Priceline Hotel: 3* Northern Virginia (Fairfax) Hyatt Fair Lakes

[lcinva]

Hi -

I am new to this board, but have been pricelining forever...I thought I dominated priceline until I found this board! You guys are my heroes!!

Here's my question - I have been bidding on a hotel room in Northern VA for the last month or so, figuring I wouldn't get what I wanted until the week of. Another person is coming and wants me to bid for them and get 2 rooms on the same bid. Previously, I would enter bids between $35-40 (I got a 3* Hyatt last time at this price) and though I wouldn't get a room, Priceline didn't give me the "Your price has no chance of being accepted). Now, bidding for 2 rooms, I get that message. Is this only because they have limited rooms at the lowest price (though you'd think they would have at least 2...), or is there something else I should know?

Thanks!

[thereuare]

Is this in regards to your Priceline Northern Viriginia stay or is the above for a different set of dates?

[lcinva]

Is this in regards to your Priceline Northern Viriginia stay or is the above for a different set of dates?

Different set of dates...my husband is in dental school and has some continuing education in DC every month for the next 6 months. I'm from northern Virginia, so I would rather stay there than DC...and I really liked the Hyatt we stayed in last time. The next time we go is Sept 26-28. I've been lowballing for the last month, around where I had a successful bid last time, and I get nothing. I figure something will come up later in the week, and I'm not super picky about the area or particular hotel (although I did like the Hyatt). After getting the "no chance at this price" message only when I bid for two rooms, I'm a little worried - but I have read through this board and it appears that message doesn't really make a difference. Part of me has wanted to contact the hotel and ask about a set rate for the next 6 times we go, but as you pointed out in another post, I don't want them to jack up their Priceline rates.

If bidding for two rooms makes a difference, I'm fine getting our room and telling the others they're on their own. I just wanted to find out if anyone had any experience with this..

side note: thereuare, thanks for all of your info on this board. It has been definitely enlightening!

[thereuare]

Usually bidding for 2 rooms vs. 1 room is a "non-event", but as you point out, if the hotel is only offering one room for sale then it could be an issue. As you also point out, you should ignore priceline's "low chance" message.

I dont' think that two rooms is going to be an issue for this stay... searching HOTWIRE what appears to be the Hyatt Fair Lakes is showing for $79/nite when searching for one room. Changing the search to two rooms the same hotel appears at the same $79/nite rate, so it appears that you should be able to win 2 rooms for these dates at the same price you would win one room.

At the very least i'd try two rooms first up to a 'reasonable' amount... if you're rejected at levels you feel you should be accepted at you could then try again the following day for the same bid and just one room to see if there is any different result.

We're glad you're here and happy that you're finding the information on the board useful. We look forward to hearing about, and helping with, your current and future travel plans.

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

[lcinva]

Hi - feel free to move this to the Northern VA forum if that's where it belongs...it's more of a general question about this strategy though.

Right now I am bidding on a room in Northern VA for 9/26-28, and there are 5 areas (for my purposes): ABCDE. I want to stay at a 3* in A. BCDE all have only 2* or below, so I should have plenty of free rebids, and used the permutations listed in this thread above.

I started with A, then did AB, ABC, ABCD, ABCDE (because things were getting greyed out and I figured I'd use these combinations before restarting the browser to do AC, AD, etc.).

I didn't get a win, closed my browser (IE), tried again to bid with AC. Said it was a duplicate request. I closed my browser, came back in, and deleted my cookies...tried again, still said AC and AD and any other combo were all duplicate requests at that point.

Is there a specific order I have to do these combos in so Priceline doesn't lock me out (the order given in this thread)? If I had done AB, then logged out and done AC, would it have worked? Or has priceline gotten too smart?

Any advice is great. Thanks!

edit: I'm writing this message at 2:27 board time, which was 24 hours after my initial try of A, AB, ABC, ABCD, ABCDE. However, yesterday at about 5pm board time I went back and tried other combinations on their own AC, AD, AE, etc. It is possible that priceline sets the 24 hour limit based on which combination you try? It let me bid A, AB, ABC, ABCD, ABCDE, but not the combinations I tried last night at 5pm...I figured it was all based on the same date of stay, so it was 24hrs from the time of first combination bid. Maybe I'm wrong? Does this even make sense?

[thereuare]

When you bid your zone combinations must be unique and not a subset of any of the other bids you have made.

Your second round of bidding (5pm board time) was rejected as a duplicate since your 2 zone combinations (AC, AD, AE, etc) are all a subset of your ABCDE bid you made earlier in the day.

Does that make sense?

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

[lcinva]

Won the now 3.5* Hyatt Fair Lakes. Bid for 2 rooms, got them both at $60...which seems a little high for this Hyatt, but I didn't really have a choice at this point. For Sept 26-28 stay.

Bidding started at $33 (the red "price has little chance of being accepted started at $30, much less than last week), went up in $2 increments to $57, then last bid was $60.

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your win!

Glad to hear you were successful this time around... hopefully you were able to maximize your re-bids with the explanation above.

Thank you for sharing yoru win with teh board.

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

Enjoy your stay.

[mbstone]

Glad to hear the property is 3.5* under the new PL regime.

Seemed to me they sell to a lot of tour groups like the 4-H club, church groups, etc. and this could fill them up at random times.

With the new ratings system and the concomitant extra rebid opportunities you should be able to get as many cheap Fairfax and IAD hotels as you like...