Priceline Hotel: 3* Albuquerque (Airport ABQ) Grand Airport Hotel

[CrazyOne]

Same-day bidding on this on 4/30/09. Bid up to $70 in downtown zones with no luck. Seemed to be busy there. I believe the Hyatt Regency showed no availability. I considered bidding for the Tamaya, but I wasn't clear on the resort thing. Since it told me exactly which zones had Resort available, I was afraid it would put me somewhere else if I bid high and selected additional zones, even though they only had 3*. (I couldn't find a clear answer on this anywhere.) It showed Resort listed below 1*!

Anyway, the other factor was cost after touring so after spending twice as much for places like Holiday Inn Express in some cases over the rest of our trip, getting $55 for two nights at the Albuquerque Grand Airport Hotel was not bad at all and cut our overall costs a bit. This hotel is in between brands, with renovation in progress and signs and notes all over apologizing for mess and proudly proclaiming the August re-opening as the airport Sheraton. The unrenovated room was fine, though. I'll post a longer review maybe tomorrow night when I get more time.

I used the PRICELINE box on the homepage to start my bids.

Note: All Albuquerque zones maxed out at 3* now, so either the downtown Hyatt and Midtown Sheraton are out or have been knocked down to 3*.

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your success!

Glad to see this property worked well for your needs.

For future reference, in the "hierarchy" of PRICELINE star levels, Resort class properties are ranked above 4* hotels but below 5* hotels... so you are corret that zones with no 3* properties, but do have Resort class properties, could have a 3* bid upgraded to a Resort (so you wouldn't want to use such zones as re-bid zones)

Thank you for sharing your win with the board and using our PRICLINE link to begin your bidding.

[CrazyOne]

Actually what I was trying to figure out was the other way around. If I was purposely bidding for Resort, could I be put in another zone that had only 3*? I couldn't find the answer to that one. From your description it seems like no, that in fact the only upgrade from Resort would be 5*, but when you are bidding for Resort (or maybe anytime there are potential Resort hits) Priceline tells you specifically which zones actually have a Resort possibility. If I couldn't be put in something else instead, then they are essentially making it super easy to bid 6 or 7 times for Resort in Albuquerque, for example, by showing you there's only one possible zone.

Of course, maybe this is only obvious to us informed bidders. :-)

[thereuare]

When bidding for a Resort property (in this instance if you were selecting the Santa Ana Pueblo which at the moment is the only zone in this region with a Resort class property) you can add any zones which only have hotels rated 4* or less. Therefore, in this region, you actually have 8 re-bid zones when bidding for a Resort hotel.

Hope this clarifies things for you.