Hotwire Hotel: 3* Chicago (Mag Mile-Streeterville) Holiday Inn Mart Plaza

[trey33]

One night tomorrow, August 4.

3 star $75.00 per night. Magnificent Mile Area - Streeterville

3 1/2 star $92.00 North Michigan Avenue - Water Tower - Gold Coast area Hotel

4 star $134 per room per night : North Michigan Avenue - Water Tower - Gold Coast area Hotel 95% recommend (this is the best recommendation, is that a good clue?)

4 star: $143

per room per night: Magnificent Mile Area - Streeterville area Hotel

Can you identify any of these for me? We will have a car, do all the hotels charge for them? It does not tell how much it is on hotwire but I know from looking it can be around 45.00, which makes the 75.00 closer to my price range if I have to pay an additional 45.00 at the 134.00 hotel.

Which hotel area would be closer to the Abercrombie or Niketown? That is the area we will be going after a Cubs game. This is a mom and her 15 year old son. Looking for school cloths and just plain looking, heading to outlet malls in the morning where hopefully we will do more buying than looking. Is there anything fun to do with a 15 year old after the stores close downtown in this area?

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me.

Connie

[trey33]

It looks like I missed the $75.00 hotel. The $134.00 and $139.00 are left, can anyone tell me which of these areas are closer to the stores, I am hoping to avoid taking my car.

Thanks again.

Magnificent Mile Area - Streeterville area Hotel 139.00 4 star 80% rating

North Michigan Avenue - Water Tower - Gold Coast area Hotel 134.00 4 star 95% rating

Will the $75.00 hotel possible come back?

[AaronJB]

Welcome to Betterbidding and Good Afternoon.

Please provide the amenities that are showing with the listings so that we can ID them. The $75 hotel will probably not come back, unfortunately, as the coming weekend is going to be busy and there may be people coming in before that.

A few different points:

1. You note that you will be heading to the outlet malls - are you looking to head to the outlet malls to the North (Gurnee Mills, the Premium Outlet in Kenosha just off the expressway for example) or some of the outlet malls to the SW? The Premium Mall off the expressway in Kenosha is right near the Brat Stop and Mars Cheese Castle, two Wisconsin institutions. Vernon Hills, which is to the North of Chicago, has multiple malls - I often call it "Vernon Malls". That may also be a place to consider looking, and then Gurnee Mills is about 10 mi. North of Vernon Hills, then the Kenosha Mall is just over the border.

2. Parking is generally $35-45 at most city hotels, although some are over $50. Main city lots (Navy Pier, Millennium Park) are generally $25 but may be a bit of a walk from the hotel, depending.

3. If you stayed downtown (either South of the river in the Loop or North of it in the Michigan Ave/Mag Mile area), there's no need to drive anywhere (and it would only create a hassle). It's easily walkable, or there's public transit.

4. Staying in the suburbs (which 'burb would depend on which way you were coming in from and which malls you would be interested in going to) would be cheaper (possibly by quite a bit) for comparable hotels and offer free parking and a variety of restaurants and shopping. You could drive to the nearest Metra station and then take the train in. If you were planning to head to the outlet malls anyways, this would allow you easy flexibility to drive there and back without extra parking costs (as many lots downtown don't offer in/out privileges.) If you only needed one bed, you could use PRICELINE and try for something cheaper.

5. In terms of clothes shopping, keep in mind that the sales tax in Cook County (Chicago) is in the neighborhood of 9-10%. If you are able to do your clothes shopping in outlying countries, you can save a couple % on that.

Please use the site's HOTWIRE or PRICELINE links to start your purchases and searches.

[trey33]

Hi,

I did use your HOTWIRE link and got the Holiday Inn at merchant mart for 99.00 plus 34.00 for parking. The hotel was very nice and they let us check in at 10 am which was fantastic. It was too hot to walk to the mag mile from the hotel but took a taxi for 8.00 plus tip for two people which was well worth it. Thought we would try walking back but got lost and a homeless man helped us find out hotel, very nice guy and interesting. Bought him food and gave him the remainder of L ticket we were done with, it was well worth it too. After seeing all the hotels on the mag mile I would try to stay at one of them the next time so we could go and come from the high dollar stores with less stress. Only used the L tickets to go to Wrigley field but I would definately do that again, no idea it would be so easy! I drove to the game once, accidently parked where I should not have and my car was towed while at the game, spent $420.00 plus taxi plus a whole night at an impound with a small child trying to get it back. Then almost a year later I got a parking ticket in the mail. (this is called learning the hard way).

Thanks for your help and this great site!

Connie

PS Went to the outlet mall in Aurora, got some great deals.

[AaronJB]

Congrats on your success. :)

Nice deal for a busy night in Chicago - glad to hear you had a good stay and were able to take the "L" to Wrigley.

Very sorry to hear about your car getting towed previously! :)

Thank you for sharing your win and using the site's HOTWIRE link.