Priceline Hotel: 3* Orange County (Costa Mesa) Crowne Plaza

[carlos78]

this one took a while.

started with in irvine w/ 4* hotels selected

bid 25$ then rejected hoping for hyatt regency.

next 26$ with costa mesa added hoping for hyatt again.

next 27& with seal/huntington added hoping for " "

then 30 dollars with 3 star hotels added got crowne plaza.

this is going to be our first night together(honeymoon), because our apartment will not be available until after we leave for our honeymoon on sat 08/09/03 and we had already budgeted for the trip so this was an extra add on. we had been hoping to spend our first honeymoon night at home (new apartment).

(the story so far: two students getting married basically broke trying to enjoy a honeymoon up the california coast.)

how can i get the best room possible(better than what pl has assinged) at this hotel? any suggestions? i will follow thereuare's suggestion of joining crowne plaza's hotel membership and asking for a 1 king bed room any other tips? thanks alot. i am very grateful i found this forum.

[thereuare]

I adjusted your title to clarify that this hotel is in the Costa Mesa/SNA zone, if this is incorrect, please let me know.

The best advice is to follow the same procedure for the other hotels you have reserverd: join the affinity program, give them your membership number when you call to put in a bed request, while on the phone with them mention that it's your honeymoon, give them your membership card at check-in, work it into the conversation at check-in that you just got married and are on your honeymoon.

A final idea is about 2 weeks before arrival, send an email to the hotel manager along the lines of, "I will be arriving at your hotel for the first nite of my honeymoon. As this is a very important day for us and i'm sure we'll be tired after our wedding day, are there any special services available that might make this evening even more memorable for us?"

You may or may not get an email back that discusses some 'extras' (which cost money), but what you've basically done is notified the manager of the hotel that you're on your honeymoon and perhaps s/he will do something a little special for you (room upgrade, bottle champagne, etc.... none of this is required on their part or should be expected on yours, but if you get anything be thankful and attribute it to good customer relations and service)

One other thing for any future bidding you may do (or for others reading this). It probably didn't make too much of a difference in this case since your bidding was low to begin with, but when you lower your star rating, it's usually recommended to lower your bid amount also, not raise it. You can read more about this here: If you lower your quality level, lower your price

One additional tip... when you lowered your quality level to from 4* to 3*, i would have started completely over, only selecting Irvine, if rejected, add a zone, if rejected, add another zone. It seems like when you lowered your star rating you kept all the zones that had previously been selected from your failed 4* bids.

We're grateful you found this forum too, and are happy to have you here!

[carlos78]

thereuare,

great advice and, from i have read on other posts, members on this forum are awesome sources of information and techniques for getting the best deal.

thanks everyone.

edit- just called crowne plaza and requested and got the 1 king size bed, clerk didn't seem to be affected by it being my honeymoon. i will try the e-mail approach. also i offered to give my membership number for the affinity club but the clerk dissmissed it and asked for my last name.