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April 28, 2006
When Priceline works, when it doesn’t
Recent and upcoming travel:
San Francisco – Ramada Plaza Civic Center; 2.5* $45/night Priceline
Palm Springs – Comfort Suites; 2* $79/night – booked at the hotel’s website with a Smartertravel.com discount.
Philadelphia – Marriott Philadelphia Downtown, 3* $46/night Priceline
Chicago – Club Quarters 3* $70/night Priceline (I'm flying out tonight to see the city for the first time and to see the Joffrey Ballet)
Boston – no success yet
St. Petersburg – Radisson Royal and Renaissance – award stays
London – hotels not booked, though I have a backup reservation.
Priceline isn’t always the best choice for travel plans – some examples from real life of when it works and when it doesn’t.
I was in Philadelphia last weekend staying at the Marriott Downtown. Philadelphia is usually a no-brainer city on Priceline; plenty of quality inventory in good locations at reasonable choice. It’s my first choice, except –
When there’s a convention. Boston is never a great Priceline city, next weekend it’s even worse. There’s a convention of oncology nurses; rooms via normal booking channels have been well over $200 a night and are only starting to drop in price. I’ve bid up to $120/night without success. I'll keep trying, but that’s my limit.
The usual 3* downtown hotel, the Boston Park Plaza, drives many bidders crazy because it has “Priceline” rooms that are smaller, face onto an airshaft and have one double bed. Unless you’re a couple, they’re impossible for more than a single traveler, but since I’m alone, they’re just fine and the location is perfect. I’ve spent the same on Hotwire to stay in a larger room a few stops out on the T in Somerville. Never again. The difference in the quality of vacation when you can walk to the theater, the Commons and dinner or for a drink is worth a lot more money to me.
Some cities, like Buenos Aires and St. Petersburg, don’t even have Priceline bidding. Birmingham UK offers bidding, but minimal inventory. Some cities are great. Besides Philadelphia, other no-brainer Priceline cities include Brussels and London (but I may not use it myself this upcoming trip; see below.) Cities that yield lesser deals include Paris and Barcelona. In both cases, location is the issue. Barcelona’s zones extend past the city limits; I wouldn’t risk getting a hotel in the suburbs. Paris now has 4* hotels coming up in central zones; a few years ago the good hotels that came up were at the edge of the city. Hotels in resort towns have their own problems; I did not use Priceline in Palm Springs because some hotels tack on a mandatory “resort fee” that can be up to $25 per day. There’s no way to know what the final cost of the bid will be and that makes bidding far less attractive. I’ll book by other routes.
Priceline has achieved one secondary goal for hoteliers in my case; it’s given me a taste for better accommodations and made me more willing to pay for them. Staying in places like the Marriott Marble Arch (one of my nicest Priceline stays) in London has made me willing to pay what I need to get quality accommodations. Staying at the Tage Inn in Somerville or the Meridien Etoile in Paris, a good hotel but at the very edge of the city, made me willing to pay more for a central location. Priceline has great London bargains, but I have gotten sick of staying in Kensington; it’s a 20-30 minute tube ride from Covent Garden, and that adds up. I want to stay in walking distance from Covent Garden, so I am watching hotels at lastminute.com very carefully. If a good hotel goes down to less than £80 per night, I’m pouncing. If nothing shows up by mid-May; I’ll start bidding in the Mayfair zone on Priceline.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at April 28, 2006 3:31 PM
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Comments
Do you use biddingfortravel.com?
Posted by: mule65 at August 15, 2006 12:46 PM