Priceline Hotel: 4* Chicago (River North-NMA) Hotel Felix

[TeddyRiley]

We were interested in staying in the NMA area, so we concentrated our PRICELINE efforts there.

Dates of our stay are Tues. 9/29/09 - Mon. 10/05/09.

We had difficulty obtaining a price of less than $100 for all 6 nights, understandably, because of the 6 consecutive nights that run into the weekend. Therefore, we tried breaking up our stay, and this is what we ended up with:

Check-in Tues. 9/29; Check-out Thurs.10/1 (attempting to check out Friday did not work within our bid range).

North Mich Ave- 60

added Hyde- 65

added Lincoln-70

added Skokie-75

added O Hare South- 81 Accepted [Hotel Felix]

Check-in Thurs. 10/1; Check-out Mon. 10/5

The following was rejected:

North Mich Ave- 81

added Hyde- 86

added Lincoln-91

added Skokie- 96

added O Hare South- 101

The following was accepted:

North Mich Ave- 97

added Hyde- 102

added Lincoln-107

added Skokie- 113 Accepted [Hotel Felix]

Works out to about 102 per night pre-tax (and 121 a night, including tax).

As an FYI, Expedia was also running a special - if you book 3 nights, you get the 4th night free. I believe the total for the 4 remaining nights we needed would have come out to $608 (including taxes and service fees, which is 152/night for the 4 nights), and the average for all 6 nights using Expedia (including our initial 2 night Priceline win) would have been $133.50/night. Not incredibly huge savings this time around, but I always enjoy Pricelining and seeing what we can get. Just be aware to look at your options when planning.

We anticipated the chance of having to switch hotels, which we were okay with. Turns out we are staying at the same hotel, but I understand we have to go through the motions of checking out and checking back in again. We'll see if the hotel can accommodate us if we really like the first room.

The most notable con regarding the Hotel Felix is, being a boutique hotel, the rooms are relatively small. I do not like boutique hotels for that reason, but I am going with an open mind and will report back. I will note that I had Pricelined a night in NYC a couple of years back and got the Hudson Hotel. The room was the size of a closet, and I disliked it very much. As long as the room we get at Hotel Felix is larger, I will be okay with it.

Got the win through using the PRICELINE link from betterbidding.

This site has been a great resource. Thx.

[AaronJB]

Congratulations on your success!

The Felix is a new property - while I haven't stayed there, it has gotten reasonably good reviews and is in an excellent location. I don't think any rooms can be smaller than those offered at the Hudson. :)

Using the site's PRICELINE link is greatly appreciated.

Enjoy your stay.

[TeddyRiley]

Thanks!

In retrospect, we probably could have saved a bit more if we had further broken out the stay, but it's unclear what particular nights were driving up the average. But the possibility of having to move to a new hotel during the weekend as result of breaking up our bid, say for Thurs/Friday and Sat/Sun would have been a pain, particularly if we had to stay at a different hotel Thurs./Friday and move back to Hotel Felix Sat./Sun. who knows....Happy enough plans are all settled.