Priceline Hotel: 4* London (Chelsea-Knightsbridge) Millennium Chelsea Football Club

[vanpoodle]

Initially I was bidding for 2 rooms 8 nights from Nov 5-13. I went up to $105 over the course a few weeks in August for Kensington, Notting Hill, Regents Park, Bloomsbury, Mayfair. Then in mid-September (I took a break), in order to accommodate a family member, I thought I'd split it to 2-3-3 nights with the middle 3 being for 3 rooms.

I have posted my wins in Notting Hill for Nov 5 & 6 ($84) and Nov 11,12,13 ($83), both at the Hilton Hyde Park.

The middle 3 are proving tougher. I bid a few times a week and have slowly been creeping higher, am now up to $119 without even a counteroffer appearing. I have been bidding (using your PRICELINE link) on Kensington, Notting Hill, Regents Park, Bloomsbury, Mayfair. But then they changed the Hilton Olympia to a 4*, so I've now decided that I'll stop bidding on Kensington past $100 (I'd be content with Kensington's less desired hotels below $100 only -- the more I pay the pickier I get) and have added Westminster and the City and London Bridge into the mix after looking at what is on the hotel lists and the PL retail side and I figure that most of those would be acceptable. My preference would be Notting Hill, Regents Park, Bloomsbury, Mayfair. I'm not bidding Chelsea/Knightsbridge because there are a few too many hotels in the mix that are too difficult to get to and from.

I've also tried bidding for a 5* and went up to $161 for Notting Hill, Bloomsbury, Westminster, Mayfair and Regents Park. I reckoned that if it ends up that I can snag one for not much more than a 4* I'd give it a whirl. I won't go lower than 4* for London.

World Travel Market is on those dates so I'm wondering if that has anything to do with the hotel market tightening up. In looking at other booking sites I'm finding that overall things are fairly expensive for those nights. I have a cancellable Hilton Euston booked as backup at GBP199 a night, so basically, I'll keep bidding until I get within range of that or whatever non-cancellable deals I find on the internet closer to departure. I'm just looking to get the best deal I can at this point, I did very well for 5 nights below $85, so we've just got these 3 more expensive ones to get. I've got lots of time so I'm slowly creeping higher with my bids and not rushing it.

[thereuare]

Have you checked HOTWIRE at all for these dates and the number of rooms you need? It may cost a little more than PRICELINE, but may give you the ability to choose one of the zone(s) you may otherwise be excluding if you can be 'reasonably' sure that it's not one of the hotels you're trying to avoid (ie- if the hotel you're trying to avoid doesn't have a Pool, you can 'safely' purchase any hotel showing a Pool icon and know that it's not a hotel you're trying to avoid)

Thanks for using the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board.

[vanpoodle]

Thanks for the idea -- there's a Chelsea/Knightsbridge/Battersea area 4* (80% recommend) with just gym, restaurant, business centre and internet for $153 but not enough info to identify I'm guessing. Kensington-Earls Court 4* $175 (with no recommendation info) with the exact same amenities. The zones are so big, the eastern half would be a great location but if I got anything in the western half I'd be out in the sticks.

Regent's Park 4* for $319 (same icons plus no smoking icon), Mayfair 4-1/2* for $436. Those prices aren't fantastic, though with the exchange the Regent's Park would be $10 less than the Hilton I've got as backup.

[thereuare]

The Chelsea/Knightsbridge/Battersea property has not yet been reported to the board. The Kensington-Earls Court description matches multiple properties, but unfortunately, one of them is the Hilton Olympia, which i think is why we went down this road in the first place.

Keep us updated on your progress and let us know if we can be of further help along the way.

Thanks for using the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board.

[vanpoodle]

Thanks for looking into those Hotwire listings. Oddly, those were the only hotels on Hotwire today. Nothing in any of the other zones at all, just those 4 hotels listed with 4* or more. Not sure if I should be concerned yet that I may need to pay close to regular retail prices (gulp). I had another round of PL bidding today and went up to $124, still no sign of even a counteroffer. I'll still have faith and only inch up slowly in the bidding.

[thereuare]

Still plenty of time, but i think you're still a bit under retail rates.

Thanks for using the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board.

Good luck and keep us updated.

[vanpoodle]

I spent some more time on this. I re-read about using re-bids. I hadn't realized PL would consider adding the re-bid zones together as an additional bid, I thought I was more restricted than that. Previously, I'd manage about 25 bids using combinations of the re-bid zones plus zones I'd already bid on. I learned that with all the combinations I could squeeze out 31 bids at a session (but oh boy a whole lot of browser closing and re-entry of details!). In $1 increments today (of course using the PRICELINE link) I went from $115 to $145 with Notting Hill, Bloomsbury, Regents Park and Mayfair.

