Priceline Hotel: 2.5* Seattle (Lake Union) Residence Inn

[DCjoe]

This bidding got pretty complicated because of my desire to stay in the Lake Union area for free parking and quick access to areas of Seattle we will be visiting. We needed a room for three nights (11/10-11/13), but the last night was a Monday night, so I knew it would be more expensive. I tried up to $80 a night with no bites whatsoever. Then I noticed people getting the Residence Inn for $60 a night, but it looked like only on weekends. So I split the bid and won for the Saturday and Sunday night at $60 a night. Then I tried the "add a night to your stay" option for Monday night. They came back with an offer for $124 a night, which I rejected.

From recent bid history it looks like the Residence Inn has been the only one in the Lake Union area coming up, so I figured it would be worth the risk to try a separate bid (the wife doesn't want to change hotels). So I started a new bid for just Monday night at $100 a night, and worked my way up through the three free rebids, $5 at a time. At $100, $105 and $110 I got counteroffers. $115 was my last free rebid (for 24 hours), but that offer was accepted, and I got the Residence Inn, so it worked out perfectly. My total price for all three nights including taxes and fees was $285, or $95 a night. If I had bid all three nights together I would have had to go up to $115, if I understand Priceline correctly, so the amount would have been $407. The regular rate at residenceinn.com (all-in) for the three nights was $644.

I am very happy that this strategy worked out so well. I probably wouldn't have done it unless I was pretty confident I would get the same hotel. The weird thing to me is that the rate at residenceinn.com only goes from $179 a night to $199 a night from Sunday to Monday nights, but the Priceline amount was $55 higher. My guess is that they figure they won't fill up on the weekends anyway, but many people think $180 a night is perfectly reasonable, so they don't drop the rack rate too much. And then during the week they don't want to push the rack rate too high to keep the business traveler attracted, but they have much lower vacancy rates so the Priceline rate is higher. In any case, a pretty interesting data point, I think.

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your win and thank you for sharing it with the board.

Glad to hear it worked out well for you and that you won't be needing to change hotels during your stay. As an FYI, your approach was fairly risky since there are least two others 2.5* rated hotels in this zone, but all is well that ends well :)

Since you made two purcahses at a different price for each, please start a NEW TOPIC for your second win (so that the topic titles of the board remain consistent, which is required for other features of the board to function correctly)

Thanks. Enjoy your stay.

[DCjoe]

I will start a new topic for the second bid, didn't realize how everything is coded.

Yeah, it was a calculated risk to split the bid. Like I said, I haven't seen anyone winning anything in Lake Union other than the Residence Inn for a while. Plus, even if we had to move all the hotels in Lake Union are within a half mile of each other and seem relatively comparable (suites, free parking, free breakfast). To save $120 the wife would have sucked it up!

I definitely would not have done this in other areas that have a wide array of options and pretty big disparity between hotels in the same zone/area, like say a 3 star in downtown Seattle. That would have been too risky.

[Colfax]

A vey useful post, DCjoe. It clearly illustrates how Priceline rates can vary between weekends and weekdays, even when conventional rates aren't much different.

This bidding got pretty complicated because of my desire to stay in the Lake Union area for free parking and quick access to areas of Seattle we will be visiting.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but Lake Union Residence Inn charges $19/night to park. :)

[DCjoe]

True, but every other review on tripadvisor says that you can park on the street within a block or so. So for my purposes I counted this hotel (like the other 2.5 stars in Lake Union) as having free parking.

[Colfax]

Last week I stayed at Res Inn in Downtown Portland, which charges $21 to park. I planned to stay gone until after 7pm when the meters in front of the hotel are free. But at 7pm there were about a dozen cars circling for the same 6 metered spots, none of which was open, and we all ended up paying the $21. There's a LOT more street parking near the Lake Union Res Inn than at the one in Portland though. You shouldn't have a problem. Have a good trip!