Anchorage & Priceline

[frugaltravel]

OK 5:30 here in FL and Priceline was

NO GO for 3 star @ $100 :(

I was gonna try 3.5 star

but I didn't' want the Millenium. LOL :confused:

 

Gonna Kayak check now.

I still have time - and there are plenty still available.

So I wait patiently. :cool:

 

You obviously are not familiar with priceline and you can easily be very unpleasantly surprised. For example, you don't realize that if you bid for a 3*, you can automatically be upgraded to a 3.5* and get the Millenium that you don't want.

 

I strongly recommend you just bite the bullet and book a hotel through conventional sources. You might pay slightly more but you won't get any unpleasant surprises then complain about how bad priceline is (not that you would do it, but it happens all the time).

[Junonia]

Hi Michelle,

 

I know you wanted a 3 star, but if you are price hunting, $59 for a 2 star is tough to beat for downtown. The 3 stars are 180-200 for those dates downtown. Usually you can get it for 10% less or so on PriceLine, so you would have to come up quite a bit to get a winning bid.

 

if I were you, I would probably bite the bullet and get the 2 star, then splurge somewhere else. JMHO :)

[Michael Kays]

you dont have to wait 24 hours if you alter your bid..vary from 4 stars then add 3.5 and if you arent real picky to 3 stars all same day..there is activity on biddingfortravel.com for Anchorage, Crowne Plaza is showing up for $90, and there is an Embassy Suiites but I don't see it on list of hotels..good luck~

[frugaltravel]

you dont have to wait 24 hours if you alter your bid..vary from 4 stars then add 3.5 and if you arent real picky to 3 stars all same day..

 

Or to keep bidding for 4* just add another zone that doesn't have that star level, i.e. "free rebidding."

 

there is activity on biddingfortravel.com for Anchorage, Crowne Plaza is showing up for $90, and there is an Embassy Suiites but I don't see it on list of hotels..good luck~

 

Biddingfortravel.com is hopelessly out of date with regard to hotel lists. The administrator hasn't posted in over a year. betterbidding.com is a more user-friendly website and it includes both priceline and hotwire.

[negc]

I booked the Comfort Inn Ship Creek through Priceline for my trip and did not have a good experience (although I don't have any reason to suppose this has anything to do with Priceline particularly). I had never booked a hotel via Priceline before though so I don't know if I just got unlucky or whether Ship Creek is a badly run hotel.

 

I was scheduled to arrive on the evening of the 5th and my connecting flight to Denver was significantly delayed, so I didn't end up arriving at the hotel until about 2am. I had already called them from Denver hours before and told them about my flight delay, and the person at the desk confirmed that they had my reservation and that they'd mark me down as a late arrival. I told them I expected to be arriving well after midnight for sure.

 

Upon finally arriving at the hotel, I was told that they were fully booked and they did not have a room for me. This was needless to say not welcome news since I was scheduled to be at the train station for my railroad trip up to Seward at 6:45am as it was. I can't understand how they could have overbooked or screwed this up since I had already reconfirmed everything with them from the airport.

 

They ended up giving me a cab ride to another hotel for the night as alternate accomodation so at least I was able to get an hour or two of rest before I had to get up again, although it wasn't ideal because it was across the city and I picked Ship Creek in the first place because it was right by the rail depot.

 

Even that wasn't entirely free of issues - in the morning I asked the person at the desk how I was going to get back to Ship Creek, since the idea was I was supposed to return there for the 2nd night. I told them I was going to be on the railroad early in the morning and not back until the evening, so I needed to know what to do. The lady called Ship Creek while I was standing there and asked them when they were expecting me back there, and she said the evening right in front of me. So I anticipated leaving my stuff there, getting it in the evening and checking out from the hotel and going over to Ship Creek. They had a cab for me to take me back to the Ship Creek (to get the shuttle over to the depot though, not to check in) and fortunately I decided to ask the person at the desk about storing passport and valuables in their safe - then she changes her tune and tells me, no, I'm supposed to take all my stuff over the Ship Creek right now and they'll give me the room in the evening. Huh? So time is starting to get short now and I have to rush back up to my room and pack everything up and get out of there - and in the rush I left a jacket and some of my prescriptions behind. It looked like I wasn't going to get them back either, as they staff there seemed unable to locate any of it when I inquired. Finally the morning I was leaving before I checked out I had them check one last time and someone had located my stuff, so I did get it back.

 

After all was said and done they ended up not charging me for the first night room charge because of the reservation problem, so they did make an effort to make up for the issue and it ended up working out mostly okay in the end, but I was not at all impressed with their organization and general competence. When I inquired with Priceline their response was basically "well the hotels sometimes are overbooked". Really? Do they mean I can't count on a hotel reservation I've made when I arrive? If so I certainly am never booking through Priceline again.

 

Not sure that any of the terrible experiences that you had wouldn't have happened if you booked the hotel directly so swearing off booking through Priceline may only mean you will lose out on possible bargains. :) Place the blame where it actually belongs-the hotel- and not the booking engine.