Priceline Hotel: 3.5* Maryland-DC Suburbs (Silver Spring) Crowne Plaza

[cbl]

Decent hotel, affiliated with LA Fitness (1/2 block away) to compensate for their subpar fitness center. Seems pricey for a 3.5*, but I tried using free rebids (DC east, mt vernon) over several days and this is the best I could get.

[AaronJB]

Congratulations on your success! :)

Good deal for busy dates in the DC area.

Thank you for sharing your win with the board and please use the site's HOTWIRE or PRICELINE links to start your purchases and searches.

Enjoy your stay.

[cbl]

OOPS... I meant 5/4-5/6. And I used the links here!

[AaronJB]

Fixed. :) Thank you for using the site's PRICELINE link.

[cbl]

In this day and age, I didn't realize there were still smoking rooms. When I arrived, the hotel claimed they were completely sold out, and that Priceline (not they) had booked me into a smoking room. I understand that hotels are sometimes unable to fulfill room requests like "type of view" or "type of bed" and that Priceline cannot offer those choices either, but smoking vs. non-smoking seems like a different matter altogether, particularly if Priceline knows it is deliberately booking you into a smoking room and does not explicitly alert the customer to this fact.

It was clear that the hotel treated Priceline customers significantly worse than other customers, based on the comments of the front desk staff. When I called Priceline customer service, I got passed around among people who couldn't do anything, and finally, at the top, I got no help at all, just a scripted apology over and over and "we can't do anything, this is non-cancellable." The inventory that Priceline has is clearly inferior, but in this case, inferior to the point of unbearable.

I ended up leaving and booking a room through Hotwire (since I'm done with Priceline) and paying twice for the stay.

Hotel: Crowne Plaza Silver Spring. Dates 4/27-4/29.

[thereuare]

Sorry to hear of you didn't enjoy your stay and had to leave the hotel early.

Just like room configuration and type of view, smoking/non-smoking is a request that may or may not be able to be honored based upon availability. Fortunately most hotels will do what they can to try to accommodate your requests, but unfortunately there are some who are unwilling to do more than assign the room given.

You state that the hotel claimed that they were sold-out (based upon the rate you had to pay to be successful it seems entirely possible that they sold-out since your purchase)... did you go to their website to see if they were indeed sold-out , and if not, were non-smoking rooms available? If they were indeed sold-out, other than giving you the room assigned and allowing you to change rooms the following day, i'm not sure what else they, or PRICELINE, could have done given the circumstances.

There are instances too when we hear the similar things from HOTWIRE stays, so if you require a non-smoking room, it would be best to stick with HOTWIRE and purchase a hotel which shows the Smoke Free icon, as that would be the only way to ensure a non-smoking room.

Hope your future stays are better.

PS- i've changed the dates of this thread to 4/27-4/29 as apparently this appears to be the correct dates of this purchase.

[cbl]

Actually, I had reserved both this week AND next week. I am dreading going back there.

I think Priceline should have offered to cancel the second day of the reservation or at least should have worked with me and find me a great rate on another local hotel since I would essentially be paying twice. If I had bid (and not won), there wasn't any time for rebidding since it was 8:30 PM the night of my stay.

[cbl]

I want to further comment on my dissatisfaction. I was NOT booked into a "run of the house" room and just had the bad luck that they were sold out. Instead, I was explicitly booked into a smoking room. The outcome might have been the same, ending up with a smoking room on a night they were fully booked, bout I feel priceline was disingenuous as they knew they were selling a specific (unappealung) room type. At least this is what CP said... "priceline booked you into a smoking room"

[thereuare]

... "priceline booked you into a smoking room"

It's the hotel that makes the rooms (and types) available to PRICELINE... not the other way around.

Regardless, when you are using PRICELINE you can't choose your room type or room configuration. While most hotels will work in an effort to honor your requests, this particular property either wasn't able or willing to, but they, and PRICELINE, both fulfilled their end of your agreement.