Priceline Hotel: 4* London (Notting Hill - Bayswater) Hilton London Paddington

[Ra-Sewn]

...So after trying for a couple of weeks to get a 5 star hotel at about $165.00 a night in all the hot zones of Central London, I got impatient and lowered my star rating to a 4 star. Since I didn't want to get stuck in the Holiday Inn London-Regent Park, I didn't attempt to the Mayfair/Bloomsbury zone. Instead, I attempted to focus my search in the London Bridge/Vauxhall zone to no avail. I eventually tried a rebid in the Notting Hill zone and won @ $165 the Hilton London Paddington. In essence, I ended up getting the the room at $160 a night since Priceline sent me a 24 hour promo code to get $5 off every night of my stay. In total after taxes, the total charges came out to $810.72 instead of the $854+ my regular $165 max bids were coming out to. Maybe I should have waited a lil' closer to September, but with the Para Olympics going on that week, I didn't want to chance it. Apparently this hotel is in a prime transit location so I'm sure it'll be fine. But after seeing a couple board members get 5* hotels like the Intercontinental at the same rate a night, I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed. Priceline rate is $232 a night so a savings of $67 a night which is nothing to sneeze at.

[AaronJB]

Congrats on your success. :)

Definitely a nice win for a busy period. Please let us know if you have any questions regarding your Paris stay and what you decide.

Thank you for sharing your win and please use the site's PRICELINE or HOTWIRE links to start your purchases and searches.

Enjoy your stay.

[vanpoodle]

That's a good hotel that doesn't come up very often. Your bid was higher than a 4* usually is, so that probably contributes to why you'd be able to land this hotel. It's still Olympic time so it's fantastic that you got something at all. I've had similar things happen with PL, if it's a time where I have to bid higher, they tend to offer up rarer hotels. With the Paralympics on, I doubt you'd be able to get a 5* for less than $200 a night, if not even higher than that. I think you've done really well. I was hoping we could get to London in September, but we've pushed it to October because I didn't think I'd have any hotel luck in September this year! Now you've proven me wrong!

[Ra-Sewn]

After reading your comment as well as seeing a couple of other post in regards to some of the hotels that they have gotten in or around the same price, I'm starting to consider myself lucky! Going back looking at winning bids for this hotel, it seems as if I'm the first person on this board to get this hotel in 2012. Granted that in 2011 one member had a winning bid of $85 dollars a night, but I'll try not to harp on that too much. Especially since it'll be a year later and a major sporting event wasn't going on at the time. Thanks for making me feel better about my bid, lol

[vanpoodle]

Yes indeed -- your rate is on the high side of what PL often has 4* going for, but it is WAY less than what you would have paid on retail sites, and it is still supposed to be a high occupancy time of year, if not of the decade. I haven't stayed there but I think it's in better condition than the Hilton Hyde Park (which yes, I've landed for $83 a night in low season), and it's better located than the Hilton Kensington which is also in the Notting Hill zone. I think you've done very well -- there are probably still people renting out spare bedrooms for more than that in London at that time!

Also -- you might know about either taking the Tube in from Heathrow or the Heathrow Express to Paddington for about $30 a person (in 20 minutes as opposed to nearly an hour on the Tube). Last visit I learned about Heathrow Connect that also goes from LHR to Paddington. It's the same as Express, same tracks, it just has 3 or 4 stops along the way and costs about $15 and takes 25-30 minutes. Look up the schedule online and see if that's a good option for you to get in from the airport!