITY").

The following hotels seem to be very probable for the Priceline-bid (I add the current prices per night for that date):

*JW Marriott (2250 HK$+13% = 2542.50 HK$)

*Grand Hyatt (2081 HK$+13% = 2351.53 HK$, prepayment)

*Inter-Continental (1775HK$+13% = 2005.75 HK$, gov rate)

*Inter-Continental Grand Stanford (1075HK$+13% = 1214.75 HK$, prepayment)

The Sheraton, the Langham and the Harbour Plaza show "no availibility" in their websites.

As the Intercontis haven't shown up yet as far as I know (but are still possible) the most probable hotels seem to be the JW Marriott and the Grand Hyatt IMO.

So in case of the JW I'd save 933 HK$, in case of the Grand Hyatt 742HK$...

In case of the Inter-Conti almost 400 HK$, while the IC Stanford would be cheaper to have regularly (but I could use the best price guarantee in this case).

I am not really sure if I was much happier with the JW Marriott, as it seems to be a nice 5star, but nothing special? (never stayed there before), however I'd like to stay one night in Central HK too.. not sure.

I don't think that the situation will improve towards the end of the year, as the 1st of January really seems to be top peak season... - I want to go to Brunei after Hong Kong, but the Sheraton Utama in Brunei shows already now no availiblity for first week of January (or net yet bookable in starwood.com?).. and the Empire Hotel is decently more expensive.. - So to fly to Brunei already on Jan1st doesn't seem to be a cheaper solution in this case, currently..

Probably it's the best to stay with the cancellable reservation at the Standford for now? However, this "Priceline thrill" and the curiousity what hotel that might be are tough too....

----

ps.: tried before for 4 star TST and West HK Island too... rejected up to 165SG$. Kowloon Hotel, Cosmopolitan Hotel, Eaton Hotel show no availibility. Renaissance Harbour View wants >2000 HK$/night, same as New World Renaissance...

[thereuare]

Hard for me (and likely others) to evaluate how good a deal is in HKD or SGD... please use US funds.

Even though i can see a difference of 2500HKD or 2500SGD, it i is not known to our average user if this is similar to GBP where the difference is thousands of dollars or if these are similar to rubels or yen (i'm guessing on both) where even a very large number may only equal $5 US dollars.

[Chris26WI]

290 SG$ = 174 US$

1609 HK$ = 206 US$

2500 HK$ = 321 US$

933 HK$ = 119 US$

742 HK$ = 95 US$

400 HK$ = 52 US$

(sorry, can't edit the previous post anymore)

[easier for us Europeans to calculate... because 1 Euro is almost the same to 10 HK$]