Priceline Hotel: Melbourne

[Jesper]

Hi

I have been trying for some time to bid for Melbourne, Australia for 10/27/11-10/31/11 - went as far as 130 for 5* - all rejected.

Is it too early for bidding that far away or is my bids just too low?

Thanks for any help.

Jesper

[yellowdog]

Please provide a follow-up for your prior Rio thread (post in that thread what you decided for that stay), then reply to this thread and we'll be happy to look into the above.

Yellowdog.

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

[Jesper]

I did - any feedback on Melbourne would be great. Thanks

[thereuare]

We have only seen one 5* hotel reported in this zone and for your dates that property is currently selling for ~$300/nite, so while it's not known if rates will come down between now and your stay, i suspect that at the moment your bids are not high enough. In fact, your currently failed bids are more inline with what we typically see accepted at the 4* level.

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

[Jesper]

Hi

Thanks you for the answer. I've raised my bid to 170$ - the adding 4* - and went 130 without any luck. I will try agian tomorrow.

[Jesper]

Hi

Thanks you for the answer. I've raised my bid to 170$ - the adding 4* - and went 130 without any luck. I will try agian tomorrow.

Unsuccessful Melbourne Oct.27- Oct.31, 2011.

Have been bidding up to 200$ for a 5* - no luck. Added a 4* and went as far as 140 - still no luck.

Have heard from a hotel that a Spring Race is going on from the 29th. of Oct - so that may be the reason.

I close the bidding with this message.

Jesper

[Romelle]

HOTWIRE has Melbourne 4* hotels for your 4 nights at 120, 146, 184, and 170. Averaging 150. Probably different hotels since it switched back and forth between opaque and non-opaque. When I try all four nights at once I get 152.

This does suggest splitting your PRICELINE bid, if you are willing to move during your stay. One approach would be to do the first two nights first, and then the second two. Starting back maybe about 110 for the first two nights since Hotwire tends to be more expensive than PRICELINE.

The other thing is that you have some seven months to go. Maybe bid only up to what you feel is reasonable at this time? It is possible the hotels just haven't given "unsold" inventory to PRICELINE yet? And it is never a bad idea to make a cancelable reservation.

I didn't do any analysis on 5*s, but am guessing the conclusions would be similar.

Romelle

[Jesper]

Hi Romelle,

Thanks for the info, but the 4* Hotwire - seems to be way out of town - and we wanted to stay downtown.

After checking most of the interesting hotels in Melbourne - a lot of them are already sold out - do to the Spring Race weekend. So

we booked an ordinary hotel.

regards Jesper

[thereuare]

So we booked an ordinary hotel.

Thanks for closing this thread with your decision.

Please note from our support page that we have links to most of the major online booking services and hotel chains, please check for and use the links there for your hotel direct purchases whenever possible.

Thanks, have a good trip.

[Jesper]

Thanks -i was not aware of the support page - i will use it from now on.