Priceline Hotel: 3* Orlando (Universal-I-Drive North) Hyatt Place Universal

[mwahahahanni]

Hi all

I'm new to this hotwire and priceline business. Using the tips suggested here I found a few hotels that sound good for my dates in Orlando, but when I checked the HOTWIRE price against kayak, in most instances there was around $10-$20 discount difference (and in one case kayak was cheaper!).

Is this normal?

Will the deals get better closer to my date?

Will the deals all be rotten b/c that's a spring break weekend?

Are these rotten deals? Am I expecting too much? :)

Please advise.

Examples of hotwire deals vs. kayak findings:

3.5* Radisson - hotwire ($97) Kayak ($107)

3.5* Hilton - hotwire ($89) Kayak ($104)

3.5* Crowne Plaza - hotwire ($90) kayak ($89)

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

I'm not sure of the hotels you're seeing on HOTWIRE, but assuming your identifications are correct, the savings may not be as great as at other times of year due to it being Spring Break.

PRICELINE and HOTWIRE typically get excess inventory that hotels may not expect to sell on their own. If this is a busy weekend, and the hotels expect to be able to sell most of the rooms themselves at full price, there is little reason to offer rooms to the opaque providers at a deep discount. It's still about 2 months before this stay and if the hotels don't get as many bookings over the next few weeks they may lower their 'opaque' price or offer inventory to the opaque suppliers, but this far ahead of your dates they may be willing to take their chances in hopes of filling the rooms themselves at full-rate. Even during busy times a hotel may offer rooms to PRICELINE and HOTWIRE at a slight discount in order to lock-in the revenue from a non-cancellable reservation (or just to make the room available thru an additional booking channel)

You may want to book a cancellable, backup, booking and continue to monitor HOTWIRE for any better rates or try bidding on PRICELINE at an amount that would still be a good rate relative to your next best deal.

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

Let us know what you decide to do for this stay or if we can be of further help.

[mwahahahanni]

I decided to go through Priceline--After reading up on hotels from this forum, I decided the the 3*s in Orlando were fairly comparable to the 3.5* I had been looking at (but which were going for more than I wanted to pay). Based on others successes for similar dates (spring break), I started my bid at $32 in Universal Studios-Seaworld zone and increased $2 incrementally using 4 free bids. Winning bid was $40 plus tax. Hotel web site for my dates was $120/night with taxes and fees.

This hotel was an absolute steal--much nicer than the $$$ Disney hotel I booked for the latter half of the trip.

[AaronJB]

Congratulations on your success. :)

Glad you were able to get a good deal and are pleased with the result.

Can you confirm the zone the win was in and the hotel name? Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your win with the board and please use the site's HOTWIRE or PRICELINE links to start your purchases and searches.

Enjoy your stay.

[mwahahahanni]

I'm sorry, I don't know how to edit the title of this post with hotel information. The hotel was Hyatt Place Universal in the Universal Studios-Seaworld Zone. Price was $40/night through PRICELINE.

[thereuare]

Thanks for the follow-up!