No-brainer Priceline cities?

[lwitchel]

Not every city has great Priceline deals.

I've had great luck in London, Brussels and Philadelphia.

The choices in Paris up until recently forced one to choose between quality and location (How is the Novotel Les Halles?). Amsterdam did not work out well for me (I chose another avenue to book).

Do you have any nominations for no-brainer Priceline cities (or zones) and those you would avoid?

[LoneStar]

I think the LAX and Honolulu zones are perhaps the most consistent and reliable in producing substantial discounts. I've also had consistent success with huge savings in desert resort cities such as Phoenix, Tucson and Palm Springs.

Indeed, in any big US city, priceline usually works great. Once in a while, of course, you get a "bad" property.

In Europe, very good success in Brussels and London, although London seems more seasonal.

[dahammer]

I would add Newark, NJ zone including the areas of Jersey City, Newark Airport, Secaucus-Meadowlands. The risk is minimal due to the postings on this board and the rewards are great, I typically save 40% or more. Better yet, I get to stay in a nicer property. I typically make same day reservations which minimizes the PL/HW risk of making a non-cancellable booking.

[lowballer]

San Francisco still works pretty well, although the deals aren't as good as they were a couple years back. Throw in the SFO airport area here too: it seems you can always get something in the $30s at SFO, and all the PL properties are pretty solid.

Generally, you can throw in any seasonal-travel areas in the offseason: ski towns or Florida in the summer, Chicago in the winter and so on.

Seattle nowadays is a mixed: downtown Seattle is one of the more futile cities in the US for using Priceline but the suburbs tend to have pretty sweet deals.

Internationally, PL is mostly useless for Paris. Savings often aren't that much, the zones are pretty large, there have been complaints about a lot of PL proberties and so on. Also for Hong Kong, the best deals usually aren't on PL.

[TravelGuy]

I would definately add Toronto to the list, and Montreal is quite good too.

Portland, OR seems to have consistenty excellent deals on 4*'s for such a highly desirable city, among the best going, and dirt cheap 3*'s.

Washington, DC - definately a no brainer to try Priceline first.