Priceline Hotel: 4* Orange County (Disneyland-Garden Grove) Hyatt Regency Orange County

[Sun Devil]

Hyatt Regency Orange County - $95/night/room, 2 rooms - 3/17/11 - 3/20/11

Going to Disneyland with family of 7. Wanted to stay in a 3.5* or 4* near Disneyland. So I had two zones, Disneyland Anaheim (preferred) and Disneyland Orange Garden Grove that were acceptable. I'd seen wins from $43-$86, but expected the high end on a busy weekend and with only 9 days advance purchase. Started with a single zone 5 bid at $50. With 4 rebid zones, I had about 15 rebids, so I bid mostly in 3 dollar increments per the chart below with A=zones 5 and 6, B=zone 1, C=8, D=9, E=11. Here were my bids: 50, 55, 58, 61, 64, 67, 70, 73, 76, 79, 82, 85, 88, 95.

Bid up to $95 and won the Hyatt. Great hotel. :)

Looking for analysis of my strategy (Monday morning quarterbacking):

- first: I am wondering if I should have played the Garden Grove zone as just another rebid zone (giving myself 30 rebid zones), but thought that since both zones were acceptable, I ought to keep both in every bid but the first bid. Any thoughts on that strategy? Maybe more is just more at some point. Even if I'd gone in $1 increments, the most I could have saved would have been $18 total over how this played out.

-second: I was ok with 4* or 3.5* Should I have worked that into the bidding strategy? e.g. starting with 4* and then transitioning to 3.5* at some point? Again, it seemed that strategy might give me one or more extra rebids, but have more drawbacks than plusses.

SunDevil

With attribution to SmilingBoy Sep 7, 2008 post (modified to 4 rebid zones). Again, I think these permutation charts [for 2, 3, 4, and 5 rebid zones] should be a front page button on the betterbidding website:

... to get most free rebids you have to restart your browser a lot more often (actually after almost every bid with a few exceptions when you go to one more zone) and do

A

AB

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AC

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AD

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AE

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ABC

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ABD

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ABE

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ACD

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ACE

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ADE

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ABCD

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ABCE

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ABDE

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ACDE

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ABCDE

So with 4 rebid zones you can get up to 15 rebids.

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your success!

Nicely done! Hope you're happy with the results and this property works well for your plans.

As far as your fine tuning your strategy goes... it really depends upon your needs/wants for the stay. Whether you should have included 3.5* in your bidding depends if you were willing to pay more for a 4* vs. a 3.5* OR if your goal was the least expensive 3.5* or better for this stay.

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

Enjoy your stay.