Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - PL for family of 5 in 2 rooms?

hello. I have some questions regarding PL which I hope some one out there will have some answers or thoughts on!
This would be my first attempt at using PL hence the questions.
I have a family of 5 coming to stay late Jan to SF (2 adults,3 kids) and I thought I'd try and PL a hotel for them.
However as a family of 5 they would really need 2 rooms with 2 Queen sized beds in each room for them to be comfortable.
Can you select the # of beds in a room when you PL?
If you cannot do this when you book the rooms do you do it a check-in?
I've read that some people feel they get put in ,let's say the "less than desirable" rooms at the hotel they are staying at. I wondered how bad can a room be at say the Hilton? It is a 4* hotel after all?
I guess what really concerns me is the possibility that the hotel I PL will not provide adequite rooms for my visiting family friends.
Again, any thoughts or views on the above would be most helpfull.
Thanks ,Tattikat2

PL guarantees 1 bed for 2 adults. We have traveled with 5 people in the party and booked 2 rooms on PL. I always call the hotel upon PL confirmation and request 2 Q Beds. To this day, I have never had a problem to change the booking to 2 queen beds. I am sure that there is somebody on this board who has encountered the exception.

Late Jan in SF should not be a peak travel month. Unless there is a convention etc, I do not think any 4* hotel will have a problem honoring your request for 2 QB.

MSP2000
Thank you very much for your reply! Really appreciate it.
Tattikat2

I wondered how bad can a room be at say the Hilton? It is a 4* hotel after all?
I guess what really concerns me is the possibility that the hotel I PL will not provide adequite rooms for my visiting family friends.
Again, any thoughts or views on the above would be most helpfull.
Thanks ,Tattikat2

Just remember that you cannot bid on a specific hotel. if you really want your family to stay at the Hilton, you're better off booking it on the Hilton web site, Travelocity, Orbitz, Expedia, or some other site that lets you specify the hotel. With Priceline, you get what they give you. Also, although you can call the hotel and request 2 beds after your Priceline bid is accepted, there is no guarantee that you will get them, and the hotel does not have to provide them. Again, if you have specific criteria like this that are inflexible, you might want to reconsider whether or not to use Priceline.

One time I booked one PL room and got a Hyatt for 3. I thought, since I was a Hyatt diamond it would be no problem to get the room type I wanted. At check in, really 1800-check in, the hotel wanted $25 extra per night for the 3rd person. They didn't care that I had any hotel status.

Just to let you know that some locations enforce that PL occupancy rule.

I doubt there would be any problem, but if you want to be sure, use Hotwire. There you can enter exactly how many adults and children are in your party, and get rooms to suit. This is a fairly new feature on Hotwire.

Keep in mind that some hotels indeed have a "Siberia" that all PL stays are placed into, regardless to how empty of full the hotel actually is.

Since you mention HH, the MCI Airport Hilton seems to always place PL people in one of their their first-floor handicapped rooms. These rooms are equipped with one full-size bed (in order to accomnodate wheelchair movement, apparently).

If this is your first PL try make sure you spend some time at betterbidding.com. You can get a feel for going rates/availability and bid strategy. You may also be able to narrow down your property list, and use a few techniques to increase then likelyhood of the hotel you want.

hey tattikat

with needing a certain room configuration, I would check prices on quikbook and individual sites as well ...while PL or HW in late Jan MAY be able to be flexible in the configuration, if they can't, you are kind of up a creek. Especially if they NEEED 2 queen beds , that config may not be available at the hotel you book.
Also if the rooms need to be adjoining or at least near each other, your better bet would be a site where you have some flexibility. Quikbook is showing good availability for 2 rooms late Jan for 100-120/night at several properties...some with 2 Q's.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply. I'm leaning towards not doing PL because of the potential for problem. It's one thing to put up with your own mistakes but expecting others to suffer through it is another thing!
Thanks again, Tattikat2
PS Squeakr, I've never heard of "quikbook". Thanks for the tip!.

PS Squeakr, I've never heard of "quikbook". Thanks for the tip!.
quikbook rocks if you are staying in one of the cities they book and you have FT to ask about the hotels!

Tattikat2: If you're not going the PL route, try www.hotelres.com as well. They normally have very good rates for San Francisco, no fee, and you can usually cancel without penalty. I like their web site too--nice description of each hotel.

Thanks for the tip .I'll get right on it!
Tattikat2