Priceline Hotel: 4* Indianapolis (Downtown) Hyatt Regency

[Senoreit]

Downtown is my preferred zone, NW is plan B. Conventional rates for downtown are very high for these dates, thus availability seems tight. Hotwire is offering a whopping $175/night (!) for 4* downtown (which I'm almost positive is either the Omni Severin or the Westin, and I'm leaning towards the Omni), so I was probably just wasting my time only bidding up to $80. Hotwire shows much better prices if the nights are searched separately, so splitting the bid would probably yield better results, but is something I'd rather not do at this point.

Rates in the NW zone seem average as far as I can tell (maybe I'm not correct about this), but again, no dice all the way up to $80 for a 3*. This would be for a leisure trip, so I'll probably end up just scrapping it and going a different weekend if the Priceline situation doesn't improve. For whatever reason, whenever I want to go to Indianapolis, rates are absurdly higher than they are during seemingly everyone other time of year.

[Senoreit]

Well, I don't know who I was trying to kid when I implied that I could be so patient in securing a hotel for this stay. The high rates and the fact that several downtown hotels are already sold out for these dates made me antsy, and while ultimately this trip could have been shifted to a different weekend, these really were our preferred traveling dates.

What I ended up doing was bidding for the first night of this stay (11/12) on Priceline. Among 4* downtown properties, The Omni Severin was showing $189, the Hyatt was showing $219, and the Westin was showing $159 for this night, but alas, Priceline works in strange ways. I was rejected at $40 and $50 before being accepted at $60 by the Hyatt! I expected to get the Omni Severin (since the Westin hasn't come up in so long) and would have been perfectly happy with it, but I'm also happy to get the Hyatt as I'll be able to check in on the phone at 12:00 p.m. (thanks to bbbb for his tip about calling the 1-800 customer service number to get them to add my GP number to my Priceline reservation) and virtually guarantee that I can get the type of room we want, and I'll also get a few measly Gold Passport points for incidentals and a stay credit. I booked the second night of this stay (11/13) at an unmentionably high rack rate for a train car room at the Crowne Plaza at Union Station because I really wanted stay there. Of course, the day after I did all this, I checked again on Hotwire and the $175/night for the two-night stay I mentioned in my previous post had gone down to $75/night. :) Oh well, no big deal though.

Congratulations, you got your price of $60 for a 4-star hotel room.

Hyatt Regency Indianapolis

Downtown Indianapolis

One South Capitol Avenue

Indianapolis, Indiana 46204

317-632-1234

Check-In Date: Fri, Nov 12, 2004

Check-In Time: After 03:00 PM

Check-Out Date: Sat, Nov 13, 2004

Check-Out Time: 12:00 PM

Your Offer Price: $60.00

Number of Rooms: 1

Number of Nights: 1

Subtotal: $60.00

Taxes & Service Fees: $13.83

Total Charges: $73.83

[thereuare]

At least you have a roof over your head... thanks for the report.

I assume the Crowne Plaza is non-refundable? (so that you can't take a shot at the new lower priced Hotwire offer?)

Please keep in mind, if you hadn't, that this board is an affiliate of the CROWNE PLAZA.

Users can take a look at all of the companies and sites that we are affiliated with on our HELP SUPPORT BETTERBIDDING page.

Thanks.

[Senoreit]

The reservation for the Crowne actually is refundable, however I consciously chose to pay more to stay there because I really wanted to try out a train car room. At the time I made the reservations, the $175/night on Hotwire was high enough to scare me away from bidding for the two nights together on Priceline. That being the case, my choices were either: A ) Bid the nights separately on Priceline, knowing that I would end up paying much less than than the $175/night but risk getting two different properties, or B ) Since I knew I would be risking getting two different properties anyway if I went with option A, just bid one night on Priceline and book the other conventionally at the Crowne because I really wanted to stay there but had always put off doing so because booking a stay at a single property for an absurdly cheap rate through Priceline is usually just too attractive an option to pass up. Of couse I ended up going with option B. If I could have had a winning bid for both nights together accepted at $60 right off the bat, I would have gone that route. However, since that didn't work out, I felt that this was probably as attractive an opportunity as ever to bite the bullet and pay for the Crowne.

I was disappointed in myself because only after I made the reservation did I remember the Crowne Plaza affiliate link on this site. At that point I figured it would just be too silly to cancel the reservation and then re-book the exact same reservation through the link. Now the train car rooms are sold out for that night, so if I did that I'd run the risk of not even being able to re-book it.

Hopefully I made up for my gaffe by sending a long-overdue contribution to Betterbidding.com via Paypal, as mentioned in THIS THREAD. By the way, what is XOCharts?

[thereuare]

Thank you for your contribution. :)

XOCharts is a software program that i wrote that works as an excel add-in. Point and figure charting is an 'old school' way of charting stocks, commodities, and the stock market that has been around for centuries, and althought its practioners are die-hard technicians, it is a dying art form with the advent of computers and the computing power of the desktop.

Based upon the dollar amount of your contribution i just assumed it was a sale from the XOCharts website, so try out the program i emailed you if you have any desire or interest (i'd be more than happy to teach the basics to you if you'd like).

Thanks again for your support!