Priceline Hotel: 3* Philadelphia (Downtown) Hilton Garden Inn

[Babbish]

First bid of $55 went through on July 3 for 3* Philadelphia (Downtown).

Used the PRICELINE link.

2 rooms for two nights

$220.00

$40.62 Taxes and Service Charge

In addition, I also got one room for one night 7/25

$55.00

$15.17 Taxes and Service Charge

Using Algebra, I'm guessing the room tax is $8.48 per night

and the Service Charge is $6.69

Thanks for having this site!!!

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your win!

Glad to see you're happy with the results (enough to try for the same hotel for the additonal room you needed)

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

Enjoy your stay.

[dahammer]

Using Algebra, I'm guessing the room tax is $8.48 per night

and the Service Charge is $6.69

the tax rate in Philly is 14% on hotel rooms, this is based on the ammount that Priceline remits to the HGI which is difficult to determine unless you increase your bids by $1 up to the winning number. Priceline often pays the hotel less than your bid. For example, I recently bid $60 for a room with taxes and fees at $13.67. I found out that the hotel billed Priceline $56 for the room and $5.25 tax for a total of $61.25. This makes the Priceline fee $12.42 or about 22% of the room charges.....gotta pay for Bill Shatner :)

[Babbish]

Thanks for the reply. I have some follow-up questions.

How did you find out that Priceline paid $56 for the room?

Is the Priceline fee, a per-night fee or a per-reservation fee, or maybe even a little of both?

[dahammer]

the hotel slipped a folio under my door showing the rate charged to Priceline. Sometimes you can also see this on the In-Room entertainment system, just go to the "services" screen and you can see the room rate and taxes on your folio. The fee is higher on the first night and less for each successive night, but I'm not sure how this is calculated. You can always see the taxes and fees before submitting your bid.