Hotwire Hotel: 3* Seattle (Pike Place) Red Lion on 5th Ave

[GNOMOM]

I'm having a get together with a bunch of friends flying out from all over the U.S. We were going to stay at the Crown Plaza, but it went from $90 to $124 before any of us booked any rooms :)

So now the only thing w/i everyones price range is a 3* hotel with only the restaurant icon listed. Any guesses on what it could be? I don't want all my friends coming in to a crappy hotel! :)

Also, there's a 2 1/2* that has the coffee icon (Downtown), any guesses on that one?

[GNOMOM]

Oh yeah, this was for July 8th - 11th.

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

Did you see the Crowne Plaza on Hotwire? If so, how long ago did it change? If it just changed recently (like today or yesterday) there is a good chance it may come back down.

Why not try a 4* on Priceline? How many rooms do you need? What is your maximum bid amount? I recently bid this myself for an August stay and was successful at $110, but others (for different dates) have gotten it lower (at less of a peak season).

The 4* hotels on Priceline are generally very good, but lowering to 3* can apparently put you in some less desirable areas.

Let us know if Priceline is an option and i'll device a strategy for you to follow.

Oh yeah... trying to figure out a hotel based upon only a restaurant icon is futile.

[GNOMOM]

Thanks! I've been lurking for awhile now and I love this site!

I haven't done priceline because I need to be sure that we're all at the same hotel. Right now I need 7 rooms. If we didn't all stay at the same place it wouldn't work out for us. Last year we all met up in Chicago and used Hotwire to get rooms at the Swissotel.

For the Crown Plaza, it was at $90 for a long time, but no one was ready to make plane reservations. I think it jumped up to $124 or so within the last week or so.

I've used Priceline 1x and was successful at winning my bid for the Benson Hotel in Portland. It was SOOOO nice! I guess I don't know enough about how to bid on Priceline to insure that we all stay at the same place. Is that not how priceline works?

If we bid on Priceline, I think we'd want to stay at $100, tops.

I know, the restaurant icon only is kinda lame :)

[thereuare]

Given that you need 7 rooms and need to be at the same hotel i would stick with and continue to monitor Hotwire at this point.

Keep in mind also that after you purchase 4 rooms the same hotel may not appear for the next 3. :)

[GNOMOM]

Well my group of friends and I booked our hotels today for our trip in July. Turns out the 3* hotel in Downtown (Pike Place) with only the restaurant icon is the Red Lion Hotel on 5th Ave. Seems to me that they are really selling their hotel short by only mentioning the restaurant. They've got TONS of other features. Oh well, their loss I suppose :)

By the way, I love this forum!

-j

[thereuare]

Thanks for letting us know and i'm glad that it ended up being a hotel with more amenities for all of you to enjoy.

I assume this stay was still for July 8-11? Were you able to get the same price for both purchases (until you reply i just used the price that came up on a search)?

Enjoy your stay.

[GNOMOM]

I spoke too soon :) Where's the crying icon when you need it!!!

Right after I posted this, I got a frantic call from one of my mommy friends. She booked through hotwire, exactly as we had, and got the Vance hotel :) It's not the end of the world, but we were hoping to all be at the same hotel. So I guess they're using that restaurant icon for more than just 1 hotel.

[thereuare]

Did everyone book their own room or were two people in charge of the bookings... one booking 3 rooms and the other booking 4 rooms?

What were the prices of each?

[GNOMOM]

No, we were all in charge of booking our own.

1st Red Lion booking was at $93

2nd Red lion booking was at $88

1st Vance booking was at $88

unbooked but checked price on it before I made the 2nd red Lion booking came in at $86.

This all happened today as well.

The thing is, we've got at least 2 more rooms to book and we're afraid of a 3rd hotel popping in there!

[thereuare]

Trying to not look in the rearview mirror, but i think the following info will help for anyone else following along... when booking multiple rooms they should, as much as possible, be done on the same purchase.

In this instance GNOMOM needed 7 rooms, so it would have been advisable to book the rooms in two purchases... 3 rooms and 4 rooms. This way at least if two different hotels were received, each would still have their own group, and the chances of any one person being alone at a different hotel would be eliminated.

Additional examples to ensure there is not one person 'on their own', if 5 rooms were needed it would be advisable to split into two purchases of 3 rooms and 2 rooms; 9 rooms then 3 purchases of 3 rooms each, etc.