Found a price of $139.00 for the Hotel Monoco in San Francisco, butdecided to try priceline.com last night. I picked "boutique hotels" which they say average $190.00. I bid $79.00 and got the Hotel Union Square, which looks pretty shabby on their website (and I could get for $119.00 without even shopping around). I am very unhappy, but am not sure what to do about it since they have a "no cancellation policy". I e-mailed them saying their guidelines were misleading, but haven't heard anything. Any advice?

Hotel Union Square isn't "shabby," perhaps you should check the web site again. It's in a very handy locatoin and you did get it for 33 percent off the otherwise best rate.

I'm sorry that you had a bad experience with Priceline.

I'm not trying to rub this in, especially since it's a done deal, but I'm wondering if you checked at biddingfortravel.com before you bid on Priceline. They have 4 hotels listed under 3 1/2* boutique for San Fran and one of them is the Hotel Union Square. This is why it'a a good idea to research well before you bid.

Hopefully the Hotel Union Square isn't so bad after all - I'm sure someone will respond with some info on it for you. Good luck Sally,

thea

Sally, what exactly about their guidelines was misleading? If the "average" price of a boutique hotel in SF is $190, that means some will be more, and others less, and that specials will probably be less. As has been pointed out, a few minutes' research on Biddingfortravel would have told you that this hotel was a possibility, and their web site clearly lists the $119 special. Furthermore Hotel Monaco doesn't appear on the list of SF hotels on Biddingfortravel. Sorry you had to learn your lesson the hard way, but IMHO you really have no complaint wiht Priceline.

okay, I feel properly scolded, but I just went back to see where I missed the list of hotels offered, and I don't see any. All I saw was the description of each category of hotel. I'm glad everyone else is happy with Priceline.

On the opening page of biddingfortravel, scroll down to the Hotel section and you'll see a list of cities.

The board monitors keep an ongoing list of the hotels that people get, and it's kept as a post at the top of the message board for each city; some cities with several sections have separate messages that list hotels in each section, according to their star rating.

Okay, I see what I did wrong. I went straight into the priceline site where you start bidding and didn't look at the bidding for travel information(didn't realize it was there). Thanks for the help. I learned my lesson.

You also could have gotten it for $85 thru San Francisco Reservations with full cancellation privileges.

BTW, Biddingfortravel does not provide a list of hotels offered; rather it list the hotels which people have gotten in the past thru Priceline. Your results may vary.