A few more Priceline tips

I’ve written before about our experience with Priceline…here’s a quick refresher on our takeaways from that search for a Las Vegas hotel room for a business trip….

• Hotel rooms and other purchases from travel auction sites are generally nonrefundable.
• Be prepared for a walk or dealing with transportation if you get a hotel on the far edges of your desired region.  If you have kids, ensure that they can handle a walk on crowded city streets.
• For the best “bang for the buck,” bid on fairly high-level properties [3.5 – 4 stars.] It doesn’t make sense to get a room at a Days Inn or Motel 6 through Priceline.
• Be flexible. My husband requested a King room but found when he checked in that they were out of King rooms that were non-smoking. He was fine with a room with two Queens.

This time, we needed a hotel room on a Sunday night in north Dallas.

As I’ve said before in my post on how to find the best hotel deals, Sunday is a great time to score a cheap room because the weekend traffic is gone and many business travelers aren’t there yet, so rooms stand empty and hotels are ready to deal.

Sunday night in an area (north Dallas) with a TON of big chain hotels (lots of competition to fill rooms) is prime territory for a Priceline score when you aren’t particularly picky about exact hotel or precise location.

It worked: we bid $50 for a four-star hotel and got the Hyatt North Dallas, normally around $170/night and up.

My son is cavorting in the pool as I type this.  He does not really care that this is a business/conference hotel. A pool is a pool. 🙂

Thank you, Priceline.