Vacation: Toronto

The forum for ranting, raving, complaining and praising
User avatar
GeddyWrox
Caught you a delicious bass
Posts: 12945
Joined: April 20 06, 8:43 pm
Location: Please use blue font for the sarcasm impaired.

Re: Vacation: Toronto

Post by GeddyWrox »

cardsfansince82 wrote:"Foot massage"
QFT

User avatar
lukethedrifter
darjeeling sipping elite
Posts: 37434
Joined: October 17 06, 11:19 am
Location: Huis Clos

Re: Vacation: Toronto

Post by lukethedrifter »

I can get a tug job from my wife. Not a foot massage.

User avatar
lukethedrifter
darjeeling sipping elite
Posts: 37434
Joined: October 17 06, 11:19 am
Location: Huis Clos

Re: Vacation: Toronto

Post by lukethedrifter »

33anda3rd wrote:Would appear Priceline no longer has the bid model, so I'd say forget the old advice on copping a cheap room on there. Maybe something will come up on their Express Deals.
Missed this earlier and came to ask if you meant the bid option or if they just put them on the site.

Question answered.

User avatar
33anda3rd
Replies Authoritatively
Posts: 8418
Joined: April 7 13, 9:45 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Vacation: Toronto

Post by 33anda3rd »

lukethedrifter wrote:
33anda3rd wrote:Would appear Priceline no longer has the bid model, so I'd say forget the old advice on copping a cheap room on there. Maybe something will come up on their Express Deals.
Missed this earlier and came to ask if you meant the bid option or if they just put them on the site.

Question answered.
These days, I'm an airbnb guy. I like to say in a neighborhood that is walkable rather than be in a hotel that tends to be either in a touristy or convention-y area. Haven't really done more than glance at hotel prices just to confirm that airbnb is the better option for me. But we are headed to Louisville in a couple weeks to do distillery visits and my wife is adamant that we stay in a hotel because she wants a gym and a pool and a really nice bed and good air conditioning so she can be sure she sleeps well, so I'm shopping hotels with intent for the first time in a few years.

Appears the bid model is 100% gone. There used to be a site called bidding for travel dot com--actually there still is a site it's just dormant--which I think I mentioned in my long post a few years back. They would tell you what hotels were in what star range, so you could have some confidence in bidding hotels re quality, and then a bunch of discussion threads like "I got the 4 Star Marriott In Downtown Nashville for $59 6/1 - 6/5" and they'd talk about how they bid a couple other things and missed and how they adjusted their bid, so then you knew that you could bid in a certain range with some confidence.

I looked like 10 days ago and the 21c hotel in Louisville was like $350 and the Brown was $389/night on their websites. Today (13 days prior to arrival) the Brown is $220 and the 21c is $212 on their sites. But. There's the Express Deals on Priceline, where you see the price and the star level but not the specific hotel--just "You can get a 4.5 star hotel for $186." If I look on that bid discussion board, the only Downtown Louisville hotel listed at 4.5 stars or higher is the 21c, and the Priceline Express Deals page for my stay has a 4.5 star hotel listed at $186/night. So basically I know that I could buy that $186/night hotel and get the 21c for $26 less than their site. I can also go down to a 4-star hotel for $151 and the bid discussion board, last it was updated, lists only the Brown and the Hyatt Regency, so I can blind buy at $151 and be about 95% sure I'll get one of those, which would be a savings of almost $70/night on the Brown.

I won't buy yet, because these could drop even further. The logic from the post from a few years back still holds even though the distribution channels have changed. A week from now the revenue manager at the 21c might be like "yo we're looking at 41% occupancy on 7/4 and 30% occupancy on 7/5, there's no business travel that week and leisure travel is soft, I need to move my prices down." But it's very unlikely, if the price has dropped nearly in half in 2 weeks, that the price is going to go up. She will for sure have dead inventory a week from now. So I'll chill for another week, then make a decision.

Hope that's helpful.

Edit to add, re the pricing/value of hotels and hotels v airbnb. Tax and Parking are big issues and they impact the overall pricing a lot.

For my stay in Louisville for example:
AIRBNB, 6 nights:
$643 for the rental (there's a "long stay" discount taking down the $105/nt rate)
$35 cleaning
$85 service
$96 occupancy tax
$0 parking/tips to doormen and valets, etc.

HOTEL, 6 nights (no blind buys) Seelbach Hilton
$882 for the six nights (this is about 240 more than the base rental of the airbnb)
$141 for hotel tax (the same as service + occupancy tax on airbnb, still $240 higher)
$162 for valet parking at $27/nt (we are now at $400 more)
$50 or so in tips for valet, doorman, bellman as we come and go ($415 more after taking out the $35 airbnb cleaning fee)

So do we wanna go an additional $415 for a fitness center and the little conveniences? The price difference nearly doubles when we figure in the extra stuff. Maybe, maybe not. Still figuring it out. We're going to be in Bardstown most of two afternoons, so we might airbnb a place out there near the trail and then do a hotel in the city the first night and last couple nights.

Post Reply