Priceline Hotel: 4* Philadelphia (Downtown) Sofitel

[trvl3]

thereuare, I notice that in the past you've taken the Saturday night indicator out of my topic descriptions. I wish you'd rethink that policy, as we who are frequent Saturday night bidders are well aware that prices for hotels whose clientele are predominantly weekend getawayers are likely to be radically different for Saturday night only than for stays involving weeknights, while the reverse is often true for hotels whose clientele are predominantly business travelers It would help us to be able to pick out Saturday night bids as we scan the topics.

For instance, any other night of the week I probably would have gotten the Hyatt Regency Penns Landing, which seems to be the Philadelphia 4* most often won by far, for much less $ than this. And it was my first choice in this case. But I think because of its location, of the Downtown 4*'s it is probably the one least poular with business travelers and most popular with weekend tourists. Anyway, for the night in question the Sofitel was showing $169 at their web site and the Hyatt Regency $229.

I bid up to $127 for a 4* without success, using all but one free rebid area, but with rejection at $127 Priceline offered me a rebid without any changes if I went up to $149. I tried $138 but it came back to tell me I had to bid $149 under the terms of the free rebid offer.

I realize that instead of taking the offer, I could have added my remaining free area and bid $138, and maybe have received another free rebid offer from them if that was rejected. But in this instance it happened to be really important to me to get a 4*, to get it for this particular night, and to nail it down tonight. So I went up to their $149 and got the Sofitel.

Although what I wanted was the Hyatt Penn's Landing at a lower rate, given the market conditions that seem to prevail for this particular evening, I am satisfied with the outcome. In this case, the true 4* level of luxury it sounds like, from the reviews, my companion and I will be able to count on at the Sofitel, was more important than being on the Historic/Waterfront side of Downtown. Had the reverse been true, though, I would have abandoned Priceline and gone to Hotwire, where you can specify that side of downtown, and what looks like it is probably the Sheraton Society Hill is available at $111.

[thereuare]

Thanks for sharing your winning bid and history with the board.... as well as the feedback on the topic titles.

I think my own point of view is that i prefer things to be consistent... as you can see just about every topic title of a won hotel follows the exact same format (and it's not like that because users type them that way! :) ) If we left the designation of Saturday bids, it would be 'ok', if everyone followed that same format, as these bids would be easily recognized and bids which showed no day of the week would be assumed to be non-Saturday nite stays. However, this assumption would be incorrect as it is not likely that everyone who wins for a Saturday nite would mark their post as such, and therefore it would create more confusion.

Although i do see the benefit that it would bring to you, i question just how many users are 'sole saturday bidders' (i'm not saying that most aren't... i really don't know the answer). So is this a situation that affects a large number of users?

I think i have a pretty good handle on which zones have Saturday nite stay problems and users are always encouraged to ask for assistance on an upcoming stay.

So that's my take on it, but as with almost everything else on the board, i'm open to hearing other opinions and thoughts.

Thanks again for your post and sharing your thoughts/comments with the board.