Priceline Hotel: 4* Marriott Copenhagen

[supercat]

I had a bid of $100 (not including taxes) a night accepted for May 14-17 (3 nights) at the Marriott Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark. There is only one area of Copenhagen that one can bid within, so I felt pretty confident that whatever hotel I got would be fine. A check of the Marriott's website showed the same room at $218 for the first 2 nights, and $145 for the 3rd. This is my first time using Priceline, so I think I bid too high to start out with, but I am still satisfied with the result.

[WillTravel]

Supercat, when I go to Priceline.com and try to bid I get a map of what is described as "greater Copenhagen."

See: http://tickets.priceline.com/hotels/Lang/e...nmaps/20640.gif

I haven't gotten out my ruler, but it looks like this might be a circle with a radius of about one mile. If so, why do they call it "greater Copenhagen?"

As another data point, I yesterday tried a bid on Copenhagen for 2* July 1-6 at $50 on priceline.com and failed. What were your taxes on this bid?

[supercat]

I'm not sure why they call it "Greater Copenhagen," although Christiana (at the right edge of the circle) might be outside of Copenhagen proper. At first I was a little worried that I would end up at the Hilton by the airport, but that is in Kastrup 7 miles from the city center (in the lower right hand corner of the map) - which would clearly be outside of the circle.

The taxes came out to $72 (not including the P/L $5.95 fee). Denmark has very high hotel taxes - I think it is 25%, so if my calculations are correct (and I am terrible at figuring these kinds of things out, so please correct me if I am wrong), P/L paid $288 ($96 a night) for the room.

[WillTravel]

Yes, the VAT is 25% in Denmark (from what I can tell from online sources), so your calculation seems correct.

As far as I can see from the Priceline Help, Priceline guarantees that US bids won't have more than 20% tax, but they don't make the same guarantee for international bids. I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Another thing to keep in mind is that hotel prices quoted online are often inclusive of VAT in Europe, so you have to keep that in mind when preparing a Priceline bid so you don't go too high. (I looked at the Copenhagen Marriot site, and it seems the prices they quote are inclusive of VAT.) Obviously you were in no danger of going that high.

I'm not sure how it works, but I know VAT is also refundable in some instances to tourists (maybe when the prices aren't inclusive? - I don't know). The Priceline site, though, says you can't get VAT refunds on Priceline-bid rooms, so that's something else to investigate.

But never mind all that - as you're clearly still way ahead on this bid and it sounds like a great deal and a nice hotel.