Priceline Hotel: 5* Rome (Central) Help

[crispylineta]

I'm planning on using priceline to try to book a double room in a 5* hotel in Rome (Central) for two nights (Oct 22-24). From previous posts, it looks like the three 5* Rome central hotels that have been identified are (prices per night for those dates from the hotel website are in parentheses):

Grand Hotel de la Minerva Roma (EUR 310)

St George Roma (EUR 239)

Intercontinental Rome (EUR 295)

If anyone knows of any other 5* Rome (Central) hotels that show up on priceline please let me know.

From what I've seen in previous posts, it looks like the range of winning bids has been roughly between $190-230 (though not sure if this includes tax or not). I guess I thinking of starting at $150 (using the board's PRICELINE links of course) and go up from there since I have some time. $230 is probably my upper limit in terms of how high I'd be willing to go. Any thoughts or general advice on whether this all seems reasonable?

Thanks!

[yellowdog]

Please follow-up your previous Priceline San Juan thread with whatever you ended up doing for that stay... then bump this thread and we'll have a look at the above.

Yellowdog.

[crispylineta]

Sorry about that - added the details of my Puerto Rico trip and I'll be sure to do the same here after finding a Rome hotel.

Anyone have any ideas / suggestions / advice / etc? Any help or guidance would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[thereuare]

At the 5* level you have FOUR re-bid zones. If you're not familiar with re-bidding please read Priceline Re-Bidding Explained and feel free to ask questions and/or confirm your re-bid zones with the board before proceeding.

(NOTE: 're-bid zone1' is not the same as priceline's Zone1, 're-bid zone2' is not the same as priceline's Zone2, etc, etc)

Select 5 Rome Central...

Bid $150, if rejected add re-bid zone1...

Bid $160, if rejected close browser and use our link to re-access PRICELINE

Select 5 Rome Central and re-bid zone2...

Bid $165, if rejected add re-bid zone1...

Bid $170, if rejected close browser and use our link to re-access PRICELINE

Select 5 Rome Central and re-bid zone3...

Bid $175, if rejected add re-bid zone1...

Bid $180, if rejected close browser and use our link to re-access PRICELINE

Select 5 Rome Central and re-bid zone4...

Bid $185, if rejected add re-bid zone1...

Bid $190, if rejected close browser and use our link to re-access PRICELINE

Select 5 Rome Central and re-bid zone2 and re-bid zone3...

Bid $195, if rejected add re-bid zone1...

Bid $200, if rejected close browser and use our link to re-access PRICELINE

Select 5 Rome Central and re-bid zone2 and re-bid zone4...

Bid $205, if rejected add re-bid zone1...

Bid $210, if rejected close browser and use our link to re-access PRICELINE

Select 5 Rome Central and re-bid zone3 and re-bid zone4...

Bid $215, if rejected add re-bid zone1...

Bid $220, if rejected close browser and use our link to re-access PRICELINE

Select 5 Rome Central and re-bid zone2 and re-bid zone3 and re-bid zone4...

Bid $225, if rejected add re-bid zone1...

Bid $230

Any questions feel free to ask.

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

Let us know how it goes or if we can be of further help.

[crispylineta]

Hmm that is very helpful and makes a lot of sense. One question though - is it necessarily better to use the re-bid zones to finish off the bidding? Since I don't need this hotel until October, I could theoretically just continue to go up each day until my bid was accepted. Is there a strategic reason to try to get the bidding done in one sitting? Additionally, do you think that in general the best deals are found closer to the actual date of stay, or in your / the board's experience does that not make a ton of difference?

Thanks!

[Romelle]

Yes, you could also just bid a little higher each day. Same result. Or you could one by one add in the free rebid zones in a single session, but not get into the more sophisticated/powerful but slightly confusing permutation process.

In general, there really isn't any way of saying for sure when the good deals might show up. A few cities tend to have good deals only show at the last minute. I don't think Rome is one of them.

The one thing you could do is just bid up to what you regard as a reasonable/fair rate for now, working up day by day, or all at once as thereuare has described. Then just bid the reasonable rate every few days to see if you can catch something that has just been put in PL inventory. If you aren't successful, toward the end you can move on up to the higher/unreasonable levels (or switch to 4* bidding?). It isn't a good idea to bid way up early on, as hotels might have not yet given the rooms to PL.

And it can be a good idea to make cancelable back-up reservations while you are in the bidding process.

Romelle

[thereuare]

It is better to use re-bid zones...

Let's say you're bidding as follows, increasing your bid each day as follows:

$100, $105, $110, $115, $125, $130, $135

... and at this point a hotel decides to offer inventory to PRICELINE at $110. Your next bid woudl be $140, overbidding by $30, whereas if you went thru a complete 'cycle' each bidding opportunity you'd be starting low again and would have a chance to get the 'newly' offered hotel closer to the 'right' price.

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

[crispylineta]

thereuare - That's a good point, should have thought of that myself. Thanks - going to try later today, using the links from here of course.

[Romelle]

thereuare - That's a good point, should have thought of that myself. Thanks - going to try later today, using the links from here of course.

Me too, should have thought of it myself, asleep at the switch here. Romelle

[crispylineta]

Just tried bidding using the links to Priceline from here.

Started at 150 and went up to 180 using the strategy described above. At $170 and $180 was offered a room for $343 / night, obviously quite far out of my price range. I'm going to try again tomorrow or the next day (probably starting a bit higher). In your guys' experience, does the fact that the counteroffer was for $343 (i.e., much higher than my actual bids) mean anything in terms of at what price I am likely to actually find a room?

[thereuare]

The counter-offer at $343 means that, based upon current prices, you're likley going to have to go much higher.... you won't have to go all teh way to $343, but it wouldnt' surprise if $275-$325 was the right ballpark, more so than $175-$225.

If you change your maximum bid or want to change your strategy in any way let us know and we'll advise accordingly.

Thanks for using our PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links for your purchases.

[crispylineta]

Just to update - I bid today using the PRICELINE links from here and went up to $200, got a counteroffer of $347, but that's it. I'm going to make a backup reservation and continue to try every week around this level, and then a few weeks before the trip probably go up to $225ish and see what happens.

[thereuare]

Thanks for bidding thru our PRICELINE links... good luck and keep us updated.

[crispylineta]

Another update - I bid today using the PRICELINE links from here and went up to $225 this time, got a counteroffer of $340, but that's it. Will continue trying every week or so and hopefully as we get closer to the dates some more rooms will free up.

[thereuare]

Thanks for the update and for using our PRICELINE links to begin your bidding.

Keep us updated and let us know if we can be of any additional help along the way.

[crispylineta]

Just for a final update - I continued trying to bid but the price never got under $225 so I stuck with my backup reservation and that was fine. Thanks for all the helpful comments.