« Life Imitates Article | Main | Latest Dance Articles - I'm exhausted edition »
October 7, 2006
Recent Priceline Bidding - no bed of roses
My Portland, Oregon, bid on Priceline was not one of my best. It beat other conventional means of bidding but not by as much as I would have hoped.
The most common 3* hotel win in Portland seems to be the Doubletree Lloyd Center; it has gone for as low as $34; the usual win (when there is inventory) is around $41. The Doubletree was sold out on my dates; other hotels don’t discount their inventory to Priceline as strongly. I was creeping up by $2 per bid thinking surely I would hit something by $45. Surely by $55. I didn’t even start to get rebid offers (increase your bid by $22 and we will let you bid again on the exact same bid) until around $62. I continued using a free rebid zone instead (for 3*, Portland has two, Beaverton and NW Portland) and finally got the Sheraton Four Points at $70.
Not great. Sheraton was having a stay two nights, get one free for $130/night, or $260 total without tax, and I would have earned Starpoints. I paid $246 with tax and fees. Because of their versatility, I value Starpoints highly. Had I researched it more thoroughly before my bid; I might have chosen that option once the potential bid crept up so high.
San Francisco has also not panned out completely the way I want. Oracle World has meant there is precious little inventory in the city available either by conventional or opaque bidding. I also realized that if I woke up in a hotel I didn't like on my birthday, I was going to be unhappy. This realization, while sensible and true, is going to cost me. There were scattered rooms at good hotels available; generally not at the hotels websites themsleves, but at consolidators. Last Minute Travel, Octopus Travel, Hotel Club and Quikbook all had options, but HotelRes, a local SF booking agency, has more coverage in the city, low prices and cancelable bookings. I'll make a choice about 4-5 days out between rock bottom (Grant Plaza - $77), budget (King George - $119) and more luxurious (The Donatello - $198) accommodations. If anyone knows any of these hotels, make a comment!
I'm now starting to make reasonably priced cancelable backups the moment I think I might go somewhere to avoid getting shut out by convention bookings. When my dates are firm, I can try undercutting them via Priceline.
I’m working on London bids right now for Thanksgiving. It could be seasonal, but London prices are creeping up; Kensington wins (usually the cheapest in London) are around $85/night. More frustratingly, I’m not getting counteroffers as a matter of course where I once did. It makes bid determination a good deal harder.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at October 7, 2006 10:07 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.leighwitchel.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/548
Comments
My big show every year was SAPPHIRE (SAP's version of Oracle World) and I will advise you not to dawdle in making your decision and booking something or I fear that you will end up spending your birthday in Oakland or San Jose. One year when SAPPHIRE was in Philadelphia, the hotel situation became so bleak that 2 weeks before the event, the nearest room a colleague of mine could get through either traditional or non-traditional channels was an EconoLodge over 30 miles away (since the massive number of convention attendees pushed out all the regular business travel business from Center City to the close putskirts which in turn pushed everyone else way out to the distant burbs). When room blocks get filled the travel planners do start calling consolidators and those rooms will go as Wally (oops, I mean Oracle) World gets nearer.
Posted by: Steve at October 8, 2006 12:08 PM
Absolutely, Steve. Luckily, HotelRes bookings are fully cancelable without penalty so I made three bookings - one at each of the above choices. A few days before I'll reconfirm the one I want and cancel the others.
Posted by: Leigh Witchel at October 8, 2006 4:21 PM