Priceline Hotel: 3.5* Miami (Downtown) Marriott Biscayne Bay Hotel and Marina

[MissRabbit]

I am new to the board. This will also be my first time using Priceline, so I am understandably nervous lol.

I have looked at the list of hotels for the Ft. Lauderdale area as pinned above but ther are ALOT of different boundary areas. I've only been to Ft Lauderdale once (13 years ago) and have no idea what that difference is between these different areas. Could someone familiar with them please let me know which areas i should be focussing on when bidding on Priceline?

Here is my information:

Oct 30/10 - flying into FLL, late afternoon

Oct 30 - hotel in Ft Lauderdale

Oct 31 - taking SAS shuttle to POM for a 14 day cruise

Nov 14 - hotel in Ft Lauderdale

Nov 15 - flying out of FLL , early morning

Budget: Would like to stay under $100/night but willing to go higher if necessary.

Shuttles: Would prefer areas where FLL airport shuttles are included (or the taxi $$ not exhorbitant)

For the first hotel, we are arriving fairly late in the afternoon so we really only need a nice clean hotel to sleep in.

For the second hotel, we will be spending the entire day in Ft. Lauderdale (after disembarking that morning from the cruise) so we are looking to stay in an area of Ft. Lauderdale that is close to shopping, beaches or other places of interest to relax and spend the day while avoiding noisy crowds. (if at all possible). Oh, and a safe area to walk around in.

Of these Priceline Hotel areas, which should I focus on?

Fort Lauderdale (Airport FLL)

Fort Lauderdale (Beach)

Fort Lauderdale (Coral Springs)

Fort Lauderdale (Downtown)

Fort Lauderdale (Hollywood)

Fort Lauderdale (Miramar)

Fort Lauderdale (North)

Ft Lauderdale (Pompano Beach)

Fort Lauderdale (West Ft. Lauderdale - Plantation)

Thank you very much for your help and assistance. Once I know what area is best to focus on, I can research the heck out of the hotels and area.

Cheers.

Rabs.

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

Please use separate threads for each leg of your stay.

Generally speaking the Ft Lauderdale Downtown zone and Airport zone would work well for your plans.. with the Downtown zone likley have a better 'walking environment' for restaurants, etc. that nite. However, i would also consider staying in Miami... makes for an easier morning on embarkation day if you're closer to the port, imo. It's also a little protection should you have car trouble on the way to the port, forget something back at the hotel that you need to retrieve, etc.

You can use Hotels by the Pier.com to see the location of the ports and compare them to the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE zones.

Once you decide upon the zones let us know your desired star rating and we'll suggest a strategy for you to follow.

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

[MissRabbit]

thanks for replying. i assumed i'd be staying in Fort lauderdale both times, but there's nothing saying i can't stay in miami on the way down and Fort Lauderdale coming home. THank you for putting that bug in my ear lol.

question, for the fort lauderdale hotel, i've been looking at the Fort Lauderdale (beach) area. would that be super spendy $$$ for a taxi to the FLL airport?

and yes, when i finalize my plans, i'll make a separate thread for the two different hotel stays. thank you :)

[thereuare]

Shouldn't be too bad depending upon where in the zone you end up... from the middle of the Ft Lauderdale Beach zone to the Airport is about 5 miles so i can't imagine it being a 'fortune'. I looked at two of the hotels in this zone whose websites list it at ~$25. (a little higher than i would have thought given the distance, but i would use this figure as a guesstimate)

For future postings you can use this thread for the first leg of your stay and start a NEW TOPIC for the return post-cruise stay.

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

[MissRabbit]

Ok, plans are set, flights are booked and I'm ready to start bidding.

I have noticed that the FAQs on Priceline's page says that "name your own price" needs a US based credit card. Mine is Canadian. I've also read through the thread on the forums here about having to put your correct billing address in the US fields in a way that still gets all the info in, just in a US format. However most of the posts on there are fairly old. I was wondering if anyone knew of any current info as to how a Canadian goes about bidding on a hotel at Priceline.

Here is my info regarding what I would like to bid.

Information accurate as of 3:30pm PST Sunday July 4th, 2010

City: Miami

Zone: Downtown

check in: Oct 30,2010

check out: Oct 31,2010

1 Room

3.5* or higher

I've checked the priceline hotel list stickied here and looked up the prices i could get online on their websites. Here are their current prices:

4* Hyatt Regency Downtown $329.00

4* Inter-Continental $299.00

4* JW Marriott $219.00

3.5* Hilton $179.00

3.5* Marriott Biscayne Bay $139.00

Free-Rebid zones: nothing higher than 3***

Aventura

Dadeland

Miami West

North Miami

SouthWest Miami

Willing to bid:

4* up to $85

3.5* up to $70

I am leaning toward the 3.5* and would like to focus on that one, but if all else fails, I will be willing to bump up my **** rating and try for the 4* hotels.

[yellowdog]

MissRabbit

Please read this link: Priceline Non-US

Good luck with your bidding!

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

Yellowdog.

[MissRabbit]

Yellowdog. I did. that was the thread i was referring to when i said i had read it. But they are fairly old posts, with the newest info on there saying that Canadian addresses could be used which is no longer the case according to Priceline's FAQs. I was hoping there was some current info now that Priceline no longer accepts credit cards with Canadian billing addresses.

I just doublechecked Priceline's FAQs and i'm getting conflicting information: In one spot, it says:

"Name Your Own Price

[germangirl]

hello,

i'm not canadian, but I'm also not from the US. My german credit card and billing adress worked well in April (or May). I started bidding for our October vacation (no success yet) and until now logging in with my german card and adress still causes no problem so far.

