Priceline Hotel: 3.5* Asheville Renaissance

[charm2017]

I have lurked on this forum but never ever used PRICELINE, let alone it's name your own price feature. Due to the great tips here, I saved almost $400 on a 6 night stay in Asheville NC. First bid: $80 on a three and half star hotel (the only one listed here is the Renaissance Asheville - highly rated by Trip Advisor)

My bid was rejected and Priceline told me that I needed to bid $22 higher or else wait 24 hours. From this board, I knew it was bogus, so I just scrolled to the bottom and hit the change link and then added Biltmore area since I knew there were no three and half stars in that area and got an instant rebid.

I bid $86 and instantly got confirmationL "Your price of $86 was accepted by Renaissance Asheville. for August 25 to August 31, 2009"

The Renaissance web site had $159 for weekday and $163 plus tax for Fri/Sat/Sun . Expedia, Orbitz, etc all had $162 average for a total of $974. PRICELINE was $516 plus $73.37 tax & fees for a total of 589.37. You saved us $384.63 .

My only regret is that while I used the forum link, when PRICELINE countered, I used their link to rebid. I did not see any warning about this in the FAQ nor posts. It was only after I had bid on Priceline and then registered here that I read the automatic personal message warning me about going back and using the forum link instead of the Priceline supplied link on my rebid. sorry, I did not know. I strongly suggest that you incorporate this technical issue into the FAQ so other lurkers do not make the same mistake. I will know better in the future, but this is important and while it bears repeating in the personal message upon registration that is too late.

PS Your registration clock for time is wrong as I clicked EST but you are an hour behind the real EST time. Must be a daylight savings issue

[AaronJB]

Congratulations on your success and welcome to the site.

Glad that the site has been helpful and that you're pleased with the results - very nice job getting around PRICELINE's counter-offer. Can you confirm the star rating of this property?

Thank you for sharing your win with the board and thanks for using the site's HOTWIRE or PRICELINE links to start future purchases.

Have a great trip.

[thereuare]

PS Your registration clock for time is wrong as I clicked EST but you are an hour behind the real EST time. Must be a daylight savings issue

This is a global board and each user can adjust their settings to their own local time using their Control Panel.

[charm2017]

Congratulations on your success and welcome to the site.

Glad that the site has been helpful and that you're pleased with the results - very nice job getting around PRICELINE's counter-offer. Can you confirm the star rating of this property?

Thank you for sharing your win with the board and thanks for using the site's HOTWIRE or PRICELINE links to start future purchases.

Have a great trip.

Yes, I can confirm that Renaissance Asheville is treated as a three and half star hotel on Priceline, since that is the one and only box I checked on the stars level

I passed on the three star since I saw a lot of people getting Crown Plaza Resort and Trip Advisor reviews are pretty negative on CPR especially the location. It appears to be the one and only three and half star and it was exactly the hotel we wanted.

[charm2017]

This is a global board and each user can adjust their settings to their own local time using their Control Panel.

thanks. I just went in and pretended that I was in Canada instead of Virginia to get the right time.

[AaronJB]

Thank you for the follow-up.

[charm2017]

Thank you for the follow-up.

Well here is an update to our stay at the Renaissance. They were amazingly nice to us - gave us a room with a king size bed on the 8th floor with fantastic views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and even off in the nearby hills, the Grove Park Resort & Spa. I have paid full price at other Marriot hotels and not been treated nearly as well as we were at the Renaissance. They did mention we had booked on Priceline but that was just to reassure us that the credit card was for incidentals (Like the horror movie we paid for on Saturday night) and that we were paid in full already.

Location is fantastic - you can walk to everything and great Italian, Indian, Thai, Japanese, even vegetarian and pizza places withing a 3 to 5 minute walk.

[AaronJB]

Glad to hear that you had such a nice stay at this property - the views sound beautiful.