Priceline

[dennise]

Has anyone been having difficulty in winning with Priceline? Ihave been trying for quite a while both 2.5 and 3 stars with no luck, at least not in the WDW area. Have rooms booked at Sheraton Studio City for the last prat of the trip. I even tried Sky Auction with no luck. Wond the auction, but they had no availabilty. Looking for April 6-9.

:confused3

[spiceycat]

maybe try another website

www.hotelkingdom.com

[princessmomma]

Yes, pickings are slim those 2 weeks around Easter.

[cocowum]

hotwire has a $54 a night best value hotel 3* looks like it might be holiday inn nikki bird. the entertainment book has a $35 off coupon for any purchase over $95. comes to about 130 for 3 nights. Remember if you use the ent coupon you have to go to the site on the back of the coupon it's something like www.hotwire.com/ent if you don't have an ent book and would like the exact site I can get it for you. Hope this helps. good luck :flower:

[berly1657]

I got a bid a couple of weeks ago for 4/2 at Grosvenors 3*, downtown Dis for $55.

Have you tried betterbidding.com for help?

[totalia]

My fiance suggests not hotel kingdom. You are much more likely to be refused. Those rates are also not guaranteed.

he's been in the hotel business for 7 years. 4 spent as a front desk agent and 3 as a reservations manager for 9 hotels.

[Hensandchickens]

My fiance suggests not hotel kingdom. You are much more likely to be refused. Those rates are also not guaranteed.



What do you mean by this? :confused3 I used Hotel Kingdom for my upcomming trip. I would hate to get to the hotel and be told I don't have a room.

[CarolA]

I have used Hotel Kingdom and never been refused... (ie. walked) The rates are guaranteed. (There are hotels out there who will try to take advantage of guests... sounds like someone worked for one!)

Of course I also have been known to stand at the front desk and pitch a FIT if they attempt to give me a substandard room on Priceline or any other discount. I don't buy the "you got a cheap deal" so you should not get a good room theory. If the hotel doesn't like the rate, they don't have to offer it. (I once had a great row with the Shearton in Chicago over this, wound up being upgraded to the club level for a $49 a night hotel LOL!)

[madisonsmom]

I went on the site and posted your dates and hotels for as cheap as $27.00 a night came up! They even have some "off the records" that you can figure out which hotel they are quite easily if you take the detailed description they give and put it into a Google search. I did this last month and got the Fairfield Inn at Marriott Village for $49 a night and that included breakfast. Good Luck!

[totalia]

They quote very low rates but they haven't confirmed the rates with the hotel themselves before they've done it.

Because of this, the rates can be refused and aren't guaranteed the way they are with priceline. As he tells it, they've gotten into trouble before because of this and his company refuses to book with them.

[dis-happy]

Agreed--we ran into a problem with an EasyClick rate this week when we tried to book. There's a difference---some hotels say "available", others say "on request". I booked my dates, entered my cc and phone number, and was told online we would hear something back within 48 hours. It's now on day 3 and NOTHING!!! Guess my room at Country Inn Calypso Cay the week after Easter is not going to be. It's a little annoying--I also tried logging into the system with my user name and I can't check the status that way either. If anyone else has experience with this, I'd love to hear from you.

[lawgs]

have you tried calling the 800 number....

the time we used them ....the website was slow and unpredictable, the agent was able to put things through for me automatically, although this was not for something "on request"

[dennise]

Dis-Happy

I am in the same situation. Still waiitng for Easy Click to reply. Ours is for the Fairfield INN. We had tried for the Amerisuites inCalypso Cay but there was no availability for the dates we requested. Our reply from EC came tthrough knowbeforugo.com. I called their toll free # and we were able to book dirrectly through them for $51 a night as opposed to $49 through easy click. With the taxes and charges, I think we did a little better. You know right away if there is availability.

[madisonsmom]

That is disheartening hearing about the issues with ECT.com. We have used them before and had no problems what so ever, but we did not use their "on request" stays either. Maybe it was the time of year we travelled? Not sure. But I will be sure to use them again as there prices are too good.

Dennise: Did you get the FFI at Marriott VIllage? We stayed there in Feb. and really enjoyed it. If you have any questions feel free to ask!

[d4est]

My fiance suggests not hotel kingdom. You are much more likely to be refused. Those rates are also not guaranteed.

he's been in the hotel business for 7 years. 4 spent as a front desk agent and 3 as a reservations manager for 9 hotels.
Interesting. I used hotelkingdom for our last trip in Feb (stayed at the Royal Pacific in Universal) and had no problems. I even called the hotel to confirm that we had ressies. All went off without a hitch.

