Priceline Hotel: 4* London (The City-Financial District) Tower Hotel

[ozgirl]

Hi,

I'm trying to bid on 2 seperate dates for our travel in the UK. 2 rooms for 21-27 May and 2 rooms for 4-6 June. I've so far bid upto $70 (used the savingsbarn link). I was hoping to get something like Thistle Marble Arch but no luck. Not sure if it's due to the length of my stay or the fact that I need 2 rooms. Any suggestions or advice please?

Thanks,

Ozgirl

[WillTravel]

Have you gotten any counteroffers?

[ozgirl]

Hi Willtravel,

I did receive a counteroffer of $98 when I bid in the Marble Arch zone. Any thoughts on what might be an acceptable offer?

Thanks,

Ozgirl

[WillTravel]

I'd guess something like $88 or $90.

Have you considered the Kensington and Westminster zones?

[thereuare]

Was the counter-offer for both sets of dates?

[lookup]

Ozgirl

this might sound airie faery and impractical BUT i suscribe to keep holding a clear intention of the exact nights you want and where and for how much ...... it works for me, i have yet to not get a great deal. I think people sometimes run low of patience and faith , get resigned thinking that they cannot have what they want ( on PRICELINE ) and rush to overpay.

so my two cents is to stay clear. what you want sounds doable. And it seems you have plenty of time to try bids, play with it, and have fun rebidding every 72 hours!

zigzagidiot

[ozgirl]

Hi Thereuare,

No actually I only got the counteroffer for 21-27 May for 2 rooms in the Marble Arch and Mayfair zones when I bid $65 in both these zones.

Hi Zigzagidiot,

I was thinking the same thing. But I was thinking of booking a back up ...just in case.

Hi Willtravel,

I have considered Kensington and Westminister but I thought that Bloomsbury & Mayfair were perhaps more central and Marble Arch/Bloomsbury I thought would be cheaper. Also the hotels in these zones seem to get the better reviews. Kensington seems to be a really "iffy"zone. What are your thoughts on this?

Thank you for your responses,

Ozgirl

[WillTravel]

I think you're right that the hotels in B/MA and Mayfair have better reviews (especially Mayfair).

If money were no object, I'd definitely go for Mayfair every time. I'm a cheapskate, so I'm not one to quibble too much. It's more a matter of whether you think it's worth a try to save $25/night per room, but maybe you wouldn't like the hotel or location as well. Most 4* options in Kensington or Westminster I'd be quite happy with, and I could tolerate the rest. But that's me - who is often happy with a 2* room!

Another thing you can look at is to look at the rates online for each night of your stay, for the most likely hotels to come up. Maybe hotel rates are much higher on certain nights, which could explain why cheap bids aren't working.

[ozgirl]

Hi Willtravel,

You are right in that the savings on priceline are really good. You wouldn't be able to get these hotels for these prices in any case. But I guess now that I've started bidding on hotels on priceline, I become spoilt and want a specific area as well as 4* hotels at cheap prices! Human nature to be greedy.... :)

[ozgirl]

Hi,

Need some advice and guidance please....

After some research I saw that the 3* hotels in Bloomsbury/Marble Arch seem to be Ok. So I thought I'd try for my short stay of 4-6 June (2 rooms).

I bid $55 in Marble Arch and received counter offer of $77, Added Mayfair and Bid $65 Rejected

After reading some previous posts I realized that I could have saved my counteroffer if I hadn't added the 2nd zone and closed out of the browser.

I'm guessing that the counter offer is for Holiday Inn Bloomsbury. I was wondering if there's any way of determining this to some degree of probability (without actually accepcting the bid)?

Any thoughts??

Thanks,

Ozgirl

[thereuare]

Short Answer:

No, you can't.

Longer Answer:

The Holiday Inn is priced close to where we typically see bids accepted near the price of the counter-offer, but since you bid this with the Mayfair zone, you can't even be sure that the counter-offer hotel is in the Bloomsbury Marble Arch zone.

[ozgirl]

Hi,

I deceided to add The City - Financial District zone to my bid and bid $70. This offer was rejected, so I added Bloomsbury and bid $75.

Got my hotel!

Details are :-

THISTLE TOWER

Check-In Date:Sunday, May 21, 2006

Check-Out Date:Saturday, May 27, 2006

Your Offer Price: $75.00

Number of Rooms: 2

Number of Nights: 6

Subtotal: $900.00

Taxes and Service Fees: $176.90

Total Charges: $1,076.90

The reviews for this hotel vary from excellent to terrible. It's supposed to be going through a facelift and has being changed to a Guoman. But the location is good so I'm happy.

Something happened during the bidding process that was a bit weird - the priceline system went down as I put my offer of $75 and I couldn't see what had happened to it. I finally called priceline and was e-mailed the details.

I'm not too worried or fussed about the 2 night stay 4-6 June so I will continue bidding low and see what happens.

Thanks to willtavel and everyone else who helped out.

Ozgirl

PS used Savingsbarn link

[thereuare]

Glad you got this large part of your stay taken care of.

This property appears to be in priceline's (The City-Financial District)... can you confirm that this is correct.

Thanks for starting your bids using the PRICELINE links at SavingsBarn.com

Have a great trip.

[ozgirl]

Hi thereuare,

Thanks! Yes it is in the The City-Financial District zone.

I will post my bids for the second part of my stay in time.

Thanks,

Ozgirl