How's this for a bargain -- I first heard about this price a couple of years ago (right here on this forum), but I didn't quite believe it. But now it's come up again.

On "Another Forum" (all right, it's Trip Advisor!) I advised a guy looking for a $AUD250 hotel to check out internet deals on the Old Sydney Holiday Inn, which is just the most wonderfully-located place (along with the Russell); he just got back with the news that he found a booking site offering double rooms there for $AUD170.

The site is www.airline-network.co.uk/.

Anyone know of any other great sites where you can book a hotel like that for a price like that? It's a full seventy dollars a night LESS than www.wotif.com... and without the fourteen-day restriction!

Priceline? - I'm at the more fabulous Marriott Sydney Harbour for $100US a night plus few taxes and fees. 5 nights for about $550US total. I did upgrade once I got here but all the rooms here are a lot better than the Holiday Inn so no need to do it if you don't want to.

That's a great rate, too, AAFrequentflyer... actually a couple of people have been mentioning what good deals are available with the Harbourside Marriott on Priceline. But, of course, you'd have to be VERY specific about the area you wanted to make sure you actually got the Marriott... how, exactly, did you define your criteria so that they couldn't put you somewhere inferior?

November 2004 we stayed at the Stafford Rendezvous on Harrington Street right in the Rocks. Near everything. I checked their site (http://precisionreservations.com/ph-...telDisplay.htm) for May and the rate starts at AUD$163/night. Rooms OK. Breakfast OK but it's location, location, location. Jerry

As far as I can tell, Alan, it has to do with being sure to request the area you want and the level of hotel you'll accept. I' m just starting to read more about Priceline at the biddingfortravel.com site, and their advice is very helpful.

Lee Ann

We read a lot on this board before going to Sydney and Alan was so helpful and provided us with so many tips. We stayed at The Australian Heritage Hotel in the Rocks area. It is somewhat like a B and B with breakfast included. There are narrow steps to the second floor,but it was quite an experience. We did have shared bathrooms, but there were quite a few of them. There isn't any AC but a ceiling fan which was OK in November when we were there. All in all it was a nice experience and very close to many interesting places. The cost was $77 US for a night,which was much more reasonable than many of the hotels in the area. The pizza was the best we have ever eaten. Now, the rooms were plain but clean and we didn't spend much time in the room except at night. Any other questions please ask.

John and Emily

P.S. Thanks again, Alan.

Alan

to follow up on AAFrequentflyer's use of Priceline, you can be pretty confident of what your getting.

You use www.biddingfortravel.com (a lot better) & www.betterbidding to firstly find out what hotels have been 'won' in Sydney along with their star rating. You then look at what bids have been successful and you then bid accordingly, its not like ebay, you know the outcome within 10 minutes.

I use it a lot, its especially great for places like London, HK & the US. In Australia I got a reasonable deal in Surfers at the Marriott Courtyard but I couldn't get a good deal in Brisbane so I used something else. Old Sydney Holiday Inn is one of the priceline hotels available but I find that in Australia the majority of people seem to get Marriotts

Geordie

Hey, 646wyck, it's great to hear from you again! I still think you get the all-time "Golden Fodor" award for the most carefully-researched accommodation in the history of this forum (for those of you who weren't around back then, 646wyck looked up every single hotel in the entire CBD and had us describe each one of them in painstaking detail... and, if I recall, a few over Pyrmont way as well!)

Hope you're planning a return visit!

The Marriott, so favoured by the Priceline people, is an upmarket hotel quite near Circular Quay, and the rooms are (probably) better than the Holiday Inn.... but the HI wins hands down for location, and, as far as I'm concerned (since I'm the type of person who merely glances at the room, dumps the backpack, and heads out of doors), if someone were to offer me my choice of which place to stay, it would take me less than two seconds to make up my mind. I just love all those Dickensian lanes which the Holiday Inn looks into... that, to me, is Sydney (the Marriott, if you don't get a harbour view, looks onto the Thai Airlines office, I think).