Priceline newbie

[Silent1CB]

Last night, I took the leap & finally tried priceline. I used betterbidding's forums to get my price and I'm happy.

I have a question however. The hotel we "won" only has double beds & king beds. Really don't want a double bed.

Can you call the hotel & put in a request for a king bed when its a priceline bid?

If so, when do you do this? Does it take a certain amount of time for your reservation to show up at the hotel?

I've used other services before, like skyauction, where the reservation isn't in my name at the hotel until about 2 days before arrival. Before that, its just listed as skyauction having a reservation, so the hotel can't find yours.

Anything else I should know?

 

[SydSim]

You certainly can request specific bedding. Whether or not they honor that request is up to the person answering the phone

All of my reservations have been accessible by the hotel immediately after winning the bed. Just a bit of advice - not every hotel rep has the warm fuzzies about Priceline. I have been told by some reps that "you take what's available when it's Priceline". That being said, I loooove Priceline and always get great deals, and I believe that only once was a request not honored.

 

[ORMom2Four]

It all depends on the hotel.

Most of the hotels we have gotten flat-out tell us this is the bed you get with Priceline, and a few of them have given us the beds we request. One hotel upgraded our rooms to a river view so we could have them next to each other (we reserve 2 rooms because we have 4 kids), but that was a rare occasion.

We love Priceline though. It's the only way we can get 2 rooms for the price of one for our big family

 

[emer95]

We used Priceline for the first time this past July. We had the opposite situation- we got a king bed but we were traveling with our kids and needed 2 queens. I called the hotel (I think it was the next day). They were very helpful and we got 2 queens. We also ended up with a fridge and microwave in the room, which the website didn't say it had. We got a 4-star Marriott in Boston for $75/night. I was delighted! I was always to scared to try Priceline but now I'll always use it.
Good luck!