Report your Priceline successes discusion area.

Nordictat2

Congrats

thestrangerwithsweets

Destination: Chicago
Hotel: Palmer House Hilton, 4*, 11th Dec
Price: £44 (excl taxes), expedia price, £120

I got this on the first bid, super happy - have used priceline several times now, have always got hotels for half price and have never had a bad stay!

nikkig_3

not a happy bunny!
just booked a 4 star westminster or mayfair or soho hotel fo 8th December and ended up with the Jolly St Ermins which in my book is in Victoria! got for £115 but could have got better on last Minute Top Secret!
By the way the award winning 4 star in Mayfair is the Chesterfield which is wonderful!
Now need to find something in New York for the 4th to 7th December want 4 star or 3 and half star! can't get any more bids tonight so will have to try tomorrow!

dmg24

nikkig wrote: »

not a happy bunny!
just booked a 4 star westminster or mayfair or soho hotel fo 8th December and ended up with the Jolly St Ermins which in my book is in Victoria! got for £115 but could have got better on last Minute Top Secret!
By the way the award winning 4 star in Mayfair is the Chesterfield which is wonderful!
Now need to find something in New York for the 4th to 7th December want 4 star or 3 and half star! can't get any more bids tonight so will have to try tomorrow!

Did you not check the lists on BetterBidding? The Jolly St Ermins is listed as Westminster, and having stayed there I would agree that it is in the Westminster zone (and not a very nice hotel ).

You always take the chance with Priceline that you will not get the hotel that you want. Before booking New York, I would do some more research.

nikkig_3

I thought I had done my research! Its the first time I have used Priceline, we usually get it right with Hotwire and top secret, we have always ended up where we expected to be. I am torn now with what to do with New York, last year we used Hotwire and ended up at the Warwick which was wonderful, not only did we get upgraded on arrival, we had already been upgraded to upper class on Virgin on the way out so we have a long way to go to top that!

Also another topsecret hotel on last minute the 4 star in Kensington with the Jacuzzi rooms is probably the Abbey Court on Pembridge Gardens!

dmg24

You will be fine using Priceline, but go back to BetterBidding and only bid on areas where you are happy with all of the hotels in that area!

anguilla

Destination: Miami Airport
Type of accommodation: 3.5* hotel
How many extra daily bids did you have available: Can't remember
How much were your 2nd/3rd etc & final bids: First bids starting £25, Offer @ £30
And then write your Priceline hotel booking story

Single night in transit a week before xmas & 7:15am flight the next morning - Got Wyndham Miami Airport Hotel - Expedia offering £81.68 inc Tax, Priceline - £38.67. With the free 24 hr shuttle to/from the airport a real deal.

peregolf_2

i needed a hotel in downtown toronto for oct/nov 2009. went first to priceline.com and after several bids i could not complete as site would not accept my credit card address as not being in USA. I SWITCHED THEREFORE TO PRICELINE.CO.UK and started again. i requested 4 star hotels only in downtown area and started my bid at £35. this was rejected. i then widened the criteria by selecting an additional region which i checked did not have any 4 star hotels in it. this gave me an extra bid within the normal 24 hour rule. this time i bid £45 and was successful getting the 4 star sheraton in downtown toronto. cheapest price on sheraton website is $208 per room per night (about £120 at 1.70 exchange rate). So quite pleased with this. haven't made the trip yet but will update this thread when i do. breakfast not included but eat down the road will be cheaper than $20 breakfast.

blindman

peregolf wrote: »

i needed a hotel in downtown toronto for oct/nov 2009. went first to priceline.com and after several bids i could not complete as site would not accept my credit card address as not being in USA. I SWITCHED THEREFORE TO PRICELINE.CO.UK and started again. i requested 4 star hotels only in downtown area and started my bid at £35. this was rejected. i then widened the criteria by selecting an additional region which i checked did not have any 4 star hotels in it. this gave me an extra bid within the normal 24 hour rule. this time i bid £45 and was successful getting the 4 star sheraton in downtown toronto. cheapest price on sheraton website is $208 per room per night (about £120 at 1.70 exchange rate). So quite pleased with this. haven't made the trip yet but will update this thread when i do. breakfast not included but eat down the road will be cheaper than $20 breakfast.

Obviously didn't read my guide then

Should I use Priceline.com or Priceline.co.uk ?
A few facts:
The USA site is really for US or Canadians only, however there is a work around for this For the USA address use the format similar to below:
Quote:
State CA
Zip code 99999
E.g
[FONT=geneva,helvetica,sans-serif]SANDIEGO, CA 92110 as the address. [/FONT]
Phone number format
Any number in the form of
xxx-xxx-xxxx

If you want a real US number then just Google a US city and pull out a phone number
You CAN bid on US hotels using Priceline.co.uk See Post #265

Glad you are happy with the win :T

pcg2001

Destination: Cologne
Type of accommodation: 5* hotel
How many extra daily bids did you have available: Don't think I had
How much were your 2nd/3rd etc & final bids: First bid starting at $55, second bid $65
And then write your Priceline hotel booking story

Dates: 28-11 to 1-Dec-2009

Here is the report I wrote at betterbidding, though it might be useful for MSErs planning to visit the xmas markets.

Renaissance Cologne Hotel 5 Star
Cologne
Magnusstrasse 20
Cologne, Germany
49 221 20340

I did my research on Cologne some time ago and seeing some recent wins on betterbidding for the Marriot 5 stars, I decided to have a go. Since this is going to be a popular time in Cologne with the Xmas markets, I decided that my willingness to pay would be higher than the $51-$55 of the recent wins, and was willing to go up to $70.

Bid $55 yesterday - rejected
My husband bid $60 - rejected
today bid $65 - accepted.

2 rooms:
Your Offer Price Per Room, Per Night: US$65.00
Subtotal: US$390.00
Taxes & Fees: US$85.74
Total Charges: US$475.74

This is not classed as 5 stars at tripadvisor nor betterbidding ( it only goes to show that it is important that people share their wins, so that lists get updated). Was disappointed by this, because I hate posh hotels that are basically in need of renovation. This is still a great deal for a 5/4 star hotel. However, with hindsight I might not have bid if I knew this Renaissance could have been classed 5 star. So I guess my research was incomplete: tripadvisor has this a 4 star, the Marriott website does not list stars, but most importantly priceline has this as a 5 star. Bit arbitrary. This was my first win. I hope I will get better at this.
I guess my problem was that I did not redo my research recently and did not do the simulation on priceline via the regular priced hotels as suggested by blindman. But since I was a bit anchored on the list at betterbidding I guess I would not have noticed that renaissance was classed as 5 stars.
All in all, this seems like a great deal with a good location for the xmas markets, I just hope my parents like it! And I hope I am not too disappointed by this since I feel priceline is right up my alley!

Edit on 13-10-2009: there seem to be quite a few people interested in Cologne, so let me just follow-up on my post (instead of writing a new one): I conctacted priceline and complained that tripadvisor had this hotel as a 4 star and the marriott website does not state stars. This is part of their reply:
All properties offered through priceline.com have been evaluated
according to the specific star level standards that we have developed
exclusively for our program and described on our web site. While you may
feel that this property should have a different star rating or is rated
differently by other groups, we are confident that our evaluation of
this property will meet your expectations.
I forgot to mention that other booking websites have this as a 5 star!! It is possible the stars changed recently. Maybe not. So I really should have redone my research on the day of bidding.Nonetheless, despite some negative reviews on tripadvisor the hotels seems pretty good. Will let you know how my stay goes.