Winning Priceline bids in London

[carol459]

We are going to London pre-cruise in November and are looking for a hotel. Has anyone used Priceline for a London hotel in the past year?? Could you please post your results. We are looking into all Areas.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Carol and Rick

[pcur]

I have never used Priceline for London, but I want to warn you against booking a hotel, ESPECIALLY a budget hotel, without knowing what you're getting into. Also, location in London is very important, because it's a very expensive place to get around in.

 

If you are interested in a very nice budget hotel in the Victoria area, near the Victoria tube, train, and bus stations, we stayed at the Luna and Simone hotel a few weeks ago. Loved it!! You can read reviews about it at tripadvisor.com. It's $160 a night, which is VERY reasonable for London.

 

If you're going for a 4 or 5-star hotel, then Priceline is probably going to be fine, because those are usually good places to stay, and usually centrally located.

 

Check the area carefully, because even Heathrow is considered "London", and it's a 40 minute drive!!

[Nymue]

Doesn't Priceline give you the option of choosing the area within the city you are inquiring about? I used Priceline last year with good results for San Francisco and was able to choose the "Nob Hill" district.

[pcur]

Yes, I wouldn't be concerned about the area but the quality of the hotel. Not all hotels in London are created equal! 2 and 3 stars are a vast spectrum, and I did extensive research before deciding on our hotel, and that was checking every single choice against the tripadvisor.com reviews. If you don't know the hotel, you cannot check until it's too late. Unless you go for 4 and 5 star hotels, and then you have more of a comfort level on what you get.

[britchicknyc]

There is a list at http://www.biddingfortravel.com I got the Thistle Marble Arch last year for uner $100 per night. A Steal!

[Sheal]

Hi There,

 

I got the Hilton London Olympia for 11/3-5 for $97.00 per night including taxes. My bid was for $80.00. I'm pretty impatient, I booked the room 4 months ago. It's a little further out of the city but I'm not planning to go back and forth anyway.

 

We are on the same cruise, I'll try to post there soon.

 

 

Lori

[handfordr]

Priceline is certainly worth a punt but beware...

 

Priceline bids are by the star system. Stars are awarded for facilities, not how good a hotel are. A lot of 4 star Priceline hotels in London are Thistle Hotels which are very indifferent. A 'typical' Thistle hotel is a very large old Victoria pile which Thistle seem to run in the ground not investing in the maintenance required. Many people would say that some Thistle 4 star hotels are comparable to a 2 star hotel like the Tavistock or inferior to budget chains like Premier Travel Inn who choose not to grade their hotels by the star system.

 

The districts used by Priceline are large with very different areas within them. The favourite Bloomsbury/Marble Arch area has Oxford Street (typically the Thistle Marble Arch) but also Kings Cross (typical mainline station area) like the Novotel or the Holiday Inn (Kings Cross/Bloomsbury) - perhaps the most remote hotel in Central London in terms of getting about.

Similarly Kensington promises Harrods or the Museums in South Kensington/Gloucester Road area where most people independently select their hotel. Priceline normally delivers the Hilton Kensington or Olympia, both very isolated hotels comparatively away from where leisure visitors want to go and awkward for airport transfers.

 

- Do not use Priceline for Heathrow. Hotels allocated are normally very remote like the Crowne Plaza. What you save in room rates is by outstripped by the exhorbitant costs of breakfast, food and drink, plus terminal transfers of 4 GBP per person each way. Is it just a coincidence that the hotels that are not remote with alternative hotels. independent restaurants, supermarkets and pubs available on their doorestep are so much cheaper for the extras, plus the option of the free public bus to the terminals.

 

There is a local webiste, lastminute.com. They have 'mystery' hotels with rates comparable or a little above Priceline bids. Big difference is that you can work out exactly what hotel the 'mystery' hotel is. (The description used is identical to the hotel details elsewhere on the site, where the hotel is named).

 

Priceline bids do not include local tax 17.5% and admin charges. Compare hotels on 'normal' sites usually have these included.

 

Don't let the above put you off, if you can get a successful bid of < $US125, then you've probably got a bargain for a 4 star. Any more than that start factoring in the hidden costs and the secondary position, if you're a gambler you might get lucky with position/hotel.

[pcur]

I just want to add another opinion. I'm not trying to talk anyone out of using Priceline, but you have to go into it with a sense of adventure about your hotel.

 

I have been to London twice, and researched my hotels thoroughly. I talked to the desk manager at the Luna and Simone where we stayed last month, and he agreed that not all London hotels are made equal, and that the name (as hanfordr states above) doesn't mean much. It's the effort put into keeping the hotel in good shape that is the key, and you don't know that until you get there.

 

There are so many, many hotels in London that it's almost impossible to figure out which one's your looking at, unless you bid on a specific one. If you do that, then go to tripadvisor.com and check the reviews thoroughly, then bid.

 

The thing is, the hotels we stayed at are the same price that I'm seeing in this thread, and I knew almost exactly what I was getting.

 

By the way, the Premier Travel Inn at Heathrow is very nice. We stayed there this month. 4 GBP HOPPA ride to/from Heathrow each way.

 

Have fun with Priceline!

 

At Heathrow, we stayed at the

[jedimindtric]

We are sailing in June and were very successful with our Priceline bid. We received the Hilton London Tower Bridge for 3-nights at the end of June for only $110.00 per night. This worked out to about $137.00 with all the taxes put in. This hotel has received excellent reviews on tripadvisor and we got more then 1/2 off the going rate. It also seems like the location of the hotel is very good. This is the City and London Bridge zone.

[cruiser man]

We were going to use Priceline but ran a search through Hotwire prior to going to the Priceline site. We were very pleasantly surprised when a four star hotel came up for $59.00 USD. We wanted to stay near the airport (Heathrow). We decided to go with it and got the Crowne Plaza. We feel that this was a great option to Priceline and that we really did well. It certainly is worth investigating Hotwire also.

[carol459]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for your responses.

Rick