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Guidelines for Priceline hotels from Utell site


WillTravel
By WillTravel,
in

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is awesome-finally an insider's guide! You can go one better. For Utell's Hotwire guidelines, use the same URL below and substitute Hotwire for Priceline. www.utellportal.com/Marketing/hotwire

I tried Expedia and Orbitz but they weren't found. I suggest you print them out quickly-this appears to be a link into Utell's intranet and once they find out, they may block outsiders from getting in.

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This is very interesting. It seems that Site59 does at least some of Priceline's packages-the last minute ones, and they are partners with lastminute.com which we have a branch here in Australia with an .au on the end. I had never even heard of site 59 until now-thanks alt438!

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Thanks for posting the link, WillTravel.

I find the following directive from Priceline to hotel vendors both interesting & informative....

Extend Valued Guest Treatment: You will place the Priceline guest in a room comparable to (or better than) your "best available" room assignment. You will welcome the Priceline guest just as you would welcome any other valued guest. (Remember this is your opportunity to "brand" that guest for a return visit.)

Too bad people who've been assigned the dreaded "Priceline rooms" (near elevators, ice machines, etc) didn't have prior knowledge of Priceline's requirements.

A friend of mine checked into the Hyatt Manchester in San Diego this past week (on a Priceline reservation). He is Platinum w/Hyatt. He asked for a high floor in the "new" tower. The desk employee immediately responded that "we don't put Priceline people in those rooms" and proceeded to assign him a room on the 8th floor of the "old" tower. The two towers are 33 and 40 stories, by the way. The employee further stated "I see by your Gold Passport profile you only book through Priceline." WOW! Some Hyatt employee was obviously having a "bad hair day"! Let me state at this point my friend is not the demanding type and knows how to conduct himself as a gentleman. He proceeded to his room, called the hotel's General Manager, and relayed the experience at the front desk. The GM apologized, reassigned him to a corner room on the 18th floor of the new tower, and promised to counsel the employee.

To be fair, I'm sure there are those times when all that's left are "Priceline rooms" to assign. Especially so in cases of late night check-ins at properties at, or very near capacity. In my friend's case, he checked in around 3:00pm on Friday afternoon. Although I have no idea how full the hotel was that night, it's reasonable to assume that the business crowd would be absent on a Friday night, especially on a holiday weekend.

It's a shame the Priceline "stigma" often rears it's ugly head. The Utell agreement clearly states that it's the hotel that determines the Priceline rate, not Priceline. If a 4 star big city hotel decides to load a $50 Priceline rate into the system, then the guest booking that rate should be treated no differently. Certainly not "branded" as a Priceline guest and assigned an inferior room when better are available.

The majority of my own Priceline stays have been good, if not great! But there's still a lot of hotel employees out there who could gain a lot in Customer Service if they had knowledge of Priceline's agreements with it's vendors. It's my guess a lot of them don't know key points such as the "Extend Valued Guest Treatment" clause.

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The page also says (paraphrasing from memory) that hotels should expect and try to accommodate reasonable guest requests. After all, if hotels are totally unyielding Priceline will be considerably more risky to use. The page is for hotels working with Utell, though.

I wonder if the guidelines are the same for hotels that belong to the major chains that, with Priceline, own TravelWeb. (By memory, Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, and Starwood are four of these chains.)

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  • 3 weeks later...

What i found interesting (perhaps because I've never really researched or had need...) was PL's policy on adding extra rooms to the existing "won" PL room.

ADD A ROOM

Priceline customers will have the option to request additional room(s) for their confirmed hotel.

- Priceline will check for availability at the confirmed hotel before confirming the additional room(s) to the customer

- An additional reservation with a new unique priceline credit card will be sent to the hotel

- This process will be transparent to the hotel

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