So I'm trying to book a room for an out of town wedding that my wife is in, coming up next month. Easy enough, right? You can't watch 5 minutes of primetime TV without being bombarded with commercials for companies like Hotwire.com, Expedia.com, Hotels.com, and Priceline.com. I'm probably forgetting some of them...like the one with the Travel Gnome--not sure which one that is. Either way, the marketing folks at these companies are doing a killer job coming up with catchy jingles that get stuck in your head and compelling reasons to visit their websites, and many of them are fairly humorous--the first 10 times you see them anyway.
The other day my wife initially gets online and does a Yahoo search for "hotels" in the area we are going to in northern Indiana. She goes to each of the regular hotel chain websites that show up at the top of the list and uses their "check availability" features. Of course the rates are all jacked up due to a "special event" going on that weekend--Welcome Week for Notre Dame University! yeah! I suggested we check out some of these travel websites to see if we can really get a better rate.
We initially went to Expedia.com, and identified 3 possible hotels that are less than $150/night and still within a decent distance from where the rehearsal dinner, church, and most importantly the reception will be held. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention how pissed off I was by this point because the bride & groom failed to block off any rooms at any hotels in the area at a preferred rate for their out of town guests. Seriously, how inconsiderate is that? When we got married last year I was able to block off rooms at a really nice Hampton Inn for less than $100/night for our guests, plus lined up a bus to transport their drunk asses to and from the reception. It took literally 20 minutes to get that all lined up for our guests. I can't believe I am stuck dealing with this bullshit now. Back to the hotel search...so we check out Hotwire.com and it's really confusing and doesn't tell you the name of the actual hotels. What a waste of time! I jumped over to hotels.com and their mapping feature sucked and the prices were not any better than Expedia's. I think all of those companies are owned by the same company anyway, so I am not sure what the deal is there. I went to Google and did another search and this time Priceline.com came up at the top of the list, so I checked them out.
First of all, William Shatner is the balls, so the first thing I see is a picture of him doing a kung fu chop. This is a good start. i hav a feeling ol' Bill Shatner is gonna come through for me just like Denny Crane on Boston Legal. Speaking of Boston Legal, it's a great show, yet I never hear anyone say they watch it. Apparently no one has any shame to admit they watch Grey's Anatomy, but I am guessing most people don't volunteer the fact that they watch Boston Legal for the simple fact that they do not want to be associated in any way with Boston. Sorry, I simply do not like Red Sox or patriots fans & couldn't resist the jab. As I was saying, I'm on the Priceline website and trying to see if they can get me a better deal. I find one in an ideal location for about $120/night. I just went ahead and called the hotel direct and reserved the room. Done right? Nope. I get a call today from the hotel to tell me they need to adjust my price for "special event" pricing, which jacks the hightly rate up so that i would have been paying over $300 for the 2 nights. Fuck that. I'll be sure to write a shitty review for them somewhere online. So I get back on Priceline and this time there is a room available at a Holiday Inn for like $265 total, with taxes and everything--if I pay up front. What the hell, we need to stay somewhere right? I can't NOT drink at the reception. So, we're all set, I hope. If this works out well, I'll be sure to hit up Priceline again for the next wedding we have to go to later this year, and just skip over those other sites, although Expedia was fine for the most part. Although if the room sucks, my wife will inevitably kill me, so maybe I'll wait to see how this goes before I book the next one.
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