Priceline/Hotwire
 

Sorry for yet another Priceline/Hotwire question but I want to make sure I understand how it works.<BR><BR>It sounds like you are not guaranteed space for more than 2 people. For those people who are traveling with their children (in this case 2 under the age of 9 and 2 adults), do you not use Priceline or Hotwire or do you book 2 rooms? Do certain classes of hotels (4-5*) in the US usually have enough room for 4 people?<BR><BR>Sorry if these are dumb questions but this is the first time I am traveling with more than 2 people in a room. <BR>

Message: When leaving a hotel room it is YOUR responsibility to make sure you have taken everything that belongs to you!<BR><BR>Once you check-out, the odds of getting something back are 50-50, but the fault was your fiance's and not the hotel's. <BR><BR>Do you know how many people honestly claim they left something at the hotel, when in reality they left or lost it elsewhere?<BR><BR>The hotel's sole responsibility is to check the room after they have been notified and return the item IF it is found.<BR><BR>Quit complaining and take some responsibility.<BR><BR>

This is not a dumb question. I work for a major hotel chain and we get lots of Priceline/Hotwire bookings. You are only guaranteed a hotel room for 2 people which may or may not have double bedding. People are "out-raged" and down right rude when they show up at the hotel with 5 people (husband, wife and 3 kids) and we tell them that we only have one room left with King size bedding. Most people then are forced to pay the additional money for another room (when available) or we have to provide them with a cot. My advise to you is that if you get a good rate, then book 2 rooms that way you will not have to cough up the extra money (at least twice as much as the original reservation) if they only have one bed available when you check in.

We book 2 rooms with Priceline for the cost of 1 room any other way - sure, we don't save money, but when we plan and budget for vacation we figure in regular cost of hotel room - if we get a deal, we are ahead of the game.<BR><BR>And even with young kids, 2 rooms are really nice - then no one is creeping around the room while others are trying to sleep. Often if you call hotel after booking with Priceline, they will get you adjoining rooms.

I'm confused. Do you intend to leave the young kids alone in a hotel room in a strange city? Or do you split up the adults between the two rooms as well?<BR>

I just used Hotwire for the first time and got a room for $82 at the Sheraton New York. <BR>Based on what I've been reading it is much nicer than the one across the street. <BR>Anyway, after finding out the hotel I called directly and asked for a room with 2 doubles and then mentioned it when checking in and they could not ahve been more gracious.<BR>Obviously this might not work everywhere but it seemed like no problem in my case.

I had a similar experience as Eva. We got a great room at an amazing price on Hotwire in Portland, Oregon this summer. When I made the reservations I noticed it didn't ask about the number of people in our party (there were three). The fine print on the reservation says there is one bed. I called the Hilton directly and they were wonderful and saved us a room with two beds. I have only had great experiences with Hotwire and I use them often for flights and cars, as well.

Thanks for the advice, I decided to get the 2 rooms as I'm traveling with a relative and her 2 kids and was thinking by then we'd all need a break from each other :-)<BR><BR>I got the 4* Westin LAX for $45 per night per room on Priceline which is less than I can find 1 room for anywhere else on the internet.

When using priceline, it usually easy to purchase two rooms for the price of one regular room on..lets say the hotel website. Don't take chances when you could bask in the comfort of having two rooms.

Note to Gail: Be careful when requesting "adjoining rooms." What you really want to ask for is "connecting" rooms. I learned that the hard way several years back. Our two rooms were right next door to each other (hence, "adjoining") but there was no door between them. When I went back to the front desk, they said that I should have asked for "connecting" rooms. So, lesson learned.

I opted not to go to Priceline or Hotwire for the same reason-they don't specify how many in your party, just number of rooms requested. <BR>I did go to every other site offering "lowest rates guaranteed" (expedia, trip.com, hotel.com, orbitz, etc) and found that when I called the hotel directly, the rates were considerably less. A room in Aspen on line was anywhere from $169.00 to $210.00 for the same room. When I called i got the deluxe same room for $140.00. Makes me leary of these guarateed cheap hotel web sites.<BR><BR>Denise

Note to Judy - thanks for clarifying adjoining versus connecting - but we do know the difference (sort of like the difference between direct and non-stop flights - they are not interchangeable). Since our kids are now teenagers, sometimes we wish for separate hotels from them, but settle for adjoining.<BR><BR>To jill - no one suggested leaving kids alone in a hotel room, but I could see how leaving out an important detail might make one think of that - when our kids were younger if we could not get connecting rooms, the adults would split up. I know this sort of defeats the purpose of 2 rooms to accomodate different sleeping schedules, but it was still better than 1 room. When the kids got a little older, we would give them a key to our room and we would take key to their room for safety (by older, I mean teenagers - and there were some hotels in some cities we would not even do this).<BR><BR>To xxx - good plan if it is your friend's kids! No matter how wonderful they are, a break will be welcome.