Priceline Hotel: Europe in Aug

[yguns]

Hi,

I am a big fan of this site and have won a few good deals on Priceline.

Wanted to know if there are any best strategies for booking to Europe during August.

I have very specific dates (so Im not flexible there) but will be flexible in the area and maybe drop down to a 3 star as well.

The cities Im looking for are:

Berlin

Prague

Budapest

Vienna

Venice

Florence

Milan

Paris

What does everyone suggest as the best starting bid?

Is the best bet to look at what others have won (ie. Prague @ $110 etc) and bid accordingly?

Thanks in advance,

:)

[norwegianwife]

Hi and welcome!

First, I would suggest doing a hotel search in the individual cities for your dates so you can get an idea of what the rates and availibility are for that time. That will give you a better idea of a starting bid on priceline.

Second, you can get some really good deals direct from hotel websites for cities like Venice and Berlin. If you do a search for Berlin, you can see the room I won recently through Priceline that I could have gotten for 17 dollars cheaper had I booked direct from the Accor website! Hotels dot com seems to be a really good source for Venice hotels.

We are traveling to Italy in 2 weeks, and I still have not won a room in Milan for under 110 dollars. Will you have a car? have you considered other places in the Veneto other than Venice, such as Verona, Padua or mestre? That would save some money as well and those cities have access to the train that goes to Venice at least every 20 minutes, back and forth until 11pm.

Florence- Again, you might have better luck booking direct from hotel websites in florence.

If you search this forum Prague, Budapest and Vienna seem to have some consistent wins with hotels and prices that will give you an idea what to expect from those cities.

Hope this helps a little! Have a great vacation!

[yguns]

Thanks for your suggestions.

I will definitely use Priceline when booking Prague/Budapest.

However, for the others, I might check the hotel prices directly and when bidding, I will not exceed that of the hotel direct cost.

Have anyone tried booking hotels via Venere.com, looks like they have lots of hotels to choose from.

[WillTravel]

With Berlin, you can often get great deals booking directly through Accor (see the Accor link on the support page). However, a few months ago I booked a Berlin hotel room for an average of 57 Euros per night for Aug. 27-Sept. 1. A room at this hote is now available for 147 Euros per night on the web site. So timing is important too.

For Paris, I would look here first: http://www.solmelia.com to see if you can find an air-conditioned hotel that is reasonable. Then I would probably use Hotwire or Priceline for a 4* hotel in certain zones only.

Air conditioning is pretty important to me in August, so for most of the cities you mention, particularly in Italy, I would book directly to ensure I had air conditioning. Or at the least, I would bid for a 4* hotel.