[CarolA]

All of the "online" TAs give you quotes without full confirmation. I have tried to reserve Disney hotels several times on Expedia and Travelocity and gotten all the way to the end of the process when they "discovered" they really don't have rooms LOL! (My company uses Amex online which will put a "request" in. I know when I get that to try again!)

I have had great success with Quikbook.com They tend not to have as big a selection, but what they show has good rates and is avaialble.

[totalia]

Ok. Apparently I need to explain how the Internet companies work.

Expedia is litterally given the lowest rate guarantee by contract by the hotels they deal with. That is why they give YOU the lowest rate guarantee. If you find a lower rate elsewhere, usually you can talk to Expedia (unless it is Hotels.com because they own the company. They also own a few others but I can't remember all of the names of the companies they own. Though I think Hotwire is one of them) and they will lower your rate (though not always. Expedia has gotten so big and mostly trustworthy that they can usually make demands and people will go with them).

Hotels and the companies that own them have access to these online web sites. Most of them anyway. It's an extranet and the hotels contract with the companies to put their rates and hotels online.

This means that the hotel companies set aside a certain number of rooms to the rooms for the extra net. Unfortunately, sometimes the rooms get sold out before they can be updated by the company for the day.

So, companies like Expedia and Priceline (because they are such large and powerful internet companies) are given priority with room amounts (the number of rooms, not the price).

There is usually, but not always, someone in the hotel companies that ONLY updates the sites throughout the day.

Unfortunately, they don't work all the time and do get time off like the rest of us.

So, the internet companies may actually have in their records, that rooms are available when the extranet just hasn't been updated by the hotel since the hotel ran out.

The internet companies will attempt to include the room in the bookings. Only to find that the extranet has not been updated and the rooms aren't actually available.

Unfortunately you have some companies who are not as large and yet feel the desperate need to compete and make a name for themselves. These companies feel a need to offer rooms at hotels that they may not have a contract with and are not updated by the hotel themself very often.

So, companies like Hotel Kingdom will give rates that they do not have guaranteed. SOMETIMES the rates will work and the rooms will be just fine. They aren't robbers, just not powerful enough to be updated often by the hotels.

Does that make sense? I don't know how I can make it simpler if it doesn't. It took me a long time to understand how reservations sections of companies actually work and its much more complicated than I just explained to you.

If you want to book with Hotel Kingdom then go ahead. But they likely do not have a contract with the hotels and the rates cannot be guaranteed. Where Expedia and Priceline can get guaranteed rates even if, as in the case with Priceline, you do not know what hotel you are going to receive.

[webtiques]

Dennise,
We have the Wyndham Palace and Resort booked at Downtown Disney from 4/3-4/9. It's non-refundable and now there are more people going and we are getting a condo. The Wyndham is quoting this at $180 a night plus tax. I don't want to lose the money we spent but if I can't find someone to take the whole week and your interested you can have the 6th, 7th and 8th for $100 a night. We paid $689 for 6 nights which is $100 a night plus the taxes. Let me know if your interested.

[d4est]

I should have mentioned that when I used hotelkingdom.com they showed availability, but I didn't have instant confirmation. I received an email two days later confirming the ressie. I then called loews to confirm that it was, in fact, there. As I said, all went off without a hitch. Maybe I was just lucky...

[totalia]

If you make a reservation online, I suggest you call the hotel directly at least twice before you show up. Errors happen. This way you can be sure you have a res.

[dis-happy]

The end of my easyclick story:

They finally e-mailed us at the end of the day Monday (the prormised "48 hours" would have been the previous Friday afternoon) and said they couldn't get us the room we clicked for (for us, a 1 bedroom suite at the Country Inn, $69. per night plus fees--we liked the idea of the pool situation there, plus the larger accomodation). What they offered instead was La Quinta Inn Lakeside at an unknown, non-guaranteed price. Tripadvisor lists some really bad experiences at this offered hotel, so needless to say, we are not following up with that.

Easyclick seems like it might be a good source, but in our case (a high occupancy week) it didn't work out and truthfully, I'd think twice about trying to book through them again. If you look at the available dates for our week (the week after Easter), nearly everything is "upon request", very few available, and most of those are dives. It seems to me that if they probably can't get you the room they should not bother to list it.

We started a few weeks back trying with Priceline, then moved on to Easyclick because it seemed reputable and a sure thing. Since we are DVC and AP holders already at WDW a few times this year, we were trying to sneak in an extra "cheap" trip during spring break if things fell into place. Ah well, guess we'll enjoy Hilton Head instead.