Priceline Hotel: Amsterdam 11/4 to 11/7

[kingturtle]

I have been trying to bid for 3 nights hotel in Amsterdam (zone 2) and have not had much success. I wonder if hotels run a higher price on weekend and thus rejecting the rate because 11/6 is a Friday. Will I have any advantage to bid for 11/4 and 5 (two nights) as one bid and 11/6 (1 night) as a separate bid?

Thanks.

[thereuare]

What star rating(s) have you been bidding for?

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

[kingturtle]

What star rating(s) have you been bidding for?

I have been trying 5* or 4*+.

[ReconDoc]

What amount have you been bidding?

We are seeing 4 star hotels go in the $65-$66 range. Pretty much only first and only bids have been coming in higher for this general time frame. If you are above $70 for a 4* and still coming up dry then you may have a problem worth checking out.

Weekends can be busier. But this should be a pretty slow time.

[Romelle]

Take a look at the retail side of PRICELINE, or www.Expedia.com. They both list rates by individual day so you can see if there is a pattern of higher rates for certain dates. It will be mixed, but you usually can tell. Or even put your dates in one at a time on www.hotwire.com to see if different days have different rates. (You can link to HOTWIRE from here -left top of page), or Expedia is under the tab "Support/Travel Links" above.

For a longer stretch of days, the theory is that your bid has to be equal to or higher than the highest costing day of the PL offerings. And split bids have a history of working when it looks like there are some high/low rates.

You have to be willing to move, since if you are successful it might well be in two different hotels.

If you bid the lower rated group of nights first, you might get lucky and be offered PRICELINE's add-a-night feature. This offer can be either at the same rate as your bid, or it can be higher (but would still save a move).

When you split your bid, you do pay the PRICELINE fee twice.

Romelle

[kingturtle]

We are seeing 4 star hotels go in the $65-$66 range. Pretty much only first and only bids have been coming in higher for this general time frame. If you are above $70 for a 4* and still coming up dry then you may have a problem worth checking out.

I came up dry with $74 for zone 2 and rebidding $76 for Zone 1+2. :)

[thereuare]

To avoid any confusion please use the zone names and not the zone numbers.

What is your maximum bid for this stay? What is the best rate you're able to find at an acceptable hotel thru traditional booking channels?

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

[brianc_li]

This is quite curious.

I have looked at your dates on Expedia (Who, I believe own Priceline) and none of the NH 4* hotels that normally come up on PL are showing as available for those dates. They are however showing with availability on www.booking.com. There is no difference there between the weekday rate and that on Friday night.

What is causing this, I don't know. Certainly there is nothing big on in town (I live here) and it is low season in terms of overseas visitors. My only guesses would be that either NH have some major contract with a particular convention or firm for one or more of those dates or there is some glitch in the PL system.

In the end you may have to use Hotwire. They are showing a $99 4* hotel in Amsterdam East which is probably either the Movenpick or Lloyd.