Priceline Hotel: Priceline Moscow bidding question

[OSUBUCKEYES]

Hey everyone!

I was wondering if any reported wins of Moscow hotels existed. I have noticed that priceline now allows 2* and 3* hotel bids. This is something that is fairly new, within the last six months. I am a little skeptical about the hotels that may be offered, especially the location since only two zones are offered, Moscow and Sokolniki. Please let me know if you have heard of any wins. Thanks for your help and as always OH--IO.

[WillTravel]

Here's one way to get a cheap Moscow hotel room, although I don't know anything about the area.

If you go to Priority Club's PointBreaks page, the Holiday Inn Moscow-Sokolniki is offered for 5000 points per night (if available). If you have Priority Club points, then that works great. If not, you can buy 10000 points for $100 from Points.com . It's explained at the Priority Club site. So basically you can get a room for $50/night. This is what I have done for the Intercontinental Bucharest, which is no longer offered as a PointBreaks special.

[kayexalate]

Any new updates on Moscow Hotels?

For Russia, only the US PRICELINE site has Moscow (no other cities like St. Petersburg)

For moscow it's only 3* and lower.

Anyone have any experience with what hotels these 3* may be?

Seems like when I search for 3* hotel on the general priceline search (not name your own bid), many of them are holiday inn brand.

[thereuare]

If you go to MAPSandHOTELS.com and enter "moscow" you will see hotels plotted on the map that are avaialble thru PRICELINE's "retail" version of their site. While the 'retail' and 'opaque' versions of their site each use a different universe of hotels, there is a lot of overlap, so this will at least give you a general sense of what's avaialble (as well as some hotels which likely participage in both sides of their servcie)

Please use these PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links to begin your travel purchases.

[kayexalate]

What happened to the name your own price for moscow on PRICELINE?

It was there a week ago--in fact I even bid on a hotel in moscow.

But now the option is gone. It's only for the retail options?

Does it depend on inventory/dates?

Or have they dropped it altogether?

[das_ubersoldat]

it works again...

[thais fernandes]

it works again...

I tried just now. When choose name your own price you go to a page in which you have choose what Moscow you mean (Idaho, Iowa, Kansas etc) you have to choose the city again, even if it's writen in the blank below.

Now you also have 5* hotel. the problem is the zone, you don't have any option, as I could see. Am I wrong?

[MadFlyer]

I was in and bid $120 for 5* and failed with no rebid offer for the 29th of March, 2010.

You could choose either airport code or "moscow moskva, Russia" for a one zone bid.

I would guess that it is a company with a regional european office like Marriott that is making rooms available, but the risk is real high in such a large city with no zones and two airports that are so far apart.

[Romelle]

Yup, another one-zone huge city. I will say that the Metro in Russia works really well - inexpensive, regular, and good coverage. There are busses and trams also, although I didn't use them. Things a tourist wants to see are scattered about the city, so you will need to move about anyway.

If you pull up the map thereuare mentioned, there also are tiny little marks indicating Metro stations. You can see most of the hotels are situated close to one of them.

I also did the Holiday Inn points thing for Moscow - twice. Different HI than the other poster mentioned - Lesnaya. Worked wonderfully. A nearly new elegant hotel, great room, with the front desk speaking excellent English. When I staggered into my room after way too many plane hours, there even was a little still-life plate on a table - apple, candy bar and bottle of water on a doily. Never saw anything so beautiful in my life.

Guess I'm hoping you bid as I'm really curious as to what you might get. But suspect the HI points deal could work better for you.

If you've looked at the retail side of Priceline, you will know the rates for 5* are $395 and $494 for your date. You've got time, but I suspect you are going to have to work up quite a bit higher before you get a hit.

Romelle