Im soon taking a trip to Las Vegas, and am in the process of trying to determine which hotel to stay at, and which method is best to reserve the hotel (i.e. expedia, orbitz, priceline, travelocity, etc)

i am finding that at pretty much the more popular hotels, the price seems to remain the same across the board no matter what online site i research.

as many know, priceline has gained fame for allowing you control to negotiate an offer in an attempt to get a lower rate., and although i am trying to get a decent room, in a decent part of the strip (somewhere between the Wynn and Mandalay), I dont want to pay an exorbant amount when i know i wont really be using the hotel room that much.

i want to be assured i will have a decent clean and quiet room. i can do without the luxury of the nicer hotels,.my main concerns are: easy walking access to most major nearby attractions, cleanliness of room, and quietness of room.

i have done my fair share of research and i do have some hotels that i have narrowed down to,.as i remain still somewhat undecisive on many factors.

i am drawn to priceline's ability of negotiation, but i feel stuck on some of their clauses they entail as part of their terms of agreement. (i guess there has to be a give and take in it all).

what irks me, is that i must be willing to accept that the hotel may or may not be able to honor my request for a non-smoking room. i can see myself at the reservation desk already, at the priceline selected hotel that accepted my offer, and the clerk and staff simply choosing to be hateful and lying to me the whole way through telling me that the only room they can put me in, would just so happen to be the room that is the loudest and filthiest of them all.

i am curious to inquire any applicable fodorites who have specific experience with priceline and especially, have used priceline in the past to book vegas hotels.

what was the bid you made? how many days stay? when was your trip? what star level did you select? where in vegas did priceline end up putting you at?

i have used priceline in the past, but only for airfare...i figure i cant lose since i am going from one airport to another, and i really dont care where on the plane that i sit at, as long as i get to the airport im flying to.

...but hotels are a whole different ball of wax. i have never used priceline to book hotels for fear of being put in something totally abstract to what my perception of my offer should be.

in fact, in theory, it seems like you could place a high generous offer on priceline and select a 5 star hotel on the strip,.and still not get the MGM, Mirage or Bellagio,..it would seem like you would get placed at the 5 star hotel in the area that you selected that is the most eager for your business,.not the hotels that are too arrogant to accept your priceline offer.

It sounds like Priceline may not be for you for hotel. But do some reading on various sites giving tips on Priceline - biddingfortravel used to be the main site, but people have found it less useful of late. Beware that when they give a list of hotels in a particular are at a specific star rating, this is not a comprehensive list. It is merely a list of hotel that those using the site have reported back that they got. You may get a hotel not on the list.

I do not agree with your presumption that hotel assignment has to do with personality of manager ("arrogance" in your last paragraph). It is all economics. Hotels want full rooms, and they place hotels on Priceline that they think they will not be able to sell in the usual way at the usual rate.

There has been much speculation on whether or not hotels have below standard "Priceline" rooms - but reports here have not supported that theory. I would think that if one were selecting, as you suggest, a 5-star hotel (using Priceline's ratings) if the room was filthy regardless of how you paid the hotel would make it right.

Years ago we used hotels.com and got what was a great price on a Caesar's Palace room--half the published price on their website. Well, we got a room that was beyond "tired" and we were put on a floor with a HS field trip---God knows what they were doing in Vegas!! We were still Vegas neophytes then, only our second trip. With my current knowledge, I would have complained but back then I was less savvy. However, now when going to Vegas, I deal w/the hotel's own website only. My experience is that you can bargain w/them if you see a site offering a lower price. Sometimes they cannot match it, but some have offered other perks like free breakfast every day. Bottom line, I would not use a booking service and I am sure we got the lousy rooms--we had booked 2--b/c of the reduced price.

We have gotten good deals on Travelocity for Las Vegas hotel rooms, and in fact think we got the better rooms in the price category we booked. The good thing about Travelocity is that you can pick the hotel you want to stay at, and request no smoking rooms. Until Oct. 31, they are running a deal-$50 off a 3 night stay if you pay with Mastercard. Last time we were in Las Vegas was the week before Christmas which is a really slow time. They honored our no smoking request and we were very satisfied with the room for the price we paid.

If you Google for Vegas specials, you'll find some websites with hotel deals, including CheapoVegas.com. There's also an on-line bulletin board where people post the specials they find, but I've forgotten the name of it. You can find it by Googling, too, I'm sure. We ended up getting a good deal at the Luxor, through their website.
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Just returned from Las Vegas last night. We stayed at Wynn for $179/night, a promotion found at:

http://smartervegas.com/

Thanks to Fodorite SaraWOO!

I`ve never gotten a smoking room with priceline, or a bad room either, for that matter. My daughter had a priceline reservation and she arrived at midnight. The only room left was a smoking room, so that`s what she got.

Mireaux, I see that you have actually used Priceline for air travel... the wording of your heading worried me, as you do not reserve hotels with PL, you purchase the time in advance.

I always advise people to go ahead and make reservations at the best possible price somewhere acceptable with the ability to change them if you get a good priceline deal.