Help for Better Bidding on Priceline & Hotwire - Page 12

W Hotel on Priceline?

Is it possible to get a W hotel on Priceline or Hotwire? W Hotels are very highly sought after, people love them for their slick and modern, high end, and very cosmopolitan style and decor. But getting a deal on a W hotel can be tough. As a result, many people turn to Hotwire or Priceline to save money on their hotel. Only problem with sites like Hotwire or Priceline is that you don’t know what hotel you’re going to get until after you bid. Once you buy your hotel, only then is the hotel name revealed.

So, if you want a guarantee that you’ll get a W Hotel on Priceline (or Hotwire for that matter), unfortunately, there is no such thing. However, if you’re willing to take a chance, here are the cities where a W Hotel has appeared on Hotwire or Priceline.

Priceline Express Deals

Priceline has introduced a new product called Priceline Express Deals. This new feature is different from the Name Your Own Price bidding scheme that disrupted the travel industry by allowing travellers to bid on a hotels. Now, Priceline’s new feature, Express Deals, gives travellers more information about their hotel (such as hotel amenities) before they book their hotel and doesn’t require bidding – the price you see is the price you pay.

Current San Francisco Events

San Francisco – one of my favorite cities. If you’re looking for current events in San Francisco, here’s a great listing of San Francisco events. For more events and happenings in the city, be sure to check out ChatterBlock, a website that lists events and other activities in SF and the Bay Area.   More […]

Palazzo Hotel on Priceline

In the last few months, the Palazzo Hotel in Las Vegas has been coming up A LOT on Priceline. I saw this deal recently thanks to a Priceline forum member posting their Palazzo winning bid and I couldn’t resist. I actually booked a trip to Las Vegas, bid on a 5 star hotel, and snagged this gem. Given that this hotel has come up so much on Priceline recently, it seems that a blog post on this hotel is in order.

Getting The Palazzo Hotel On Priceline: The first thing anyone should know about 5-star hotels on Priceline is that the Palazzo is located in Priceline’s “Strip North” bidding zone. If you’re bidding on a 5-star hotel in this zone, you should be aware that there are other 5 star hotels that you could get.

Union Square Hotels on Priceline

San Francisco’s Union Square is one of the most popular tourist areas of San Francisco. If you’re looking to stay at a hotel in the Union Square area and will be bidding on a hotel via Priceline, here is some tips to help you identify your San Francisco hotel.

Priceline Bidding Zones in Union Square: The 2 “Union Square” bidding zones on Priceline are: Union Square East and Union Square West – Nob Hill. If you’re looking for a hotel in the area, I would also consider bidding in the SOMA – Moscone Center zone as well. It’s a bit further away but if you don’t mind a 5 minute walk to Union Square, you can find a really good deal.

Union Square East: This is the preferred bidding zone if you’re wanting to stay as close as possible to Union Square. Accessible from the San Francisco Airport via the BART (Powell Street Station), this area is really easy to get to by public transit. On the negative side, some of the hotels are located right on Powell Street, the main cable car line which can be noisy if you’re looking to sleep in. Hotels in this bidding zone that are known to be on Priceline, as reported by members of the Priceline Forum, include:

Priceline Hotels in Seattle

Priceline can be a good way for travellers to save on hotel accommodations in Seattle. With Priceline’s Name Your Own Price, hotels in Seattle with excess inventory sell off their rooms to Priceline, meaning cheap discounts for customers like you. The only catch — you don’t know the name of the room until after you’ve bid and your hotel room bid has been accepted. While you can save money on Priceline, it’s worth learning a bit more about which hotels are in each bidding zone, which zones are good, and which ones to avoid.

Like most major cities, Priceline breaks Seattle up into several different zones. Most travellers stay in either the downtown area of Seattle, or near the airport. Here’s a quick of the major Priceline bidding zones.

Using United MilesPlus Miles for Hotwire Hotels

It was recently announced that members of the United Airlines Mileage Plus program can use their mile points to get Hotwire hotel rooms. Is this a good deal for members or should you use your points for flights instead? This is the question I wanted to answer.

How Hotwire Works: First a quick overview of Hotwire’s unpublished hotels. With Hotwire, you don’t know the name of the hotel until after you bid (that is, unless you use the Hotwire hotel lists to match up amenities to reveal the name of the hotel). All you know about the hotel star rating, general vacinity, and the hotel amenities.

United Points for Hotwire Hotels: Now, instead of using cash to book your Hotwire hotel, you can use United miles. My instincts tell me that generally, using points to buy 3rd party goods (whether it’s a hotel room or other) is not a good thing. There’s just too many players all wanting a piece of the pie. But I’m a numbers kind of guy, so I decided to put this to the test. My objective, take a few Hotwire offerings on United and see how many points were required to purchase a hotel. Then compare the same hotel to what you would have paid on Hotwire straight up. From this, you’d be able to deduce a price per point for Hotwire hotels purchased with United points.

New – Hotwire Subscription Mailing List

Hotwire Subscription Mailing List – I’m giving it a try.

Priceline Waikiki

Travelers to Hawaii should check out Priceline if they’re going to be staying at a hotel. I’m currently spending some time in Waikiki and here in part to make it easier to help travelers navigate their way through bidding on hotels in Hawaii.

In Oahu, there’s really only 3 main areas around Oahu: North Shore, Ko Olina, Honolulu and Waikiki.

North Shore: If you see a hotel in this area, it’s almost certainly the Turtle Bay Resort. It doesn’t come up often on Priceline so if you see this hotel during your travels, nab it quickly.

Ko Olina: This is another area on Oahu that doesn’t have a lot of hotels, so it’s easy to identify your hotel before you bid. Just look for the “resort” hotel and it’s more than likely to be the JW Marriott Ihilani Resort. See the Priceline Oahu hotel list.

Priceline & Hotwire Hotel List Changes

Thanks to a software developer friend, I added some changes to the Hotwire and Priceline hotel lists.  As you probably know, HotelDealsRevealed is a great way to get help when bidding for travel, and in particular, hotels.  For Priceline, the hotel lists are particularly helpful when trying to figure out what hotel you might get. […]