Priceline Hotel: Trying to book Intercontinental, not Hyatt Regency Boston, etc.

[thatbiggbadwolfy]

Hi all, I've been using this site and its links for a while now (made over 20 hotel purchases on priceline), and it always eluded me as to how I would get the same hotel (same zone) even if I increased my price.

I've stayed at the Hyatt Boston (4*) 3 times already with winning bids of $62-74, and it's a great hotel (although they do mention Prepaid Priceline at the desk--P.S. do they see the prices we pay?) structurally with some improvements needed on customer service.

But I want to try the Intercontinental as well. I wanted to know if I put $90-100 on the bid, and because it's in the same zone--would I get the Hyatt for $100 (and pay $40 more) or be shifted into another zone of 4 star hotels?

In my opinion the Hyatt Boston is only a 3.5, whereas the Intercontinental Boston is a 4* (Intercontinental NYC Barclay really disappointed me--priceline overbooked, and I was relocated).

Thanks for the help!!

[AaronJB]

Welcome to the site.

Are you looking to start bidding for a trip - do you have specific dates in mind yet?

It is strongly recommended to NOT increase your bids to see if you can get a different property, as given the fact that you do not know what PRICELINE's bidding inventory is, you can *very* easily wind up overbidding for a property you could have gotten cheaper. In terms of a particular hotel coming up often, there are hotels out there that frequently use PRICELINE to fill rooms.

As I've mentioned in many other threads recently, PRICELINE is not an optimal choice if you are seeing a specific hotel or seeking to avoid a specific hotel - it's a discount service and the trade-off is having to accept which hotel you get.

You may want to consider HOTWIRE instead, as while you may pay a little more, you can at least make an educated guess as to which properties are showing. Otherwise, with PRICELINE there's no "magic price" or trick to get around the fact that it is a gamble and using the service means accepting what you get.

Additionally, while using the site's links is greatly appreciated, please also post your wins, as that does help other people who are looking for information...