Priceline Hotel: 2.5* Philadelphia Suburbs (Valley Forge) Comfort Inn Valley Forge National Park

[nsxtasy]

This $56 listing on PRICELINE EXPRESS has been shown as low as $54 a couple of weeks ago; this week it has been listed for $56, $58, and $59.  You might be able to get this hotel for less money using the name-your-price feature on Price.line for a 2.5* hotel in this area; I was reluctant to do so because 2.5* in Valley Forge didn't show either free parking or a 7+ user rating as a guaranteed amenity.

 

The Comfort Inn Valley Forge National Park has a 7.5 user rating on Priceline and a 3.5 overall on TripAdvisor, where recent user reviews are very favorable.  Based on the star rating, amenities, and location, I was pretty sure beforehand that this would be the hotel I would be getting when I actually went through with it.  Here are the guaranteed amenities shown before I made my purchase:

• Free Parking
• Business Center
• Free Internet
• Free Breakfast
• Fitness Center

Here are the amenities listed along with the hotel name after I made my purchase:

• Free Breakfast
• Free Internet (in Room)
• Free Parking
• Non-Smoking
• Gym
• Handicap Accessible
• Business Center

Here are room rates if you wanted to book this specific hotel without using an opaque site like Priceline; I assume these are all cancellable:

• $99 Expe.dia, Price.line, Travel.ocity, TripAdvisor, Booking.com
• $89 Orbitz

There was also a non-refundable non-cancellable rate of $71 on the Comfort Inn website.  However, the only rooms with that rate were smoking rooms; non-smoking rooms were $76.  Taxes and fees on that site were $5 less than Priceline ($6 vs $11).

 

In trying to name my price on Priceline, I was aware that some hotels in the area (yes, even in the suburbs) charge as much as $20 for parking, so I was only bidding on areas and star levels which were shown with free parking or which I was pretty confident had free parking.  I was also leery about bidding on areas and star levels which didn't show high user reviews on Priceline.  Here are the bids I submitted, which were all declined:

• $57 for 3.5* in Valley Forge
• $52 for 2* in Plymouth Meeting
• $51 for 2* in Valley Forge North
• $41 for 2* in Horsham

[AaronJB]

Congrats on your success. :)

Terrific deal for this property and hope you are looking forward to your stay.

 

Thank you for letting us know about this new PRICELINE EXPRESS property so that we can update the site's Priceline Hotel List.

 

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.

[SteveinPhilly1]

Congrats on scoring the room. I read your post three times and - maybe I overlooked it but... - I don't see what price you actually got the CI-VF for?  And is it in VF or "VF North"?

 

It would also be helpful to others (like me) to know the date (dates) you got and days of the week. Many PL hotels in corporate centers (the areas you searched in) have lower rates on WEEKENDS. Might you be able to provide both these pieces of info?

 

BTW, CI's have great breakfasts

[nsxtasy]

The price was $56 (mentioned in the first line of my writeup), the hotel is in Priceline's Valley Forge area (not the Valley Forge North area), and the reservation is for the evening of August 5, 2015, which is a Wednesday night.

 

This site (i.e. betterbidding.com ) has a standard way in which winning bids are entered, and so all this information is displayed in a standard format.  If you look at the title of this discussion topic, either at the top of the page when viewing it or when viewing the list of topic titles on the Priceline-Pennsylvania forum, you'll see it's called "2.5* Philadelphia Suburbs (Valley Forge) Comfort Inn Valley Forge National Park".  In both places where the title appears, it is followed by a subtitle in a smaller gray colored font that says "$56 ... 8/5/15-8/6/15".  Thus the title combines the star rating (2.5*), the Priceline bidding area (Philadelphia Suburbs Valley Forge), and the name of the hotel, and the gray subtitle combines the price ($56) and the dates (8/5/15-8/6/15).  This is true of all the Priceline and Hotwire topics when winning bids are reported by clicking on the "SHARE YOUR WIN" button on the site.