TAW

I can't believe the prices for hotels in DC. That said, I'm willing to stay as much as an hour away by public transportation so that I don't have to give up my firstborn to pay for a decent hotel. The stay will be on our last 2 days of trip and we leave from IAD at 6pm so will have good part of day to drive to IAD if necessary.
However, I need suggestions as to where would be a good place to start looking for lodging that meets my requirements. I want under $125/night if possible plus free parking and at least a continental B'fast. Is this too much to ask for? Thanks in advance...I'm probably dreaming, right?

Julie304

It will totally depend on your dates. Hotel rates in and around DC vary tremendously depending on the season and what conventions or other events may or may not be in town at the time. I just checked rates for the brand new Marriott Courtyard at Dunn Loring Metro (Vienna, VA) and it's currently available on Saturday, December 2nd for $89/nt. At other times, I've seen it go as high as $300/nt. I'm not sure about breakfast but I know their parking is free and Metro is across the street. Downtown DC is no more than a 30 minute ride, and you are only a mile or two away from what's arguably the best shopping in the area at Tyson's Corner.

Good luck!

Johanna1

The Fairfield Inn in Gaithersburg, MD might work. It's also close to the Shady Grove metro station, which is the first stop on the red line (which goes downtown). I've stayed there, it's clean and comfortable, esp. the king suite.

travelallover

We stayed at the Latham in Georgetown in Oct. Got the hotel for $70 per night on Priceline. It was about a 5 minute walk to the metro. There is a bakery/cafe (Madeline's?) right in front of the hotel. We ate breakfast there every morning.

Gretchen

Have you tried Priceline?

TAW

Thanks - my dates are Arrive May 13, Depart May 15.
I am "Priceline challenged" don't know how to use it despite reading on this board telling me to check biddingfortravel first. I do that & it goes to Hotwire which gives me rates for an unidentified place. Since I'm not familiar with the areas I'm lost again. I'll check the places you have listed so far. Thanks again for your help.

Julie304

Hmmm...it looks as though the problem is with weeknights as opposed to weekends. Are your dates at all flexible? If you could do the DC area on May 11-13 (Friday and Saturday night) instead of May 13-15 (Sunday and Monday) most rates drop *substantially*.

tuckerdc

I'm not sure why you wouldn't be able to access the Bidding for Travel info without being sent to Hotwire.

Let's try step by step: If you go to biddingfortravel.com, the first page that should come up will be a state-by-state listing. Scroll down until you come to "Washington DC area" (followed by Washington DC suburbs - Maryland and Virginia").

Click on one of those and you'll get a listing of Priceline activity for that area - winning bids; strikeouts; requests for bidding assistance, etc. But at the very top of that listing will be a "Washington DC area hotels list."

Click on this to learn which hotels have been coming up on P'line (by area and star level). You'll also see links for valuable reviews from past P'line visitors. Not every single hotel has a review attached, but it's still a great starting point to help you narrow down what area you want to be in and what star level sounds like it will work for you.

In some cases, you may read reviews of a particular lodging that are so uniformly bad, you'll decide you don't want to take the change on bidding for that particular area.

The DC suburbs list will help you narrow down on someplace accessible by public transportation, but possibly less $$$ than in metro DC.

So....read the available hotels and reviews first; start narrowing down what sounds feasible to you; and then go to the main list to get an idea of what $$ bids are likely to be successful.

(I suspect that you are still too far out - May 07 - at this point to get a successful bid, but at least you have plenty of time to educate yourself and bone up for success!)

TAW

To Tuckerdc: THANK YOU! Your step-by-step helped and I got to where the reviews are. Now that I have your instructions, hopefully I can use them for other hotels as well. Thanks so much!!