My sister has asked me to bid on a 3 or 4 star beach hotel in Fort Lauderdale. Is there a specific area to bid or not to bid?

The hotels from biddingfortravel seem to be good, but I am confused about which area(s) to choose and which areas to use a free bids.

The Fort Lauderdale Beach area. Have you even looked at priceline's site?

Eliza,
If you bid 4 star beach, you'll get hyatt pier 66. 3 star downtown will be the VERY nice Marriott Marina or the Embassy Suites..a little off the beaten track. Note: some of the 3 star beach properties receive some pretty bad reviews. I just came back from there!

Llinda,

Thank you for your advice. So do you think I should try 4* Fort Lauderdale Beach and then try 3* Downtown? How far is the Embassy suites from the beach?

Should I avoid bidding on 3* Fort Lauderdale Beach and stick with 3* Downtown?

What is the purpose of your sister's visit? Is she visiting FL in particular, or will she be departing for a cruise? For a pre-cruise stay, the Downtown zone is a great choice. As someone else said, according to BiddingForTravel, you are mostly likely to get the 3-star Embassy Suites or Marriott in that zone - both excellent hotels.

If you want to save money, be patient and bid low enough at first so you can re-bid higher. If you don't want to wait 3 days to repeat a failed bid, you can try what are called "free rebids" which must be done carefully to avoid getting the wrong zone. A "free rebid" is described on the BFT site.

Andrew

If you or your sister have your eyes on a particular hotel, it may be worth having a look on Hotwire.

I was in Fort Lauderdale in September and most of the hotels in the Downtown and Beach areas are quite easy to identify. With alarming regularity, I saw the Hyat Pier 66, Sheraton Yankee Trader, Holiday Inn (on the beach), Embassy Suites and Amerisuites come up.

This would give you an idea of price and then, if you still want to use Priceline, go there and bid less than what you've seen on Hotwire - though bear in mind their star ratings may well be different.

You can also go to www.BetterBidding.com to help you identifty the Hotwire hotels (they'll also help with Priceline).

Thanks for your replies. I have booked successfully on Hotwire for other Florida hotels, but this time I want to use Priceline to use the free bonus money offered on the Priceline Hong Kong site.

I think I will try bid on the Hyatt, now I just have to make those exchange rates straight to bid!!

I recently bid on hotels through Priceline for the same type of hotels you are looking at. What I did was offer $38 (Priceline added $10 for a $48 total bid) 3* Ft. Laud. Downtown and immediately got the Marina Marriott and loved my stay. Keep in mind, the date was for 11/20, Thursday night only. The hotel gave me a free upgrade, which I really didn't expect. Great hotel, too! I live in Ft. Lauderdale, so this was just an overnight get-away for me. This hotel also is one of the stops for the Water Taxi, so for $5/day she can take see other areas of Ft. Lauderdale and not have to pay to park a car.

The Marina Marriott is about a mile to the beach (Water Taxi goes to the Beach area, too) and the Embassy Suite is just a few blocks farther away on the same road.

My bidding strategy was going to be:
$38 + $10 Priceline for 3* Downtown. If that failed, I was going to add 3* Beach and add $3-$5 to the bid. Actually, the 3* Downtown hotels are nicer than the 3* Beach. The Hyatt Pier 66 is an even better hotel on the Water Taxi route (directly across the intracoastal from the Marina Marriott and closer to the beach.)