Priceline Hotel: Resort Maui (Kaanapali-Lahaina) Hyatt

[jmoosman]

Certainly a disappointing time to book travel in Maui compared to what we paid last year, but we're still happy that we got the Hyatt for considerably less than listed rates to stay at the Westin or Hyatt. Were hoping for the $175 at Sheraton others have gotten recently, but Sheraton was all sold out. So we started at $160 and just kept bidding upwards (using different credit cards/ email addresses) until we were accepted at the last price we were going to list. Were rejected for $260 and then bid $280 and were accepted.

FWIW Hyatt lists $380 on Expedia right now for same dates. So I guess it's still better to save some of the $ on this trip, as we already booked air and first half of our trip at Maui Prince.

Hope this helps others.

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your win!

Althought still a lot of money, looks like some decent savings over a conventional booking.

Thank you for sharing your results with the board.... enjoy your stay.

[LoneStar]

Well, I know that not everyone wants to hear it, but I think bidding this kind of money for a priceline stay is silly. Thank god they gave you a decent hotel (god forbid you'd been first to get the Whaler!), but why?

At this price point, you could certainly have bought a room conventionally. So why leave it to chance -- yet alone give up the "perks" (room upgrades, frequent stay points, package amenities) that you get by booking direct.

For example, in 3 minutes of looking (I'm sure if I looked for an hour, I could find even better deals), for about what you paid ($300/night, when you include priceline's fee), you could stay at the Sheraton (generally considered better than the Westin) or (ahem) the Ritz Carlton.

And I don't want to even get into the situation where something horrible (or not so horrible) happens and you no longer want to use your extremely expensive non-refundable Hawaiian hotel reservation.

I still believe the general rule of thumb is that if you can't save at least a third off what you could book a comparable hotel for, there's no reason to consider priceline bidding. I think this is a classic example of that.

[jmoosman]

While I certainly agree that we took a risk of being "the first" to get a less desirable hotel, I disagree that you must save at least 30% for it to be worth it for a number of reasons specific to our situation. First- the Sheraton showed as sold out for our dates (and we were not flexible with dates or of course we could have found cheaper options). Secondly, we wanted to stay at the Westin or Hyatt based on location and previous experience. So yes- I too found similarly priced options elsewhere not through Priceline but not for the two hotels we were interested in on our dates. So for us, when it came down to either paying more elsewhere for the same hotels or less through Priceline, it was a no brainer.

[LoneStar]

It is certainly an interesting strategy to use priceline IF you're picky. This is normally a recipe for disaster, of course, given that you MIGHT get anything through priceline. It is true that, at least recently, we have seen only 3 resorts in the Kaaanapali zone.

I am glad it worked out to your satisfaction. I would urge anyone else thinking of bidding this high to consider the many other possible options first.

[kohalasunset]

I would be thrilled to be staying at the Hyatt and saving 100 a night! Well done!!