Priceline Hotel: 4* Chicago (Greater Chicago) Hyatt Regency at McCormick Place

[WeekendWarrior]

have used Priceline before with success. this time have had difficulty landing anything in Chicago 4* for 6/11 and 6/12......

is there something going on that weekend and hotel rooms have limited availability?

can you please suggest a strategy....

we love to stay in the loop - grant park-millenium park area..........

[thereuare]

There is a half marathon taking place over these dates, expected attendance of ~10K, but not sure if that is what is driving up rates for these dates or not.

How high have you already bid? Are you also bidding the NMA-River North zone or only the Loop?

Please use the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your travel purchases.

[WeekendWarrior]

thanks for the tip on the half marathon. that makes sense. i went to the marathon website and see the participating hotels. i wonder how long they'll hold those rooms blocked before they will take the block off and make those rooms available.

i have bid on NMA-River North as well as the Loop............i think my top bid so far was $92.00.........

we have won bids before in the Loop for prices in the $60's, $70's, and 80's .....so it seems odd that a $90 something bid won't fly..............

i notice the race is on a Sunday.

[thereuare]

we have won bids before in the Loop for prices in the $60's, $70's, and 80's .....so it seems odd that a $90 something bid won't fly...

Not if there is an event taking place (ie- marathon or something else in addition) which is driving up demand for hotel prices. For example, one of the biggest conventions in Chicago takes place in the next few days... look at Chicago rates for 5/22-5/25. It all comes down to supply vs. demand.

Please use the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your travel purchases.

[WeekendWarrior]

i am using your PRICELINE link and have continued to bid daily. have gone as high as $110.00 for a 3.5 star, and up to $85.00 for 3 star. Have bid on areas, mp, rna, hp, gc, and i think skokie. still getting rejected. will continue to check priceline and hotwire. i am getting the email price drop alerts on hotwire. we want to be near lake shore blvd........within downtown area.........really do not want to have to go west to the suburbs because of the traffic.

[AaronJB]

Not sure if you are familiar with the area, but in terms of bidding for Evanston/Skokie, that is a suburban area to the North of the city - it's about a 30 minute or so train ride from downtown. Prices for that area are generally cheaper than downtown, as well.

Thank you for using the site's HOTWIRE or PRICELINE links to start your purchases and searches., as well as for keeping us updated.

[pfosz]

I would also recommend moving north a bit, and I have a post about a winning bid for $45 in the Evanston area, at the Hilton Orrington Hotel, for 6/11 - 6/14. It is a 3.5* and being familiar with the area, I can tell you there is the Chicago EL Red Line stop in Evanston that can get you to the Loop/Downtown or there is the Metra (Union Pacific North) that can get you downtown as well.

Oh and by the way, Blues Festival, Half-Marathon, and the Cubs are playing the White Sox...I made it to $100 in the downtown areas before I stopped bidding.

Good Luck!

[WeekendWarrior]

pfosz, thanks for the heads up. i knew about the half-marathon but not the blues festival and the cubs game. we are plotting a new strategy......will hold off on the skokie evanston area for now and keep watching the room counts in the downtown areas. if the downtown areas continue to be more than we're willing to pay, we'll bid to the north (evanston, skokie) and to the western suburbs. we'll try our best to be patient as there still might be some movement away from the higher prices in the last week before our trip. i suspect there are some major blocks on some of the rooms and that those might be removed at some point. i might put in a reservation for a place out west to be on the safe side. thanks everyone for your help ! i'd really love to end up near grant park with the blues festival there :)

[WeekendWarrior]

didn't mean to say "room counts"........was meaning number of hotels with available rooms on PRICELINE.......and HOTWIRE.....for those dates.

[WeekendWarrior]

Woo Hoo ! I checked both PRICELINE and HOTWIRE this morning. i noticed that HOTWIRE had a 4 star mccormick place for $99.00 and so i bid on PRICELINE and won the bid for $79.00.

i think i bid as follows:

i started out, i think, with mp at $51.00 and keeping the 4 stars, added neighborhoods, nma and greater chicago. had gone $51.00 to $63.00 and then jumped to $79.00 as I was anxious to get bid won since i was pretty sure it was going to be the Hyatt Regency at McCormick Place. This is actually an ideal location for us (traffic wise) to be as we will be going back and forth to Hyde Park (the main reason for our visit).

Thanks for everyone's help !

it really pays to check HOTWIRE and PRICELINE daily. i had started a spreadsheet, noting separately the downtown hotels and the 4 star downtown hotels.

[AaronJB]

Congratulations on your success.

Sweet deal for this Hyatt property, and glad to hear that the location will work out well for your plans.

Thank you for sharing your result with the board and using the site's PRICELINE link.

Enjoy your stay.