In the process of setting up tryouts with dance partners we will have to travel. Traveling is very expensive if you are not careful, well it is very expensive even if you are careful. If you are not careful it can be ridiculous. So I always use Priceline to book my hotel rooms. I almost never have any problems with Priceline and I usually save a lot of money. Now, I know this sounds like a bad commercial, but it is true for me. You just have to be a little bit flexible about where you are going to stay. When you name your own price you never know exactly what hotel you will be getting before the price is accepted. This is a little nerve wracking. I have learned to be very careful about where I choose to do this. Once we ended up almost an hour from the competition rink and that was a major pain. I don't mind a little driving, but an hour is a bit excessive. The competiton on this occasion was in Pennsylvania and our room was in New Jersey. My daughter for some reason (she wasn't too old at the time) got it into her head that our room was in Tennessee and kept telling people at the competition that we were staying in Tennessee. That was a great conversation starter and got a good laugh everytime. For whatever reason she never did get it straight for the whole 4 days we were there. I now use it as sort of a euphimism for being really far away, as in "Oh your hotel is in Tennessee" or "I had to park in Tennessee." She never laughs!
I have also found that you get cheaper rates near airports and also downtown on weekends. I usually get at least 50% off my room which is a big help when I am traveling. The one place this doesn't seem to work is in Lexington, Virginia. I guess they don't need to discount rooms because they can book them at full price if there is a home football game or a horse show (almost every weekend there is a horse show in Lexington). I have used Priceline a couple of times there and I have had major issues both times. The hotel has been fair (they call it a 3 star hotel, but it is nowhere near that), and they don't know how to work with Priceline. This is terribly funny to me because I have stayed at much nicer hotels and paid much less and not had any hassle. In any case the Lexington Hotel always tries to charge me for my room again and I have to fight with them about paying for it. It always gets worked out, but it is not an enjoyable way to spend 1/2 an hour.
So tonight I needed to get a room for us for the next tryout she will be doing. I spent forever because I just couldn't get Priceline or my computer or both to work right. Then I had credit card issues. I really need to remember to cut up the expired one and get rid of it. It just seemed to take an inordinate amount of my evening! Although I didn't really have any other plans, but spending 45 minutes getting a hotel room for 2 nights was not on the to do list. I finally ended up with a room at what seems like a really nice hotel. I saved a LOT of money and that makes me very happy. In fact if I look at it as an hourly rate I did pretty well! As always I am the littlest bit nervous about going to a new hotel. Will it be nice? Will it be clean? Please don't let it be in a horrible part of town!! (We have had that experience as well with Priceline.) The website for the hotel looked good, it seems very new, and I believe it is reasonably close to the rink. I just hope it isn't in Tennessee.
No comments:
Post a Comment