Priceline Hotel: 3* St. Louis (Downtown) Hyatt Regency

[Senoreit]

I'll try to make a long story as short as possible. I was trying to secure a 3* hotel room for downtown St. Louis, checking in on 7/9 and checking out on 7/12. Demand for hotels around these dates is high, presumably because of the Cubs being in town to play the Cardinals, among other things. In doing a little research before starting to bid, I discovered that many PL-affiliated hotels show "sold out" for those dates. In fact, as best as I could tell, there were only two 3* hotels that weren't sold out, the Radisson and the Sheraton, and those were both showing rates much higher than usual. I realized that I'd have to bid higher than 3* downtown properties normally go for on Priceline, but any savings helps. Creatively using my five free re-bid zones allowed me to start relatively low and bid this all the way up to $87 (!) with no luck. It did display a counteroffer of +22 so I know I was getting close, but I ran out of re-bids before having success. Trying to figure out a way to avoid paying over twice as much as a DT SL hotel goes for on Priceline, I searched the first night of my stay separately from the second two nights on a few sites and found that availability was better. Many hotels that showed "sold out" for the whole three-night stay did have availability on either the first night or the second two nights, so I decided to split my bid. First I bid for the 7/10-7/12 portion and finally got the Hyatt Regency at $63. I had bid unsuccessfully at $60 so the most I could have overpaid was by $2.

Congratulations, you got your price of $63 for a 3-star hotel room.

Hyatt Regency Saint Louis

Downtown St. Louis

One St Louis Union Station

St. Louis, Missouri 63103

314-231-1234

Check-In Date: Sat, Jul 10, 2004

Check-In Time: After 03:00 PM

Check-Out Date: Mon, Jul 12, 2004

Check-Out Time: 12:00 PM

Your Offer Price: $63.00

Number of Rooms: 1

Number of Nights: 2

Subtotal: $126.00

Taxes & Service Fees: $26.20

Total Charges: $152.20

[Senoreit]

I realized after it was too late to edit the above post that one of the sentences is unclear. It should read "Trying to figure out a way to avoid paying over twice as much as a 3* DT SL hotel normally goes for on Priceline, I searched the first night of my stay separately from the second two nights on a few sites and found that availability was better."