thesqueegeekid Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Bid through savings barn for a cousin... first bid!Phoenix Airport (PHX)2621 South 47th Street Phoenix, Arizona 85034 480-966-4300Your Offer Price: $27.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $27.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $9.44 Total Charges: $36.44 Link to comment
thereuare Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Nice and cheap... just the way we like 'em.Nice to see you around the board and as always thank you (once again) for your support... it's very much appreciated. Please use this HOTWIRE and these PRICELINE LINKS: HOTELS, CAR RENTALS, and AIRFARE to begin your travel purchases Link to comment
thesqueegeekid Posted June 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Thnx... haven't been posting much however, I do lurk the boards every day.An update...I have been living in ABQ for the last 3 months .... 7 hours from the fiance and still far enough to avoid PHX's 112 degrees. No set wedding plans yet ... however, we are thinking of a quickie wedding this Aug in Vegas ... my student work-permit is running out and it will be easier than going through all the free-trade hassle. I am working for my cousin who owns several hotels here ... HGI's, Holiday Inn Express's and they are building two full service HI's and a Homewood ... it's amazing to to be on the other side of things .... no longer being the guest LOL!!!Some interesting info ... we get faxes all the time from PL and Hotwire showing how much we could have sold each week (if we lowered our rate) and what our competiton was able to book. They, however do not tell you which hotel ... just what star level, zone and how much they charge. Hotwire also shows how many times our zone/hotel has come up in a search relative to other hotels zone in ABQ.PL's fax specifically shows every single bid made for our zone ... how much, number of nights and than tells you each week, how much extra you could have made ... also, if another hotel accepted the bid.Interesting to note is that at the Holiday Inn's most mistakes are made on their end and not ours ... for example, PL repeatedly forgets to fax us our bookings to direct bill them which means ... when the guest checks in, the clerk has no clue that it is a PL customer and charges their credit card also ... I just caught this last week since we lowered our price (those faxes got to us) :) The reason for not knowing it is a PL customer is that the system has so many codes for corp accounts etc that .... identifying PL is impossible except for the rate of course.Also, at our hotels, PL customers do not get the worst rooms ... in fact, PL books customers into KNGN .... king standard .... unlike Holiday Inn's wesbsite customers who usually get run of the house discount rooms .... so when assigning rooms .... we give preference to PL pre-booked kings over a HI cust that made a request for a king if possible and the request is burried in the comments section.The best time to check in is early .... because the hotel will assign you what is clean and available than .... most times, the suites are all that is left from the night before ... so you get automatically upgraded. Or check in really late because those remaining rooms will not sell anyways. Check-in in during peak (4:00-10:00) times is the worst because clerks will stick to what has been pre-assigned and are much less willing to make changes.When walking customers, its actually our policy to never walk internet-booked reservations because in those cases, we would have to deal with Expedia or PL which has been prepaid. We always walk one-nighters who are not priority club members.Recognizing status ... at the Hilton or HGI .... a platinum is a platinum regardless of price paid ... so we always upgrade if we can. In fact, smart Platinums who stay so many nights at Holiday Inns are the ones who book the rooms the cheapest anyway .... using internet great rates etc. Our systems block giving points to anyone under a certain price point regardless of how they book .... so, it is not just against PL customers...Bill Turner's $20 rule definitely holds true from what I have learnt ..... if you are friendly, or offer a tip .... even $5 ... you can get an upgrade.My final comment is how many people still book the old fashioned way paying rack rates ... and I agree with an article I read way back about PL representing less than 1 percent of booked hotel rooms ... if only people knew what we all do here on BB!!! ... well, my cousin wouldn't have bought his brand new Hummer!!! Link to comment
thereuare Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 EXCELLENT post (as always).Also ties in well with my comments today in this PRICELINE CAR RENTAL thread about users that seek out this board being among the 'bargain shoppers of the net' and Priceline still doing a fair amount of Car Rental business from customers that likely don't shop around (and probably pay a bit more than they need to).Thanks again for the above info, i found it quite interesting. Please use this HOTWIRE and these PRICELINE LINKS: HOTELS, CAR RENTALS, and AIRFARE to begin your travel purchases Link to comment
DeltaPurser Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 I'm going to go one step further and say... AWESOME POST!!! Thank you so much for the insight and for giving us an inside perspective.DeltaPurser :) Link to comment
WillTravel Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 TSK, I agree with them :).That post is worth its own thread, IMO. Link to comment
bturner13 Posted June 5, 2004 Report Share Posted June 5, 2004 Kid, you amaze me with your posts! What insight you present! I have learned so much from you and I do thank you for that! :) Link to comment
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