Priceline Hotel: 3.5* San Antonio (Downtown-Riverwalk) Wyndham St. Anthony

[Heidi A]

I booked our hotel on priceline.com and did name your own price. I wanted San Antonio, Riverwalk, 3 star or better, july 1-5, 2010, and I bid $100. I won! I was super excited! That was in Sept., 2009. Three days ago (6/14/10) I was informed by Priceline that there are renovations at the hotel and we have been moved to a 2 star hotel 13 miles away. We can accept it or cancel the trip and get our money back. I called the hotel and they said they are NOT doing renovations. I have been battling with priceline for 3 days with priceline because I NEED to be near the Riverwalk. I CAN NOT be 13 miles away. too bad is the response I get. There are no longer ANY hotels left in that town for that weekend unless we want to pay $300 per night (3 days ago there were still some for under $200,,,,but now there is nothing). This was NOT our mistake, error or fault. But now my vacation is TOTALLY ruined! priceline SUCKS!

[Gallus50]

Heidi - I feel your pain, but the powers that be at BB are not going to be thrilled about your post. It sounds like PL is not behaving honorably, but also, it is not honorable to only join a forum like this simply to complain when you have never contributed a post of PL wins.

This is a community, of sorts. And when you contribute, you get a lot more sympathy. This from someone who has helped out many, and been helped by a select few in return.

So good luck with this. Wish I had more to offer.

[Heidi A]

Sorry, I guess I should have added that I have never used PL before...so I have/had no experience to share prior to this....and I am now quiet gun shy so I don't know that I will have anything to post after this. Perhaps this was not the venue to share a warning/negative encounter? I searched on-line to find a place to warn people and this seemed to be the best option from what I could find. If you have a better suggestion I would be more than happy to delete my post and post it on another site so people are not blind sided by this kind of thing.

Heidi A

[Heidi A]

After feeling a bit of shame by the response to my post I looked further into the site to see some other "complaints" and am noticing that people are being asked to "post their wins"...even after the fact. I am happy to do that (with a disclaimer about my most recent experience attached, of course) but not sure where to post a "win". Could someone direct me?

I think I found the right place. I will now go and post my "win".

Heidi

[warsad]

After feeling a bit of shame by the response to my post I looked further into the site to see some other "complaints" and am noticing that people are being asked to "post their wins"...even after the fact. I am happy to do that (with a disclaimer about my most recent experience attached, of course) but not sure where to post a "win". Could someone direct me?

I think I found the right place. I will now go and post my "win".

Heidi

Hello and welcome to the site. Just click on the Priceline and Howire Fourm and then click on the state of Texas and post your results.

Thank you in advance for post and Sorry again for your bad ordeal with PRICELINE. However, dont be stop using the priceline site b/c of this. B/c I promise you you can get some amazing deals via PRICELINE.

WarSad

[Colfax]

Sorry, I guess I should have added that I have never used PL before...

You had REALLY bad luck, Heidi A, that you were walked (not only walked, but walked and downgraded) the first time you used Priceline. That hardly ever happens. I've been using Priceline for years now---hundreds of hotel nights---and I've never been walked once. What happened to you isn't really "normal" for Priceline but I can certainly understand why you'd be reluctant to try Priceline again. I would too.

I just saw your post for the 3.5* Wyndham St Anthony (the hotel that walked you) in the Texas board. Just so you know who to blame it was the St Anthony that cancelled your reservation, not Priceline.

When this happens Priceline will try to walk you to another hotel of the same quality or higher in the same zone, if possble. If everythng's sold out they can't.

Which hotel did Priceline walk you to? If it's rated lower than 3.5* on Priceline I think you're entitled to a full refund if you want it, because you no longer are getting what you paid for---a 3.5* hotel. You'll still have to find another place though.

In your other post you mentioned several couples bid these date on Priceline independent of each other and they all won the St Anthony. Were all the reservations cancelled or just yours?

[Gallus50]

Hey Heidi - Sorry if I sounded unwelcoming. You seem sincere and I don't think your post was inappropriate. It's just better to add the positive along with the negative. Posting your win will do that. I also understand now how you searched the web for a proper place to share your tale.

That being said, I'm very confused and surprised about what happened with you. In years of PL and HW, I've never heard a story like this one. I'm also surprised they're not trying to do more to help you. Perhaps Thereuare or Aaron JB will chime in with some wisdom ...

[yellowdog]

Heidi A

Welcome to BetterBidding.

Sorry to hear this :)

The best advice i can give you is to try to get pass the regular CS and speak to someone at a higher level. We have seen good endings on problems when the customer reach someone at higher level.

Since you can get your money back would i do this and go with the HOTWIRE option since inventory is very slim for your dates.

