Priceline Hotel: Express Deals

[calla]

I need a room for one night, Feb. 22, in Las Cruces. I'm travelling with my dog so I know it is too difficult to try and get a pet friendly hotel through Priceline or Hotwire as it is a gamble. With the Priceline Express Deals there are 3 hotels offered that have the pet friendly icon. However, they don't indicate if the hotel has a pet fee. Some hotels advertise that they are pet friendly but charge up to an additional $100/night fee! How do I avoid these high pet fees using Express Deals? Has anyone had experience with this? If I provided the icons, would you be able to determine which hotels these are? Thanks.

[XT600]

Referring to my last priceline win forum I'd say it's better to use non-opaque hotel website and their saving voucher (e.g. orbitz 15%) instead of the low savings at PRICELINE EXPRESS deals or NYOP with all the unclear extra fees (resort fee, pet fee, extra bed fee etc.)

[thereuare]

As per my reply to the referenced post, i don't think it's fair to make a 'blanket statement' that the savings thru PRICELINE EXPRESS (or bidding) are not that great, and the vast majority of the posts on the board would prove otherwise.

There is more profit margin, and therefore it's much easier for, a $100+ hotel to deeply discount their rates then it is for a $50-$60 to discount by the same percentage. Both hotels have similar fixed costs in filling a hotel room (water, electricity, housekeeping, wear and tear on the room/furniture, washing sheets, towels, etc) and a less expensive hotel is in a tougher situation to discount as much. As well, for low priced hotels it becomes a bit more difficult to make up the ~$7 booking fee which can eat into some of the savings based upon the room rate.

As we don't know the star level or room rates that the OP is looking at, i don't think it can be said if the savings will/won't be worth the trade-off of an opaque purchase.

EDIT TO ADD:

There are still savings that can be had on lower rated hotels. The next post i read after this thread was this Priceline hotel for a 2.5* property won at $51/nite... retail rate $119, or better then 50% savings (even after PRICELINE's booking fee). As well, they referenced a PRICELINE EXPRESS deal at $59, which if assuming is the same hotel, still represents a very nice savings vs. a conventionally booked room.

END OF EDIT

In regards to the OP's pet situation, i think you would need to have a very good guess as to the hotel offered and then do additional research to determine if there is a pet fee, and if so, how much... as well as researching how much savings the room rate offers and if it is worthwhile.

If you're willing to take the risk of a 'wrong guess' and the possibility of addition pet fees then we can try and guess as to the hotel(s) offered... but if not, then you may want to book direct at a 'known' hotel that does not charge extra for accompanying pets.

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

Let us know if/how you'd like to proceed and we'll take it from there.

[XT600]

sure but is it worth to "investigate" so much for 1 night only?

[thereuare]

sure but is it worth to "investigate" so much for 1 night only?

Not sure if you're referring to researching the possible hotels OR if there is a fee for pets, but either way i think it depends upon the user. Just like SPLITTING YOUR PRICELINE BID, some users would change hotels in order to save $5/nite while others wouldn't change hotel even if it meant saving $50/nite.

It comes down to how each person values money, time, convenience, etc.

[calla]

We were travelling across several states for the full month of February so Priceline's Express Deals with the pet friendly icon could have likely saved us a lot of money. But I decided it was too labour intensive and I had limited time to plan this trip. It was also a risk that I would get stuck with huge add-on fees because we were staying more than 1 night in some places. We ended up staying at La Quinta for travel days, Homewood Suites and Drury Inn & Suites for the longer stays. None of these charged a pet fee. With a little bit of research, I was able to get reasonable rates within our budget. It was worth it to have our best buddy with us. I still believe PL, HW, and LMT have the best deals when not travelling with our dog. Thanks for all the opinions.

[thereuare]

We ended up staying at La Quinta for travel days, Homewood Suites and Drury Inn & Suites for the longer stays.

Please check for and use the links in our Support Page for your future hotel direct purchases, as we have links there to most of the major hotel chains and online booking agencies.

Glad to see you found good solutions for your needs during this trip and thanks for the follow-up as i think this information will help others who are looking to travel with their pets.