Priceline Hotel: Rejected bid

[sashapoo]

I have tried twice now in the last week after waiting the three days between to try to get a 3* (and even a 4*) in downtown Miami for the night of Jan 1, 2005 with no luck whatsoever. Am I bidding too early or is there some sort of event that is going on that I do not know about? My father had mentioned that there was some bowl games being played in FL that weekend but I am not sure where. We are leaving on a cruise on 1/2 so I was hoping to be in the downtown area. What should I do to increase my odds? I know about rebidding and adding zones and have tried all of that but no luck. We need 3 rooms. Could that be part of the problem?? Any help would be great.

Thanks,

Teri

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

A few issues at work here i believe...

-it's too early

-it's a holiday weekend

-there are football Bowl games in the area

In light of the above, remember that Priceline and Hotwire are there for the hotels to sell excess inventory. The hotel managers right may think that they can sell hotel rooms on their own and there is no reason to 'unload' inventory to Priceline/Hotwire at deeply discounted prices. As your check-in date draws near, if the hotels aren't filling up as quickly as they had expected, the hotels will then release some inventory to the 'opaque' services.

I would book a cancellable back-up and continue trying every 2-3 weeks or so at this point. If you're unsuccessful by the time October rolls around i would start bidding once a week.

Are you a gambler?

Hotwire shows a 3* hotel for $335/nite. I highly suspect this to be the Embassy Suites (it matches the description previously known associated with it, but it's rated at 3* instead of the previous 3.5*, so it's suspected that it's been downgraded but nobody has purchased this property yet as a 3* so we can't say for sure).

Anyways, if we're correct that this is indeed the Embassy Suites, the ES shows a rate of $200/nite on their website. You could then apply for Hotwire's "Double the Difference" Guarantee:

$335 (Hotwire rate) - $200 (Embassy Suite rate) = $135 (Difference)

Double the Difference = $135 x 2 = $270

$335 (Hotwire rate) - $270 (Double the Difference) = $65 net cost!!

If you're tempted by the above you could test the waters with one room. Assuming it all works out you could then purcahse the other two rooms, but you have to have somebody else purchase the other two rooms since each household can only make one Double the Difference claim in a six week (i think) period.

[TBQ]

A few issues at work here i believe...

-it's too early

-it's a holiday weekend

-there are football Bowl games in the area

The college football BCS National Championship game is being held in the area on Tuesday January 4, 2005. A *LOT* of people come for the entire week, and since no one knows who will be playing in the game, I would guess that a lot of rooms are being held back for use in packages.

[sashapoo]

Thanks for the advice! I was hoping that the bowl games would not be that close either in time or distance but sadly I was wrong. I will book a back up just in case and keep trying at it to see what happens. The double the differance thing sounds pretty good if we can work it out with the others going with us. I will let you all know how it turns out.

Teri

[Mike&Nancy]

Where/how do you go to make a Double the Difference claim? I'm still a little confused about that part, can you tell?

Thanks.

[thereuare]

Mike&Nancy, start by giving this thread a read: LOW PRICE GUARANTEE

[Mike&Nancy]

Thank you there. That helped. I'm sorry I didn't think of doing a search on the board....of course, that would've been the obvious. I told you I was confused.