Priceline Hotel: 4* San Francisco (USE) Westin St Francis

[Woofer]

I am going to be in San Francisco from July 2-4 and am looking for a 4*.

My preference is to be in USE.

I hope to get a room for $125 or less (preferably around the $100 mark).

I bid tonight as follows: USE, $80; USE + Cath Hill, $85; USE + Cath Hill + Civic Center, $90; USE + Cath Hill + Civic Center + Lombard, $95; USE + Cath Hill + Civic Center + Lombard + South San Francisco, $100 (I checked rebid zones prior to bidding, and I used the PRICELINE link).

I checked rack rates for a few hotels: Grand Hyatt, $199; Hyatt Regency, $195; Westin St. Francis, $179; Westin Market Square, $199.

Any suggestions about anything else that I could be doing? I plan to rebid tomorrow, starting at $90 and going from there in $5 increments.

Thanks.

[Woofer]

These two hotels came up on a Hotwire search for July 2-4 (note: I have posted over on the PL section of this forum about this stay):

4.5* Embarcadero, $142, Amenities: Fitness Center, Restaurant, Business Center, Internet

-I peg this hotel as the Le Meridien

4.5* USE, $149, Amenities, Fitness Center, Restaurant, Business Center, Internet, Pool

-I peg this as the Inter-Continental

If those are likely to be the hotels, is either location preferable (I know very little about San Francisco and plan to basically just do a few touristy things on this trip)? Is one hotel likely to be much better than the other? I have set a higher max rate for a Hotwire buy as I feel having a sense of which hotel one might get is worth paying a bit more for (in previous buys, in any case, I have found HOTWIRE fees to be lower than PRICELINE ones).

Thanks.

[thereuare]

Please keep all posts for the same stay in the same thread, if you ultimately use HOTWIRE we'll move this entire thread to that section of the board.

We agree with your hotel identification guesses above... given these as the likely hotels, how high are you willing to bid on PRICELINE for a 4* hotel? (as you can get up to whatever your limit is in the next bidding cycle to make sure these HOTWIRE hotels don't disappear on you)

Thanks for using our PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links to begin your bidding/purchases.

[Woofer]

I bid up to $105 tonight and received the Westin St. Francis for that price. I guess I am fine with that--had I really wanted one of the two Hotwire hotels noted above, then I guess I would have just gone for them, but somewhere in the back of my mind I had hoped that one of them would come up on a PL bid. But, that is the nature of PL bidding!

I opened bidding at $95 in the USE zone, and then added free rebid zones to $105.

Thanks for the help. And I did use the PRICELINE link above.

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your win... a nice deal for a 4* in San Francisco.

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

Enjoy your stay.

[Woofer]

A brief update on this stay:

Following the advice of others on this site, I e-mailed the hotel in advance of my stay and requested a two-bed or king room. I received a reply offering me a $30 upgrade, but also noting that a queen-bedded room request had been added to my file. The e-mail notes that a queen can be allocated with a PL room but other upgrades are subject to a fee. I never did anything about the upgrade option. When I checked in, I asked about the $30 upgrade and was told that the hotel was completely booked for my stay. However, the check-in clerk told me that I had been allocated a queen room, with outside view. The room was in fact on the 11th floor of the old wing. Though it was not spacious, it was very nice (marble in the bathroom...) and there was a decent view out the window. I happen to be SPG Gold, which likely helped with the room allocation, but I did get the impression that an e-mailed request for a queen room will be given decent consideration. Overall, service at the hotel was impeccable, which was a nice surprise.