Priceline Hotel: 4* San Francisco (SOMA-Moscone Center) InterContinental

[IBDP]

I began bidding at $80.00, used free rebids in increments of $5.00 & $10.00 then added Soma at $120.00; received this USE hotel.

It seems to me that the spread between the hotel website price and PRICELINE price is narrowing lately. I book quite a few hotels with PRICELINE, so feel competent to judge. I would like to know how others feel about this

Regards,

Donna

[Colfax]

Hi, Donna.

Did you win the Intercontinental SF or the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins? The Intercontinental-SF is in PRICELINE's SOMA-Moscone zone and Intercontinental-Mark Hopkins is in USW-Nob Hill zone. Neither is in PRICELINE's USE zone.

PRICELINE and HOTWIRE both have a USE zone but the zone boundaries aren't the same. On HOTWIRE the Intercontinental-SF is in USE. On Priceline it's in SOMA. It gets confusing.

:)

The Intercontinental-SF is $169 for your dates. $120 isn't a huge discount but it's still a great deal for this hotel. The Intercontinental has been very promotional since it opened last year.

It doesn't sound like you bid the USW zone but the Parc55 in USW is only $139 for your dates, so an under $100 win might have been possible in that zone.

Enjoy your stay.

[IBDP]

Hi Colfax,

I was thinking of hotwire area when I wrote the results. You are correct, it is Soma where this hotel is. Thanks for the correction

Regards,

Donna

[BEAV]

It seems to me that the spread between the hotel website price and priceline price is narrowing lately. I book quite a few hotels with Priceline, so feel competent to judge. I would like to know how others feel about this

Regards,

Donna

Since you started bidding 4 stars at $80, but didn't include the SOMA zone (the zone you won) until your last bid of $120, the possibility exists that you overbid for this stay. In other words, why bid $80 for 4 star in one zone (USE?) but start at $120 in SOMA zone? In your bid scenario, you never gave the SOMA zone the opportunity to "hit" at anything less than $120. After failing to win a successful bid in USE at $115 (or $110), it would have been better to go back to the Priceline home page and start a new bid over from scratch, only this time starting with the SOMA zone at $80 and using your free rebid zones until ultimately "hitting" at some price between $80 and $120. I hope this makes sense and will be helpful to you in the future.

Having said all that (!), I've stayed at the SF-Intercontinental twice and loved it. So go and have a great time!

Note to thereuare: Please edit the thread title from USE to SOMA.

[thereuare]

Thanks for the follow-up.

[Colfax]

It seems to me that the spread between the hotel website price and PRICELINE price is narrowing lately. I book quite a few hotels with PRICELINE, so feel competent to judge. I would like to know how others feel about this

There's not much spread on this particular win ($169 vs $120) but we still see some 50% off type deals too. It all depends on dates and zone.

I've noticed over the months that you like to bid the SOMA-Moscone zone, Donna, and the 4* in SOMA-Moscone don't seem to offer the super deep discounts ($60's and $70's) that you'll sometimes get in USW or USE.