Good luck.

Yellowdog.

PS. I have edit and moved your threads.

[Heidi A]

Thanks for putting this in the appropriate place Yellow Dog! I really appreciate your diligence to this site.

Okay, here's the latest on this. I have tried for several hours (over several days) to talk to someone beyond CR but to no avail. So I ended up booking directly with a hotel (the Omni San Antonio Hotel for a convention price of $134 per night) and was able to cancel my booking with PL for a full refund (my card has not yet been refunded but I have no reason to believe it won't be). All the couples were relocated and all the couples are receiving full refunds from PL. My issue with them was not the relocation, it was WHERE I was relocated....13 miles away from my original choice. And there WERE more hotels available on the site. They were more money, but I told them I would be happy to pay the difference and they wouldn't do it (p.s something similar happened w/ HW last year in NYC and they put me in the same area in a hotel w/ more stars). They said I could cancel and then go back in and re book....which I tried to do but by the time I got confirmation from all the couples that they were okay with paying more money the rooms were all gone (there is a convention of about 70,000 people in town that week-end....EVERYTHING is booked). As I said in another post, I have used HW before and had really positive experiences (and also like I said in this other post, I will try to go back into my emails from last year and find how much I paid and where and all that and post it. This site is AMAZING!!). And I know my gun shyness will evaporate over time....but I can't see myself using PL again. HW, yes. But not PL. It's like if I ate bad shrimp and got super super super, emergency room sick from it. Yes, its an isolated incident...but it's going to be awhile before I eat shrimp again..and there is NO WAY I am eating it from THAT restaurant again....even though it probably would never happen again. Know what I mean?

Heidi A

[Heidi A]

Yellow Dog,

Yesterday I posted the exact details of my PL bidding for the St. Anthony Historic hotel in San Antonio, TX but I don't see it here anymore. Did you think it was not a good post? If so, no problem. Just wondering where it went.

Heidi A

[yellowdog]

Heidi A

I moved and edit this post to get some structure and to be your main thread for the St. Anthony since this was your first post. Otherwise would we have two threads with the same discussion. If you feel that any information should be added to this so please post in this thread. There was nothing wrong with your other post. I belive that the problem is that i made a misstake and lost some information on the way. I might have deleted your post insted of merging it without thinking, sorry for that :)

Yellowdog.

PS. I just want to add that this was an isolated incident and i understand your feelings. But you shouldn't be shy to use PRICELINE again. Things happens but things also go wrong with regular bookings. Great to see that everything is sortd out with PRICELINE

[Colfax]

Yesterday I posted the exact details of my PL bidding for the St. Anthony Historic hotel in San Antonio, TX but I don't see it here anymore. Did you think it was not a good post? If so, no problem. Just wondering where it went.

I'm glad you got this fixed, Heidi A, and with full refund. I'm not familiar with these hotels but maybe you'll like Omni more that what you had? (I know it costs more too.)

I do think one of your posts got deleted. I saw something that's not here now. I responded to you in #6 above...

In your other post you mentioned several couples bid these date on Priceline independent of each other and they all won the St Anthony. Were all the reservations cancelled or just yours?

....and I was responding then to something that's gone now...a post about your reservation being one of several, a group travelling together who all won the same hotel on independent reservations, at various prices. I didnt notice anything wrong with your post, personally...it was an interesting and unusual story.....I don't always have the full picture of what's going on but I speculate your post might have been deleted by accident, during the merge of two different threads.

I was still wondering about the group...did the St Anthony cancel all the reservations? If you answer and it get's deleted again...I don't know what to say.

[Heidi A]

Yellow Dog said he edited my 2 posts to become one and in that process some of the info got lost....no big woop :)

What I had said was that first my husband and I bid for $100 per night and won, then we called 3 other couples to see if they wanted us to try and get them rooms and they did. So our next bid was for $90 and won, then $80 and won, then $75 and won!! Who knew. To be honest, the first time we bid at $100 I thought it was a long shot, so I was shocked when $75 came through.

But all's well that ends well. I have found peace with it now :o

And I do think I will like the Omni hotel better than the St. Anthony (the St. Anthony rooms are about the size of a NYC hotel...tiny!). It was more the location I was worried about. But the convention we are attending has set up a revolving shuttle with the city and it passes our new hotel every 15 minutes....so as long as I can get downtown and back anytime I want for free...works for me :)

Heidi A

[my3kids]

Heidi A; The Omni is a MUCH better hotel and certainly worth the extra $30 a night or so. It is right on the water and in a far better area than the Wyndham. I got the St. Anthony on a bid when other things were booked. I think I got it for 40 something, but not sure. It was fine and I thought it was a good place. But it is not nearly as nice as being right on the Riverwalk.