Hard Rock for a Buck?

[Rileygirl]

Hey there, just thought I would mention some chatter going on some other boards (even here on the Dis budget boards)

lastminute travel is having a whacky sale -- 15000 hotels, all of them for a dollar a night - Hard Rock, Portofino, and Royal Pacific are available for certain nights.

If you want details, go read the budget board threads, you cant miss them -- but mostly people are talking about disney hotels, but I dont see this posted in the Universal forums.

The deal is, for 15 minutes everyday at random times, all the hotels on last minute travel revert to 1 buck a night. This promo will run for two weeks. People have booked the Grand Floridian and Poly conceirge for a buck - no kidding.

you have to be fast, and you have to be on at the right time

Good luck everyone (as she says, sitting in her pj's, not having done a darn thing today waiting for the darn magic clock to show up)

Edited to add

It appears you can book up to one year in advance, and a maximum of 7 nights. You can only book one room though.


Also, some people are guessing from clues they have received that the clock will show up today at 2:27

 

[macraven]

thanks Rileygirl.
i'll go check out that thread.


i would love to stay for $1 a night at the Loews hotels.

 

[Rileygirl]

The clock still has not appeared yet, some people are getting snap happy on other boards.

If you are interested, try and read the budget board threads, they give tips, and here is a cust and paste from 'slickdeals.net' on tips how to get the deal: (hope its ok to do the cut and paste)-- and I did not download any of these programs, but I do have the chatngo page open.

Ok, here are there tips:

HELPFUL HINTS & TIPS (aka read first before asking same stupid question that has been asked repeatedly through thread):

1) If you have not already you might want to dowload/install check-4-change (C4C) to be used with firefox browser. This will alert you when the page changes...like when they add the clock counting down the seconds you have to book, this thing will alert you immediately. GOOGLE " C4C firefox " to find out more about it. *C4C IS A FIREFOX PLUGIN and is WILL NOT WORK FOR INTERNET EXPLORER

2) When the clock pops up and you try and search for a room you are automatically forced to watch a pop up video. DO NOT CLOSE THIS...you must watch and answer two quick questions about your travel habits. You then can search for your hotel. All hotels will show $1..choose your hotel and follow steps to book keeping in mind you only have a few precious minutes so be quick!

3) Research hotels before (or while waiting) for the magical clock. Hotels may be "undercover" but the majority are easy to figure out. You can highlight/copy and paste a portion of the description into a search engine and 9 times out of 10 it will hit on the hotel that it is. Remember the description if this is the hotel that you want to book, as it will help you locate and book it during the $1 rush. UPDATE They have gone almost completely undercover now. There is little to no descriptions on most of the hotels making it very hard to research.

4) On Thursday morning, the clock did not appear on the main page. It is important to monitor both the hotel page as well as the search results page too.

 

[damo]

Do you still have to pay taxes on what the rack rate would have been?

 

[Rileygirl]

There is some ambiguity about the taxes Damo, and several people have opposing views on the interpretation of the official rules.

Also, I am not sure if you have to be a US resident or not. I am also a canadian, so am not sure if I qualify or not.

If not, I wasted a whole day!

 

[Rileygirl]

On commentator on the budget board said this about the taxes

"You guys need to understand, this is a promotion, advertising for the company. With the large amount of monetary value they are giving away, they need to be able to claim this on their taxes. Now , if they charged you a dollar, the room value would be a dollar and so would be your tax liability.
They are not charging you the dollar, making this a promo or a sweepstakes, which in turn, means you are ultimately responsible for the taxes for the "prize". If the 10-99 you, they have to get your ssn number from you and then you will get a tax form next Jan as well as the IRS receives this information.
If they do not get your ssn, you are still responsible to claim this on your taxes, but, some sweepstakers do not claim all their wins as they say the IRS doesnt know about them unless they have had to fill out the information for the 10-99.

This makes sense to me. The fact about not paying a dollar (just to catch you up if you have not read the 5000 pages on the budget board) is that the people on the dis who have gotten this deal, have not even been charged a dollar --so that is the contention, is it the greatest room rate ever, or is it a sweepstakes?

 

[Wendaeh]

EVen if you don't get the $1 rate, you can still get a good deal for HRH. I was able to get it over spring break for $100 less per night than the Travelocity price or the Universal website. It's kind of like priceline in that the name is a secret, but they give you a lot of clues.

 

[minniejack]

checked out the regular rates on that site and its still cheaper to book the 4/3 deal and you know exactly what hotel you're staying at.

 

[minniejack]

You got me hooked rileygirl. Today only 3 hrs sleep--thank goodness we have a 2 hr snow delay.

Not sure what was going on. I was on the budget board thread and there are a lot of potential customers out there who will never be customers.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2078330&page=150

would've been nice to have a great place for a buck

 

[Rileygirl]

I am sorry MinnieJack!!! Truly, I am.

I totally wasted yesterday trying to get Hard Rock for a buck.

I guess we were a day late and a dollar short to easily get the promo -- last week when they started is when most Disers got their deals I think.

I wont try again until maybe Thurs or Fri.....

Good luck to you!

 

[Evanna]

checked out the regular rates on that site and its still cheaper to book the 4/3 deal and you know exactly what hotel you're staying at.

What website has these deals? I am not interested in the $1 rate (because of all of the unknown tax implications, plus takes too much time to do) but would love to get a buy 4 get 3 deal that is better than the Loews website is showing.

 

[minniejack]

What website has these deals? I am not interested in the $1 rate (because of all of the unknown tax implications, plus takes too much time to do) but would love to get a buy 4 get 3 deal that is better than the Loews website is showing.

go to Universalorlando.com and you'll see the hot deals

or call Loews and tell them you want the 49% off or supersaver rate whichever is better Good luck!

 

[damo]

What website has these deals? I am not interested in the $1 rate (because of all of the unknown tax implications, plus takes too much time to do) but would love to get a buy 4 get 3 deal that is better than the Loews website is showing.

If the deal isn't coming up on the Loews website, then it isn't offered for your timeframe. The Loews website is the best source for your deals.

If you give me your dates, I will check rates for you.