Several have mentioned getting great rates at Boston hotels on Priceline, like the Copley Marriott for $80 per room.

Can anyone explain this site to me. Do you enter an amount you want to spend on a room, then have to purchase whatever hotel priceline selects for you? Please help. We are looking for 2 nice rooms for 3 nights, arriving 6/15/06.

I am shocked by the room rates...stayed for a lot less in major cities of Europe !!

Help !!!!

The way Priceline works is to "Name your own price". You choose area, class of hotel and date; and you enter your credit card number. If they accept your bid, your credit card is billed immediately, and there's no refund. So, be very careful.

You also don't get to choose your hotel. But to find out what may be given in your zone and class, you can go to biddingfortravel.com and look up the recent reports there.

Copley Marriott is one of the possibilities if you bid 4* Copley, but you may also get the Colonnade, the Westin Copley Place, the Sheraton Boston or the Fairmont Copley. All are decent hotels, but if there's one you cannot stay at, then you can't bid on this zone.

And yes, 4* Copley zone have been reported to cost about $75-80, plus tax and fees. But to increase your chance of getting that price and to avoid overbidding, you need to learn how to get "free rebids".

You should find on Priceline.com that around Boston, the Medford and the South Boston areas do not have 4* Priceline hotels. So, those are your "free rebid" zones. Reason you need that is that if your initial bid is rejected, you cannot rebid for the same zone, same class and same date for 72 hours. [Unless you log in as someone else.]

Anyways, now you have 4 chances to get your Copley 4*. Think about how much you want to spend. Say maximum is $85, but you want to see if you can get it at $70.

So, you bid $70 Copley 4*.

If rejected, you add Medford, but stay at 4* level, and increase your bid to $75.

If still rejected, you take out Medford, but bid Copley + South Boston, and up your bid to $80.

If still rejected, punch in all 4 zones, and bid $85.

If you cannot get that at $85, you need to wait 72 hours and try again.

Sorry, in my second-to-last sentence, I mean you should punch in all THREE zones - Copley, Medford and South Boston. And bid $85.

I like priceline, my only caveat is that if you are not traveling alone you can end up with a room that is very small for more than 1 person.

You choose a price and wait on line while they tell you if it is accepted. If it is not accepted, you can choose again if you change travel date, change hotel quality level or change the section of town.

One option I have used is the 5$ a night extra fee that allows you to cancell. So if you get a room and than call and find out the room is too small you can cancell and try again, or not try again.

I highly recommend that you go to www.biddingfortravel.com. It is priceless for use with priceline!

It will give you an idea what others are receiving for their bids and will tell you what hotels you might receive for you bids. Don't bid without it!

First of all, let us confirm that Boston hotel rates are out of this world. You are not seeing a unique thing for Boston.

As stated previously, www.biddingfortravel.com will explain most of what you need to know to use Priceline.

For Boston, you should be completely thrilled to get some of those nicer hotels through Priceline for ""only"" $150-250 per night, IF you can do it.

I don't know how optimistic you should be about striking a great deal on a Boston hotel via Priceline (or any other way).

Great advice above about biddingfortravel.com, a tutorial on PL bidding. Spend time on the site and study, study, study the procedures there before you try a PL bid. You won't be sorry!

Go look at biddingfortravel.com. Many successful bids for about $80 for 4* Copley from most recent to back to June of this year. So, it's definitely possible.

There's also a lot of time between now and next June. No reason to bid too high right now.

In fact, if you look at all the winning bids, there are very few bids over $100 in all of Boston.

Good luck with Priceline in Boston - the "zones" are set up in a farily reasonable way so you should be able to get a hotel that is in an acceptable location.

Warning - if you decide not to go Priceline route, and book a hotel directly, if you find an unbelievable deal on a Boston hotel, post here so Bostonians can comment. It continues to bug me that many unscrupulous hotel chains list hotels with names/locations that are very misleading if you are not familiar with Boston. For example, Dorchester is part of Boston, so a hotel can have a Boston address but be in an area that is not convenient or appropriate for visitors. Hotels list themselves as things such as Boston/Waltham, but the commute can be annoying and tedious. Distances in Boston are misleading - a hotel 8 miles from the city can really mean a commute of an hour - or it can be a quick subway ride.

If I did not live here and was using Priceline, I would pick zones called things such as Back Bay, Copley, Downtown. All summer months are popular times to visit Boston, but maybe you will get lucky a snare a deal. Hope you have a nice visit.

May and June are espcially busy for Boston hotels because of all the college graduations and reunions; your arrival date is just after graduations for MIT and Harvard, and Harvard's massive reunions.

Thanks for all your advise. I really didn't like the idea of bidding on a hotel + not knowing which one we'll end up with. I was booking rooms for my daughter and son-in-law as well.

So, I took the easy way out and booked three nights at the Newbury Guest House which had a lot of good reviews on this site. Thanks for the info.

Wanted to reiterate biddingfortravel.com

It not only advises you on using Priceline but also gives a pretty accurate idea of which hotels you may or may not end up with. Used in conjunction with your own research, you shouldn't be too disappointed by any hotel selection.

Since finding this site, I've used Priceline four times without any problems.

I think I may try your advise when I'm only responsible for our own room.
Didn't want others disappointed.

I'll keep the info on file.

Thanks, again.