Priceline Express Deals / Hotwire Hot Rate, worth the risk?

Does anyone have any experience booking through these websites? They tell you the star rating, amenities and general Strip location but not the specific hotel? These deals seem too good to be true and often relatively easy to identify. I am very skeptical and most of the information I can find online is out dated.

This is my first post so if I have done this wrong, any advice is appreciated! Thank you!

 

I wonder about that. As said, you can sometimes figure out which hotel - especially Trump Tower. Personally, I would not stay there even if free. I want to walk from the elevator the casino floor. Other hotels... might be okay if you are sure you will be on the strip - or off if that is what you want.

If you think you will get the hotel you want, and it is significantly less than booking direct - go for it.

 

The one thing to be wary of, other than which hotel you'd end up with, is when using the sites you lose flexibility when on the property when it comes to backend comps and any billing issues that may arise.

 

Agreed with Rocky. If it's just a room, it's a great deal. Bad idea if you might play enough for a comped room at the end.

One small caution might be that sometimes they'll say a place downtown has a pool but really there's a sister property next door that actually has the pool. I doubt too many of us go downtown for the pools though. The resort fees and location tend to make it obvious which one you're looking at, always getting it down to 3 places at most.

Pro tip: if you book on Priceline, do that purchase through a website called swagbucks. Every $1 spent on Priceline earns 8 points (basically 8 cents towards an array of gift cards). It only includes the room rate unfortunately but still, $70 room rate would snag a $5 Amazon gift card. Nice little added bonus.

 

Or use ebates

 

Thanks for the replies, I think I saw Ebates was offering up to 10% back on Priceline. No one has any experience with this though?

I don't gamble much, I come for the shows, weather, food and pool - so no chance at comps. We will be celebrating a 4 year anniversary so I am carefully trying to balance getting the best room while also being able to afford tickets and some nice restaurants.

The image I attached shows what I believe is the Resort King room at the Bellagio for $112 which is a pretty steep discount. In the past I have stayed at the Signature and MGM Grand King, so I am hoping this could be a step up while also saving money.

 

It's actually 6% for hotels and could take awhile to reach a cash out balance with eBates if you rarely use that site.

I'm hot high on the opacity of Priceline for Vegas, especially on the Strip.. Not being 100% sure where I was staying and playing until I clicked the buy now button just doesn't appeal to me. The only time I ever used Priceline for a Vegas hotel was for a 4 star downtown years ago when I knew for certain the only 4 star was the Golden Nugget. For car rentals in Vegas, I'm all for trying their bidding process, just not for hotels.

I have used Priceline in other cities, but mainly when I knew a normal nice hotel in the area that I wanted to stay in was out of my price range. But that's mainly for having a bed and a shower. For Vegas, the whole resort/casino aspect is the main reason for staying at a certain hotel.

 

I agree, I like a little more control, especially when spending that amount of money!

But being guaranteed a 5 star hotel in a relatively narrow perimeter is tempting. If I'm going to spend $109 a night at the Signature Suites, why not make it $112 for the chance that I'm at the Bellagio or a similar 5 star hotel in the vicinity. No one has taken this gamble?

 

I have been checking both these sites recently. Haven't actually booked through them yet. Priceline seems easier to figure out. Check the "last customer got" feature. The 4 1/2* casino hotel West of Strip is almost vertainly Palms Place, the 4* could be either Palms or Rio. The 4* casino hotel by Convention Center is certainly the Westgate.
On Hotwire it seems more hit and miss. They classify Lucky Dragon as being on North Strip, Palace Station as *West of Strip* (technically, yes it is) and SLS as "mid-Strip" plus they also use Royal Resort as an option. Priceline seems to use better quality properties, IMHO

 

I recommend referring to a forum like betterbidding to help determine what you're going to get - they tell what they've gotten from similar offers (sometimes just now) and help analyze what the possible hotels you may end up at are:

http://www.betterbidding.com/index.php?showforum=32

 

My upcoming trip was booked with Hotwire thru the betterbidding portal, I was able to tell that Hotwire was offering me the Four Queens (which is what I wanted) by the lack of a resort fee being listed and the location being 4.5 of 5. I ended up getting the Four Queens for $31 per night including Friday and Saturday and with the 4Q $10 per day food allowance (if you don't use housekeeping, not including the 1st and last night) that makes it $21 per night for 5 of the 7 nights of my stay.

 

I never use those sites in Vegas. But I use them elsewhere and have some good experiences. I prefer Hotwire because I have an easier time figuring out the potential hotel. For the strip, there have been issues with overinflated star ratings and with hotels we consider offstrip winning on strip only searches.

 

I just did. For the labor day weekend, expedia rate for mss cal and fremont was 59/night. And i had booked mss (refundable).

I found three star downtown express deal on priceline for 47/night. It had no resort fee attached to it, so it would either be one of these three or four queens. And i was fine with all four of them. I ended up getting fremont and saved 36 bucks before tax.

 

At the bottom of your photo you have the option of paying $237 for the Bellagio Suite, so it looks like Priceline tipped its hand on this listing.

 

Nothing wrong with either of these sites. You aren't going to book 4 * strip and end up in an off strip motel or anything like that. The downside of the bookings is that they are non refundable.

For express deals, make sure you sign up for the emails, and you will periodically get 7 or 10% off an express deals booking, which can be huge. Hotwire also has periodic deals where they have a discount that applies on top, and which you don't need emails for.

As for getting one specific exact hotel, that is possible but harder. You can sort of hack of it by doing research. How many hotels do they have listings for at that location and star level? Sometimes the resort fees or amenities can differ too. (Careful with the resort fees, it feels like sometimes they figure in the tax owing on them and sometimes they don't, making it harder to hack). Also some places (like Trump at North strip, or Oasis at Gold Spike downtown) will list as Hotel rather than Casino Hotel.

Downtown you can usually tell the exact hotel, and these are a great option if you don't have players club comps. GN is the only 4*. I think D and Downtown Grand the only 3.5. And between the 3* ones you can often tell by amenities and resort fee (no fee would be 4Q or one of the Boyd props).

The only other caution I would give is about bed selection. On the strip it is unlikely to be an issue, but downtown, a place like GN actually has a different rate for rooms with 2 beds, and a couple others may be iffy.


What it comes down to is if you are pretty sure you can't beat the price, you won't need to cancel, and willing to take a small risk that you won't get the exact hotel, give it a shot.

 

I looked to be nosy - seems like they've done that for a few of them - "Vdara Suite" and "Monaco Suite" are rather obvious lol.

 

I worked for an OTA, they get the lowest priority if there's an issue with the room or if the hotel is overbooked. Honestly, I don't think the savings warrant the risk, specifically in Vegas. You sign up for a TR account and stay at Bally's and will likely save money and know what you're getting yourself into, while earning points. That's just me. YMMV

 

The downside is that if you play enough to get your room comped, it cannot be comped as you booked through a third party.

 

If you usually play enough to be comped, you wouldn't be looking to book with Hotwire to begin with

 

There are some telltale signs to look for on Priceline Express. I start out by trying to duplicate the outline of the PL Express area onto the "shop and compare" map. Then I look if any of the room types match word for word. Another thing when using PL Express is that you can check off "qualifiers" such as non smoking room, free parking, breakfast and see if any of the "shop and compare" listings match up with the same star rating and customer feedback rating.

Or, if I'm traveling with my wife, I just book directly . Just about all of my solo travel is booked using Priceline and I'm a big fan of BetterBidding to use as a resource. But I agree with Scott in that when I'm on vacation, I really want to know where I'm staying, sometimes it's best to save the gambling for the tables.