Priceline Hotel: 4* Orange County (Costa Mesa-Irvine) Hyatt Ivrine

[moondog]

i've booked two rooms in the past two weeks. the first time, i bid the john wayne zone and got the hyatt for $28. this is clearly a good deal. the problem is you can end up in some pretty stale places (out by irvine spectrum) when the hyatt is full. for this reason, i prefer the newport zone (i guess it's possible to stuck in hb, but i've never heard of that happening).

last week, i bid $40 in the newport zone and got the fashion island marriott. the reasons i started with such a high bid:

-the 6:00p deadline was fast-approaching

-i didn't want to be bullied into adding another zone (though i guess i could have just added 2.5 stars to my criteria)

-tmk there isn't any current and reliable data

i'm guessing the break point is around $35. any thoughts?

btw, the marriott is a lot nicer than the newporter.

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

So that each hotel appears in the title we try to keep one hotel win per post. Let's keep this thread active for the Hyatt and please post the Marriott win as a new topic. I'll research prices and try to comment on any insight as to the breakpoint there.

Also, to clarify, did you actually bid the Irvine zone for the Hyatt.. as there is no longer a zone called 'John Wayne Airport' on Priceline... or was the Hyatt win actually in the Newport-Huntington Beach zone and the win was for the Newporter? (which would make sense with the 'win' being for 3*)

Thanks for clarifying!

[moondog]

please accept my apologies for violating protocol and thanks for not simply deleting me. to answer your questions:

-the hyatt was the irvine hyatt in the irvine zone. while i like that hotel and it's a great deal for 28, i don't like to bid irvine because we got stuck in some generic place out by the spectrum in february (can't recall the name) which was very inconvenient

-the marriott was the fashion island marriott. i've heard that the newporter still comes up on occasion, but their price floor is higher than the marriott and much higher than the 27 that was in effect until last november or so.

i will start a new thread for the Marriott.

[moondog]

For clarity here is more info on the Hyatt...

my most recent experience was 2 weeks ago. it's been possible to get rooms at the hyatt (bid 3*) for 27/28 for at least a year. whenever the 28 bid doesn't work, i raise to 35-40 and usually get one of those hotels near the airport (my memory is a bit vague, but hilton and radisson come to mind). however, on more than one occasion we got stuck out by the irvine spectrum which is pretty desolate.

[azepine00]

moondog,

I tried to priceline a few weekend dates (hyatt.com rates $75-85) bidding $28 for 3* - not surprisingly got promptly rejected. :)

Can you disclose a bit more info on your successful bids or better yet post wins for your future stays at Hyatt Irvine? I searched this and other sites but could not find anything below $40 which itself does not come up too often ($42-50 range is more common). Are we talking about the same hotel? If so then I would love to learn your strategy.

Thanx