Good luck! :)

[MissRabbit]

thank you. I was able to create a profile and input my CC information just fine so i'm hoping all goes well. Will be making my first bidding attempt tonight when hubby gets off work. I've read and read and read so i think i know what i'm doing now. I just hope i start off my bidding correctly. I think i might take it slow and not put in free rebid areas until i get the hang of it and feel more comfortable making bids.

[thereuare]

There was a time up until a few years ago where Canadians would have trouble bidding thru PRICELINE but this is no longer the case as they now allow Canadian bidding as well.

You have your re-bid zones correct at the 3.5* level (although you have one more at the 4* level)... although based upon current rates i think this may be a tough win at your maximum bids above. Using your re-bid zones and the parameters you've stipulated i'd bid as follows:

Select 3.5* Downtown...

Bid $55, if rejected add re-bid zone...

Bid $60, if rejected add re-bid zone...

Bid $63, if rejected add re-bid zone...

Bid $65, if rejected add re-bid zone...

Bid $68, if rejected add re-bid zone...

Bid $70

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

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[MissRabbit]

Thanks. I will definately be using the links through this board for my bidding.

As for my tough win on the 4* levels, I know it's set low and normally i would go higher, but i can currently get a 4* downtown hotel (intercontinental) over on lastminutetravel for $87. That is why my limit for 4* is what it is.

Thanks for the well wishes. Off i go!

[thereuare]

My bad... i was looking at Ft Lauderdale as per the topic title of this thread, although $70 for a 3.5* (or $85 for a 4*) in Ft Lauderdale would still be a very good deal for this nite.

Is the LMT property listed as "Available" or "On Request"?

[MissRabbit]

ruh roh. it says "On Request" I'm positive it used to say "Available." and i know folks were snatching them up.

so maybe they've run out of their allotted rooms?

I guess i'll have to keep checking back to see if the status changes. bummer :)

and yeah, originally i was going to go to Ft. Lauderdale, hence the subject line, but couldn't find a place to edit the subject once i switched to Miami. sorry.

I did an initial bid last night just to get my bidding legs under me. The $55 bid was denied. Does it depend on when you book too cause someone else has a 3.5* (biscayne bay) for the same night we'd be there, but they won that bid last december. I wonder if it's better to A)try again next week to see if $55 will be accepted like the other person's bid..or :) just go ahead and bid higher.

[thereuare]

I don't think you'll see the On Request/Available status change as they have a fixed number of rooms allocated to them... however, if you book they will contact the hotel to see if they can get more rooms at their negotiated price, then get back to you indicating if your reservation is confirmed or not available.

Hotels are constantly changing/updating their rates based upon the most current occupancy (supply vs. demand) levels at the hotel, taking into consideration the amount of time that is left to sell those rooms. There are lots of things which effect pricing (cruise ships embarking/disembarking on a given date, conventions, conference, etc) but here is a simple example (the numbers are made up for simplicity sake):

A hotel expects to only have a marginal number of bookings more than 10 months out... after that, they want to fill an extra 10% of the hotel every month. In other words, their goal (for an October stay):

pre-Jan -marginal occupancy

Jan - 25% occupancy

Apr - 50% occupancy

July - 75% occupancy

Oct - 100% occupancy

So let's say January comes and the hotel is only has 15% occupancy, they may offer hotels to the opaque providers at a deep discount in order to try to fill rooms to bring their occupancy levels up to 25%. They may take a large number of reservations (thru both opaque, 3rd party, and hotel direct sources) and by April they're at 65% occupancy, so they no longer offer any rooms at a deep discount. In July they're at 75% occupancy, exactly where they should be, so continue to not offer rooms at a deep discounted rates. However, in August they get a large number of cancellations, bringing their occupancy level down to 70%, so at this point they're now 'behind' their expectations and therefore once again make rooms available at discounted rates.

Taking the above into consideration, let us know your thoughts and we'll take it from there.

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

[MissRabbit]

that totally makes sense. When the other person bought and won the $55 room last December, they might have not expected many rooms to fill. But now, if they do have their expected booking (or more) they won't offer anything near that amount.

I have bid up to $65 so far with no success. So i think i'm going to hold off a bit and focus on getting my Seattle (return trip) hotel locked up. That one only had 1 free rebid zone so i'll have to do a little bidding every night to get there. And yes, once i win a bid there, i'll make a new thread over in the Washington State thread :)

Thank you for all your help. I do appreciate it.

[thereuare]

If you need any help with the Seattle leg of your stay feel free to ask (in a NEW TOPIC)

Thanks for using the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your purchases.

Good luck.

[MissRabbit]

FINALLY!!

tried 7 different bidding sessions (over several weeks) to get this. The time i'm staying happens to have alot going on so i had to up my bid considerably.

started at $52 and worked my way up. (other winning bids were $55 for same night but booked a year ago).

ended up at a winning bid of $93 + fees ($20.55). Total: $113.55

Current hotel price $159 ($179.67 inc. taxes) Total savings: $66.12

Oct 30th - Oct 31st

1 night, 2 people

3 1/2 * Miami Biscayne Bay Hotel & Marina

Bid: $93

[AaronJB]

Congrats on your success. :)

Persistence certainly paid off! Very nice deal for busy dates.

Thank you for sharing your win and please use the site's HOTWIRE or PRICELINE links to start your purchases and searches.

Enjoy your stay.

[BobC]

FYI - I won on priceline the Hyatt Place FLL Airport South for Oct 30 for $50 - It looks like a brand new hotel for a great price You might want to try for that on your return stay

Hyatt Place Fort Lauderdale Airport-South

Ft Lauderdale Airport (FLL)

91 Southwest 18th Avenue

Dania Beach, Florida 33004