Priceline Hotel: Renaissance Ilikai

[gedward]

Hi. I'll be in Honolulu May 3rd-10th. Can anyone advise on a Priceline bid

for Renaissance Ilikai at during that period?

Thanks!

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

You can't bid on a specific hotel... only the minimum star rating and geographic area.

I'd suggest reading I'VE NEVER USED PRICELINE or HOTWIRE for a brief overview about how each service works.

Then if you're flexible enough to use either service let us know your maximum bid amount and we'll suggest a strategy to follow.

[gedward]

Hey, thanks for the quick reply.

I understand what you mean and perhaps I worded my question poorly.

I'm trying to find out what bid range may qualify me for that hotel for those dates. I realize I can't name it in the bid. I've notice posts in which

users state they've ended up there with a $58 bid, but I haven't seen any info on whether this was high/low season, etc.

Thanks again for the reply. I looked at a lot of different posts before registering. What an excellent site!

[thereuare]

Rates for your dates are somewhat inline (just a bit more) with what we typically see acceptances for this property.

If you're willing to accept any hotel at your star rating in the zone, i would proceed as follows below. You have one re-bid zone in the area at the 3* level, if you're not familiar with re-bidding please see PRICELINE RE-BIDDING EXPLAINED and ask any questions you may have and/or confirm your re-bid zone with the board.

Select 3* Waikiki North and ....

Bid $58, if rejected add re-bid zone and...

Bid $62.

Good Luck and let us know how it goes.

[LoneStar]

Gedward --

I do not believe that it is possible to get the Renaissance for those days on Priceline. My best guess is that it is also unlikely to be available in the future, but of course you never know.

As you may know, priceline generally awards you the hotel that will accept the lowest price in the star category and zone in which you bid for. The best way I know to "guess" which hotel that is is to do a non-opaque "packages" search on priceline for the days you want to stay. Just put in a "dummy" origination city (I usually use KOA for Honolulu travel).

Using that strategy, at this time the cheapest 3* Waikiki North zone hotel (the zone which the Renaissance is in) is the Royal Garden. I am not personally familiar with the property, but I have heard several negative reviews. I would not book it for myself.

A good alternative right now is to bid exclusively for the Waikiki South zone (remembering that there are free 3 star rebids using Ihiani and Airport). For your days, the cheapest hotel that comes up in that zone is the Radisson Price Kuhio. Honolulu reviews tend to be all over the map, but I would say the vast majority of people seem to think that property offers excellent value for the priceline rate. Successful bids seem to range from $58 (where I would probably start, unless you wanted to lowball and probably have to rebid 3 days later) to $68.

Just remember that this is an educated guess, and there are no guarantees that you will actually get what I think you will get. Given the number of nights involved, you could split your bid up in chunks to see what you get. Since priceline has a feature that lets you add days to your stay (as long as it isn't more days than you originally booked), you could also bid for 4 days and, if you like what you get, try to add the additional 3. I'd probably do that myself in your situation. Just whatever days you bid for, do a packages search on priceline FIRST for those days, to make sure the same hotel is still the cheapest.

Good luck!

[LoneStar]

Rates for your dates are somewhat inline (just a bit more) with what we typically see acceptances for this property.

I didn't see your post thereuare before I posted. As I noted, I think the Waikiki north zone hotel for those days is the Royal Garden. I'd personally stick to the South zone to avoid it.

[thereuare]

I wasn't looking at the alternatives... only at what rates are typically accepted at the Renaissance, so both of our statements could be (and are likely) valid.

Of course you know the area much better than i and i defer to you :)

PS- i'll point out that Ihiani is not technically a re-bid zone since it contains Resort properties and the star level you select in Priceline is the minimum you are willing to accept, so you could always be upgraded. Although it may be unlikely that you'd be upgraded to a resort in this area, i think it's important to make the distinction so that unsuspecting users don't ultimately end up in an area that they dont' want... we ultimately don't know how high a user will have to bid, and if for some reason it requires a much higher bid than usual, i'd hate to see a user add a Resort zone as a re-bid and end up far from where they need/want to be

[LoneStar]

PS- i'll point out that Ihiani is not technically a re-bid zone since it contains Resort properties and the star level you select in Priceline is the minimum you are willing to accept, so you could always be upgraded. Although it may be unlikely that you'd be upgraded to a resort in this area, i think it's important to make the distinction so that unsuspecting users don't ultimately end up in an area that they dont' want...

Good point, thereuare. Folks who are not "experts" on priceline bidding may get confused by calling Ihilani a "free rebid" for the 3 star Waikiki zones. Theoretically, you could get it, and it is different from the (presumably) 100% safe strategy of adding a zone that doesn't have any hotels at or above your star level.

As a practical matter, of course, Ihilani IS a free rebid opportunity for 3 star (and perhaps 4 star) Waikiki bidders. I would say the odds of getting a Ihilani resort for under 100 bucks on priceline is about the odds of it snowing this afternoon in Honolulu! :) It certainly has never happened in "priceline history" to my knowledge. I would also submit that there are even longer odds that anyone who did score the JW Marriott Resort in Ihilani for 60 bucks instead of a much lesser Waikiki property would be disappointed!

So I would encourage folks to make use of the Ihilani 3 star free-rebid-that's-not-technically-a-free-rebid. It is particularly useful because the only "real" 3 star rebid for the Waikiki zones is the Airport, and it often takes multiple bids to get the best price on a Waikiki 3 star.

[gedward]

Wow! Thanks to both of you. This is really informative and helpful.

Good community.

[LoneStar]

One additional thing to consider with regard to Waikiki bidding is that time is not always your friend. For example, May is an off-peak month in Hawaii, so I have little doubt that you will be able to get a good rate on priceline. The problem is that you may get a good rate on a hotel you don't want to stay in. There are so many 3-star hotels in Waikiki that the one willing to accept the lowest price (the one you'll get) constantly changes. For example, a couple of weeks ago, "everyone" was getting the Renaissance in the Waikiki North zone. Now, the much lesser Royal Garden is the winning bid.

In contrast, the Waikiki South zone seems to currently have a good hotel (the Prince Kuhio) as the winning bid. They could soon be underbid by a lower quality property. Alternatively, even better properties might become the low bid. You never know!

The bottomline I think is that when you determine (probably through the "packages" function) that a hotel you actually want to stay at is the low bidding property, you should grab it if your dates are firm (remember the non-refundability "problem"). This is probably a different strategy than one should employ in other priceline bidding situations where the quality of the specific properties varies less, and getting the lowest price is more important. Here, it may be worth paying $5 or $10 more to be sure of getting a decent resort hotel.