Priceline Express Deals

[JJTNY]

I'm 99.9% sure this is the Dolphin. Is the resort fee included in the taxes and fees or will that be additional at the hotel?

Priceline sometimes shows resort fees as line items and sometimes it doesn't.

Years ago, when they didn't show resort fees at all and if you didn't realize you could get hit for it at the resort. Priceline's terms basically said "tough luck." They seem to have gotten more forgiving - but still confusing when the amount is rolled into the taxes/fees.

I just ran a search on my phone and I would say Yes, the resort fee is included in the amount you are shown.
I found a Swan hidden deal and in my cart I had a "fees due at hotel" line item for the resort fee.
So, in my Swan hidden deal I WOULD expect to pay the resort fee at check in, while is seems like in your deal resort fee is rolled in already.

The cost of taxes/fees in the Swan deal (which includes the PE hidden deal fee) was about 23% of the room rate.
In your image, 23% of $179 = $41.07
If you add the Swolphin resort fee of $45 to that you get $86, which is pretty close to $87.97.

NOTE: Priceline does a very weird thing with Swolphin resort fees:
When it adds it as a line item in the cart (see my capture below) it uses $50.63 for the resort fee.
When it rolls it instead into the taxes/fees amount (which I think yours is), it uses the real current Swolphin resort fee of $45.

 

[esss36]

Sharing a really weird and frustrating situation. I was using the app in hopes of applying AUTUMNTRAVEL (which may have expired overnight). I eventually gave up and booked through the website with a code that showed up in my VIP account. (CSR 3.5 / 8+ / 600 as expected.)

I was ready to book CSR for 12/15-12/18. In the app each day is available (3.5 / 8+ / 600, click through and select king bed). Two of the days only have king available, and the third had a couple of bed options.

When I selected all three days together, 3.5 / 8+ / 600 no longer shows up. Instead, there was a 3.5 / 8+ / 700, which isn’t even in @JJTNY’s search tool (ETA: it’s Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort, I think, from the regular listings), and the beds were wrong for CSR.

I tried changing the filter to 1 bed in case the issue was related to bed mismatch, and suddenly AOA showed up (3 / 8+ / 300) and Contemporary (both for 9% off, so not great deals).

Then the app search started saying no hotels available after selecting Bonnet Creek, so I gave up. The website had no issue showing the room I wanted available for the length of stay.

I also noticed that the checkout in the app showed the actual number of reviews (but CSR is 8.6, not 8.0, so that’s not precise).

Attaching pics in case it’s helpful.

Thank you so much for this thread! I didn’t get the most aggressive deal, but it was a useful deal for us.

 

[JJTNY]

When I selected all three days together, 3.5 / 8+ / 600 no longer shows up. Instead, there was a 3.5 / 8+ / 700, which isn’t even in @JJTNY’s search tool (ETA: it’s Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort, I think, from the regular listings), and the beds were wrong for CSR.

Well that is super weird. Priceline does act squirrely sometimes, especially when they are changing up deals, but that's a new one.

There is no 700 review count resort in BC or DS, but I did notice today when updating my data for that resort matcher that many resorts had quite different review counts since the last time I updated. However, CSR continues to be 695 reviews. I suppose for an instant maybe PL's system thought it had 700? (That's unlikely though, just thinking out loud.)

Also, sometimes Priceline will sneak in little deal boxes in between results with offers that look like "Here's a different deal you might like", but you have to watch those - they sometimes are outside of the neighborhoods you searched. Pretty rare, though.

FWIW: I just tried to replicate because I'm curious, but when I searched all nights together for your dates I did get regular CSR King room appearing for $226. There were also rooms: 2 Queen $279, etc.

Thanks for the data points, it is always helpful to know what weird things Priceline is doing so we can figure it out!