Priceline Hotel: 3* Oahu (Waikiki City Central) Sheraton Princess Kaiulani

[AEmgee]

Your Price Has Been Accepted

Congratulations, you got your price of $110 for a 3-star hotel room.

Sheraton Princess Kaiulani

Waikiki City Central

120 Kaiulani Avenue

Honolulu, Hawaii 96815

808-922-5811

Check-In Date: Saturday, March 31, 2007

Check-Out Date: Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Your Offer Price: $110.00

Number of Rooms: 1

Number of Nights: 3

Subtotal: $330.00

Taxes & Service Fees: $52.55

Total Charges: $382.55

$109 was rejected. Used Diamond Head as a free rebid.

Price is only OK - Sheraton.com has it for $140 + taxes = $470.23.

Actual savings for 3 nights is $87.68, or about $29/night.

[LoneStar]

Yeah, there's been astonishing "inflation" on priceline Waikiki hotels. A couple years ago, these places were going for 65 bucks. At the time, I did think those were great deals.

The good thing is that the Kaiulani is a good 3 star hotel. I particularly like its location. I doubt you could do much better on Waikiki these days.

That said, I'm just not sure I would have been brave enough to bid when the non-opaque price differential was that small. We used to get a lot of horror stories of "bad" 3 star hotels on Waikiki. I'd hate to see that happen at $110. Glad it worked out for you.

[AEmgee]

Yes, gone are the good ol' days of the Radisson Prince Kuhio! I've been finding Priceline to be less and less of a super deal. But it still beats paying rack rate!

[LoneStar]

I've pricelined both the Kaiulani and the Prince Kuhio (which I think just changed hands again) and I think you'll like the Kaiulani better. As they say in real estate, "location, location, location."

We're getting to the point, though, that non-opaque promos -- particularly in Hawaii -- are becoming a real alternative to priceline. Travelzoo.com does a pretty good job tracking them down, and Smartertravel.com is also worth looking at. For instance, there's a promo at the Sheraton Maui for mid-April at $199. That's about the best folks have been doing on priceline lately for Maui, and you know what you're going to get. They also recently had a limited $99 promo at the Sheraton on the Big Island.