Because we were waiting for my folks to decide whether they wanted to join us for our shopping junket (they didn’t), we were late making our hotel bookings. We didn’t reserve a room until the night before we left home. For some reason, hotel rooms in Syracuse seem to have undergone a price hike.
Not sure why. It’s not like Syracuse has become a getaway hot spot. Nor were there any major events on, as far as we could tell. It wasn’t even a long weekend! And yet, rooms that generally go for about $70 a night are now going at closer to $100. And that’s for budget hotels like Super8 and Days Inn!
So we tried our luck with Priceline’s “Name your own price” feature. We had heard about good results from people using this and similar services, so we were hopeful that we could score an amazing deal. We ended up at DoubleTree (a Hilton affiliate) – a step up from the budget brands – and while it was far from the steals we had been promised, we wound up paying just $90. It was certainly a better deal than the budget hotels were offering, and it was a step up in terms of cleanliness and service. Can’t complain about that, but I’m still a little disappointed our first bid of $50 wasn’t accepted.
Now THAT would have been a deal!
Our Flophouse 
I’ve never understood priceline….I cant see why its still in business…..I would be so pissed off if I paid $90 for a room then found out that someone paid $82…..it pisses me off that you have to have the balls to ask for a price…if they can sell it for $82 then just tell me thats the price- then Id buy it……Im glad you got a deal- but I just dont see the point of priceline.
The good thing about it is that you can get rooms at a lower price than that published by the hotel. Yeah, the hotel will give it to you for less, but they ideally want to make as much as possible – so they’re not gonna drop their price unless you ask. Priceline just gives you the means to ask. It’s basically haggling for the internet age. And I like haggling. I’ve been to enough world markets to have gotten used to it now. I wish we could haggle in our malls. 🙂
I am glad you at least got a nice motel. They should have accepted your first offer 🙂
The first offer was a little low, in fairness. But that would have been sweeeet.