Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - Share Your Priceline/Hotwire Success Story Here

I used Priceline via Ebay this morning to purchase a hotel accomodation in Philadelphia for Friday night October 11, 2002. I requested a 4 Star or better hotel in the center city area only. Priceline then advised me I could either accept their super low price of $154.00 or make an offer of my own, with a minimum of a $73.00 minimum bid. Since I had previously visited several discount travel web sites which offered special weekend rates of $250 per night for Philadelphia luxury class hotels, I figured it was worth a shot to lowball my bid. I bid $75.00 AND GOT IT!!!! A night at the 4.5 star luxury Park Hyatt Philadelphia At The Bellevue for a mere $75.00. I am elated. My hubby and I will celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary in grand style, with dinner & dancing at the Park Hyatt's skytop Founders Restaurant. Maybe with the money we saved, we'll also do room service breakfast in bed. I'm a happy camper!

Congrats josie! I just came back from Shreveport with a stay at Harrah's. I got accepted at $45 for a great room.I asked the hotel re. priceline and they said they are "experimenting" with them on selected dates. They were listed as a 3 star,but would compete with most fours.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jabez:
Congrats josie! I just came back from Shreveport with a stay at Harrah's. I got accepted at $45 for a great room.I asked the hotel re. priceline and they said they are "experimenting" with them on selected dates. They were listed as a 3 star,but would compete with most fours.</font>

Just curious...Did you check beforehand to find out what the prevailing non-Priceline discount rate is for that room on that date? Also, did you bid $45 on your first try?
Congrats to you as well. Sounds like quite a deal!

Theie web priced room at $100 and other discount webs had it as low as $69.The town was basically sold out and I was almost shocked to get a Priceline acceptance.
I tried $35 and then $45.

Very good of you to ignore PL's "advise". That "advise" is IMHO the single most annoying thing about PL: it doesn't seem to serve any other purpose than generating some huge overbidding. For the rest PL is great.

I have upcoming Friday night stays in October and November in Orlando: $28 at Marriott Airport, and $38 at Renaissance Airport, both 3*.

I use Priceline for my business trips too -- mainly hotels and car rentals. Since I work for a non-profit, this is quite significant for us. In most cases, I rarely pay over $60 night for a hotel, and can usually finds deals in the $35-$45 range. For cars, the deals seem harder to come by these days, but I can usually score a full-size for $18-$25 depending on the city. If Priceline is being stubborn, Orbitz or Enterprise throws a deal my way...

Jonnyp
I,too,work for a non-profit.When I owned my own company,my travel expenses were much higher. I now feel that I should always look for a "bargain".

I wish I could add more here, but my most recent PriceLine stay was:

Bidding midtown east over Memorial Day weekend, I got the Grand Hyatt on 42nd St. for $81 x 3 nights. Best web rate at this hotel was $179 at the time. Crown Plaza down the street was $189, Hilton Times Sq. was $190. I made the bid roughly 3 weeks ahead of the first night.

Used Priceline...and got $26/night in Hyatt Denver Tech Center.

Also, $40/night in Lower Manhattan.

Used Priceline for a hotel at Phoenix Airport - got the Holiday Inn Select for $30 night - nice hotel and the hotel/airport shuttle runs 24/7

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by afang:
Also, $40/night in Lower Manhattan.</font>

Manhattan, Kansas? Or "lower" meaning central New Jersey? If New York City, what star-level, how many days, and what hotel? Seems a bit low for NYC since most Priceline successes are in the 80-120 range....