Priceline Hotel: 4* FAIL - Downtown - White House or Capitol Hill - Convention Center

[cppwiz]

Started bidding last week for two nights, Friday 4/10/15 and Saturday 4/11/15 and of course using the [url=http://www.betterbidding.com/clicks/click.php?afsrc=1&id=40]PRICELINE[/url] link from betterbidding.com

 

Went through 8 re-bids topping out at $123 because I was looking for a bargain but couldn't get any bids accepted.  Tried again today:

 

97     Downtown - White House

103   Capital Hill - Convention Center

  no 4 stars:

112   Alexandria West

117   Bethesda

126   Capital Hill South

132   Cleveland Park

137   DC Northeast

147   Georgetown North

158    Mount Vernon

168    Silver Spring

 

Now I will just use my backup reservation at $233 per night to collect some hotel points or maybe try again next Thursday night.  This is the first time Priceline has failed me on this scale and I wonder if it's part of a trend of hotels not releasing inventory to Priceline.

[thereuare]

I'm not sure if anything else is happening in the city over these dates, but this is the weekend of the Cherry Blossom Parade, and i would assume this is the reason for the higher than usual rates you're seeing as well as the tough/limited PRICELINE inventory for these dates.

If hotels feel they will be able to sell all/most of their rooms at full price, there is little reason for them to offer PRICELINE / HOTWIRE much/any deeply discounted inventory. During times of high demand discounts are usually still available, but they are not nearly as deep as during other times of year when rates are more 'normal' or when the hotels have low occupancy levels.

You can use our (free) RateDrop service to monitor rates for these dates and get an alert should a 4* hotel in either of these zones, or any regular rate hotel of your choosing, drop in price to an amount you'd like to pay.

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

Let us know if any change to your plans.

Good luck!

[Romelle]

Hot.wire has a $163 Crystal City 4* on your dates.  95% recommended.  The Crystal City area is small enough one couldn't get more than a mile from the Metro stop near the center.  

 

A possibility ?

 

Romelle

[cppwiz]

Thanks for the replies.  I usually set my max Price.line bid to 90% of what is being offered on Hot.wire, but in this case that strategy didn't work.  I would like to stay within walking distance of the National Mall, so I will keep trying for a last-minute Priceline deal.

[AaronJB]

Thank you for keeping us updated and please let us know if you have additional questions.

 

Please use the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your travel purchases... or thru our sister site MAPS and HOTELS.com for your regular rate purchases.

[thereuare]

Just to add to the above, you can't always use the HOTWIRE rate to determine your PRICELINE bidding since:

1) the zone boundaries on the two services are usually different, so the HOTWIRE offer may not be in the same zone that you're bidding on PRICELINE

2) each service may rate the same hotel differently, so the HOTWIRE property may be lowered rated on PRICELINE

Good luck and keep us updated on your progress.

Please use the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your travel purchases... or thru our sister site MAPS and HOTELS.com for your regular rate purchases.