Still nada, zip, zero, not even a counteroffer. I appear to still be well below retail rates, even our "favourite" Copthorne Tara is at $261 at a site which emailed me to say it had a special 24 hour deal on hotels. So in the short term I'll inch a bit higher on my bids. Not sure though whether to lay off and start again later at a lower level hoping that rates may come down a bit closer to our stay or whether to just keep going like I have been (or if availability tightens up and could therefore end up at a crazy guest house out by the airport or the like because there's nothing else...). Would love some advice if anyone has any wisdom to share.

Budget really isn't the issue (we'll pay what we need to pay, though certain family members were really hoping I could keep my brilliant PL streak of less than $100 a night going!), I want something that's a decent enough price below retail to make it worth my while to be "surprised" with where we'll be staying, if that makes sense. I just haven't seen many posts for 4* that are much higher than where I've gotten to in bidding in quite some time, so I seem to have hit some nasty dates. I had also made bids on Kensington, City, Islington, Westminster and Chelsea up to $105 just in case there was a deal there. I'm not as crazy about those zones, but if something cheap were available there I'd deal with the hassle. Hotwire appears to have VERY slim pickings for those dates.

[thereuare]

Given the 'sale price' for the Copthorne Tara is $261/nite, i think this is a good indication that these dates are higher then usual and therefore will require a higher then usual bid to be successful. Whether to raise your bid now or wait it out and hope for lower prices in the weeks ahead (with the risk that they continue even higher) can't be determined, but for a further discussion on this subject see the related 'Bid Early or Close to Check-in' link in our PRICELINE FAQ.

Keep us updated and let us know if we can be of further help along the way.

Thanks for using the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board..

[vanpoodle]

Bid on 5* up to 178 this morning with no success. I had talked to someone last night in the travel industry who pointed out that I was there at the heart of "WTM", which he is travelling to London for. Apparently this has 30,000 attendees and fills up the O2 arena. He reckoned that I should just keep bidding higher because the cancellation date had already passed about 7 weeks prior and the excess rooms should have already been released, rates not likely to go down prior to the event.

Then later on this morning I was playing with the map function that shows all the prices of the hotels on a map for the nights I was looking at. Everything was $280 or higher in all the areas I was looking at. Except I noticed that the Millennium at Chelsea Football showed $172 on its little flag. It was very close to the tube in zone 2 so I decided to try to go for that one if I could get it cheaply enough since $145 wasn't doing it for a 4* where I wanted to be. Had reasonable tripadvisor reviews.

Started biddiing at $95, increased in $2 increments with rebids (the usual 2, plus I decided that at that price I could also use Mayfair, Westminster and Regents Park since I'd had no luck with those up to $145) to $105, then $1 increments to $110 where I got my first counteroffer of $141. Kept going with rebids $1 at a time and was accepted at $120 at the Millennium at Chelsea Football Club, also with $2 bonus cash from my Entertainment Book. 3 Rooms. My mother has now asked me to book another room at the hotel for 2 of the nights for her brother. Am working on that now and will keep you posted. (of course used the PRICELINE link as instructed with bonus cash)

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your success!

Glad to see you saw the lower pricing for this property and were successful in landing a great deal for these busy dates.

Thank you for using the PRICELINE links on the board to begin your bidding and for sharing your win, helping us add this property to the Priceline Hotel List.

Enjoy your stay.

[vanpoodle]

You do have this property on the hotel list, actually I think you have it listed twice, one just as "Millennium Copthorne Chelsea" and the other with its full name. In further review and scouring the boards, sounds like most bids in the Chelsea zone will end up at this property since its rates are quite a bit lower than anything comparable likely due to being quite a ways west. But it's next door to the tube and the reviews are positive. So best to keep in mind when people are looking for bidding strategies -- unless there is a game being played next door this one goes for quite a bit less and be wary of the possibility of overbids.

Also, lots of good posts about whether to bid sooner or just before the stay -- the link you pointed me to pointed me to another more in-depth discussion. Sounds like the majority goes with "as soon as possible, earlier is usually cheaper". I will keep monitoring the boards to see if anyone else reports for those nights, very curious to see if the prices show any sign of relief! I started this in August (4 months prior) for 8 nights in a row with nothing up to $105 before I took a break and ended up splitting to accommodate family and I think that was very fortuitous. And then your site had this great re-bidding table for 6 zones that I had on one monitor and followed step-by-step with each bid I made on the other monitor -- I was really glad to discover it amongst the postings. But ugh, the Tara at $261 -- you know it's bad when....

[thereuare]

You do have this property on the hotel list, actually I think you have it listed twice, one just as "Millennium Copthorne Chelsea" and the other with its full name.

FIXED... thanks!