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]

Thanks for the additional post :)

Enjoy your trip.