Valentine FUN!

There are times when travel is not necessary, but could be fun if the price is right. Such is when you have the most financial travel POWER...when you don't have to go somewhere, but it would be nice if you get a killer deal. Consider this the perfect scenario to have some travel deal FUN.
Valentine's Day 2009. So what, really? A "holiday" created by a card company, yet one with a good message. I love the theme of love, but I hate being told I should celebrate it. How about, let's celebrate it, but let the price is right decide how we do so?
We live in what is known as the "Triangle" area of North Carolina...Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill. A growing, thriving community that has recently been blessed with a couple new 4-star hotels, as well as having had some historical, and a few other 4-stars of varying nature. We even have our first 5-star in Cary, NC...called The Umstead. (which has an incredible spa). Anyway, being curious about the new 4-stars (Raleigh Marriott Center City and the Renaissance at North Hills) inspired me to look on Hotwire and Priceline to see if the 4-star category would finally show up. In the past, I really haven't seen 4-stars show up on either website. So, just for fun, I decided to start looking at what possibilites might exist for Valentine's Day 2009, which just happens to fall on a Saturday this year.
In the middle of January I began to play around with low bids for 4-stars in the Triangle, utilizing the "free re-bid zone" technique on Priceline. The theory was, either I get a killer deal, or we stay home. Okay with me either way, although I always always prefer a killer deal. It's FUN.
Besides checking Hotwire and Priceline, I did my homework as well, checking out the area 4-star hotels and seeing what prices they were charging and looking for any possible package deals. The lowest-priced option I could find was a special weekend rate at the new downtown Raleigh Marriott. For $119 you could get a room and breakfast the next day. Not a bad deal, just not a KILLER deal. Not to mention, it was an advertised deal that ANYone could get, so where's the fun in that? The new North Hills Renaissance didn't seem to go lower than $149 for a night. And 4-stars in Chapel Hill like Sienna and The Carolina Inn were going for over $200 per night. I low-balled some bidding anyway, and Priceline basically laughed at me. Okay fine. I can handle it, cause remember, I'm in power here. I don't care. We don't have to go anywhere!
Some days I ventured out farther, rejected by Priceline, I looked into Wilmington & Wrightsville Beach, where I was laughed at further. Not to mention they didn't have 4-star options, so I was rejected with my low bids on 3-stars. FINE. We stay home. The cats will appreciate my failure!
January 25, I bid as high as $80 for a 4-star, using up every free re-bid zone in the Triangle. Priceline scoffed at me! January 29, only went up to $70, but still rejected!
Decided to give it a rest...well, I just got busy, really, but just for fun, February 3rd, I'm thinking, I'll do my free rebid zone thing and have fun seeing Priceline come back with: "sorry..."
Having been rejected up to $80 before, this time I started at $55 for a 4-star in Raleigh (still thinking that the Renaissance or the Marriott was going to cave first). Of course I saw "we're sorry...can you change one thing and try again?" Yeah yeah yeah, I'll add in Chapel Hill, bump it $5 to $60 and they'll laugh at me again. Priceline does its' thinking, processing thing, and oh my gosh, comes back with...(check my glasses, open my eyes wider...) does that say, your price has been accepted??? By who? The Carolina Inn!? The expensive, usually over $200 Historical Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill that friends have paid way more for? For $60? For Valentine's Day? YUP!
The moral of this story is....timing is everything! Not to mention, that just because Priceline rejects you to a certain point one day, doesn't mean you have to start at a certain price point the next time. Because I bid a certain way due to losing out on my bids in January, I missed the opportunity to possibly get it even lower. I won't know now if I could've gotten it below the $60. Because I was thinking I'd need those free re-bid zones to get even higher, I missed the possible opportunity to start lower and work my way up. However, $60 is an incredibly good price for this hotel. Prices for even the smallest rooms there are more around $200 per night. AND, it's supposed to be haunted. Hopefully we'll get a friendly ghost thrown in to sweeten the deal. Consider every day a brand new day with Priceline and Hotwire. (Hotwire, by the way, now showing a 4-star in Chapel Hill for $82...which reinforces what a good deal I got).
It's not too late to find YOUR own Valentine Deal! Go for it! We're sure gonna have fun with ours.