Priceline Hotel: 5* Las Vegas (Strip North) Venetian

[STRW]

For about 3 weeks now, on and off, i've been bidding on a 5* room on the strip for 2 nights...Thursday 4/17/08 and Friday 4/18/08. I've been using all the re-bid zones, centering around Strip North for the Venetian or Palazzo. I've excluded the zones w/ known 5*'s in an effort to keep my choices between those 2 (most likely, of course).

I've been watching the board for other peoples wins in this zone, as well as monitoring the counter-offers that priceline has given me.

About 2 weeks ago, when bidding on those two nights together, i received a counter offer of $166. My hunch is that the price was $147 per night, as reported by some other winners. At the time, since the trip was so far out, i held out looking for better.

In the past week or so, every day i receive a counter offer of $190/night. Thus far, i've bid up to $157 and not been able to meet their #.

Today, i decided to split my bids. I started low ($100) to see where my counter-offer would be. When bidding only the Thursday night, my counter-offer was $155. When bidding Friday night, my counter offer was $226.

If you add the two counter-offers together when splitting my bids, it pretty much equals the counter-offer of when i bid the two nights together.

I know that there's no way to tell where the pricing will go in the next 2 weeks before my trip. Retail price has gone up slightly in the last week while i've been watching. Not sure if thats due to demand or that the date is approaching.

I do not have a set budget...just looking for the best deal possible. I may have gotten a little greedy by waiting this long...

I know i risk getting two separate hotels when splitting my bid. Anyone have any ideas on how i should proceed?

Thanks in advance...

[thereuare]

If it were me i would use re-bids to work my way up to $170 for the complete stay, as there seem to be a lot of wins in the $160-$170 area, and i would prefer not to change hotels. If that failed then i would consider SPLITTING YOUR PRICELINE BID, but would probably think about that a little more before actually doing it, as i would prefer not to change hotels to only save $20 (which is what it may come down to)

Please use these PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links to begin your travel purchases. :)

Let us know what you decide and how it goes or if we can be of further help.

[STRW]

So, i did my daily check of the 5* hotels in the Strip North zone this morning, and for a 3rd time in a week, the price has gone up (on both priceline and the hotel's website). I really wanted either Palazzo or Venetian for this trip, so I decided to bite the bullet and bid out until i won.

After receiving counter-offers over the last 2 weeks of $166 and $190, todays counter offer was up to $227!

I started my bidding at $157, and used all my re-bid zones. My bids were $157, $167, $177, $182, $187, $192, and then finally....$197 per night was accepted by the Venetian.

I have no idea whats going on there that Friday night, but thats the one night that killed me.

If this was "Deal or No Deal", i would say i made a bad deal. I did save about $150 total off the full retail value of the hotel at today's current rate, but waiting and not bidding higher earlier ended up being a mistake! Just yesterday, i could've accepted my counter-offer for less. Most likely, i could've gotten the hotel with a lower bid yesterday also.

Thanks for the help...and, of course, i used the PRICELINE link on the front page.

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your ultmate success!

Glad to hear you pinned this down and although more than you originally planned, you did save a respectable $150 off of current rates, which is a nice deal.

Thank you for sharing your win with the board and for using our PRICELINE link to begin your bidding.

Enjoy your stay and good luck in Vegas.