Priceline for hotel rooms in Europe- specifically Spain
Has anyone used priceline to bid and book discounted hotel rooms in Europe in general and in Spain? I'm curious if anyone has had an issue with it before. Thanks!
Ashley
Cincinnati, OH U.S. 11/4/09
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I have and with the usual Priceline caveats (bidding blind, etc) it works okay.
Another good site to check is booking.com for reservations.
I have and it was ok. As Steve mentioned you do bid blindly and won't know where you are staying until you have committed. No cancellation once committed. The hotel they put us in was very nice in Amsterdam for under $100.00 per night. Due to a miscommunication between us, and it was my fault, we did not get in the area we wanted so we had to use public transportation to get into town. I was not specific enough on the location when I put in my bid. Start the bid on what you would consider almost ridiculously low and inch it up as needed if your bid is rejected. Priceline also imposed a fee on top of our bid of approximately $17.00. The other day I bid on a rental car for a trip to Miami and got one for about half of what the rental company wanted. You may want to check with the Accor chain of hotels in Spain. Within the Accor family are the Ibis and Etap hotels. Ibis is a little higher than Etap and is a little more upscale but still good prices. Etap is very basic with good rates but the rooms are very clean. If you are looking for a basic place to stay it should work for you. Can't help much with high end hotels with super ammenities. Since we don't stay in our room very much we look for places of value with clean rooms and private baths. Many B&B's and the Accor family of hotels fill the bill most of the time.
Ashley - we just got back from London - we used priceline and we were happy with our room - we too started very low and inched up - we did put in the area we wanted. it all worked out well
Thanks to everyone for their advice! It's been very helpful. We use priceline all the time in the states but I wasn't sure about it for Spain.
Not sure if anyone is aware of www.biddingfortravel.com, but it is a great companion site to Priceline where people post recent bids they had accepted.
Thanks again!
May I recommend using www.betterbidding.com in addition to the site Ashley suggested. I have found the people who run it much more helpful.
The link below may offer some help to those who are thinking about using priceline.
http://thetravelinsider.info/howtobookbuy/priceline.htm
You might try venere.com. It's especially good for Spain and Italy. It's ratiings are pretty reliable and it can find you some off-beat hotels that are much more interesting the the plastic ones.
For really good rates on accommodation in Europe check with hrs.com!