My Favorite Travel Sites: Priceline

I was recently talking with Lisa about her upcoming trip to NYC and was letting her know that I highly recommend Priceline and I thought it would make a good post! Priceline, in my opinion, is the very best route to go for a hotel room in a large city. I don't particularly like PL for smaller cities, flights or cars though. PL has changed a lot in the past few years though and the most important thing you have to watch for is making sure you are bidding on a room using PL's "Name Your Own Price" part of their website and not using their retail site. There are lot's of limitations to PL, the most obvious is that once a reservation is made you can not make changes or cancellations. Also, you are bidding on a room for 2 (1 bed). Most times you can request 2 beds at the front desk when checking in, however they are under no obligation to give you one. In addition, in cities like NY rooms large enough to fit two beds are a rare commodity I hear. If you hope to stay at the same hotel as a friend, the best thing to do is one bid on two rooms on PL at the same time (during the same bid). The things you can control on PL are the area or zone you want to stay in within a particular city and the star level. And, one nice change PL has made in the past few years is that you only have to wait 24hrs to re-bid (it used to be 72hrs).

The very first thing I do when bidding on a room on PL is check for the lowest rates available and then my goal is to get the room for cheaper than that. I check for the lowest rates using www.kayak.com. Then, once I know what the standard rates are I go to www.biddingfortravel.com and see what type of bids are being accepted. Biddingfortravel is your best resource for using PL. Not only can you see what type of bids have been accepted and rejected in the area you are looking, but it also has endless information on getting "free" rebids, rules, limitations and faq's. Also, there is a hotel list of places that have accepted winning bids so you have an idea of where you might be staying if your bid gets accepted at that particular zone and star level.

My best advice for getting a winning bid on PL is using free re-bids. A free rebid means that once you initial bid is rejected, you are offered a re-bid as long as you change your bid (by changing the star level, zone, or changing the check-in or checkout date). Do NOT add a lower star level to change your bid, instead if you add a zone on a re-bid that offers the same quality level you are bidding, For re-bidding purposes, add a zone that has only up to a lower quality level than what you are bidding, because that just gives you a free re-bid for your original zone. In other words, if Zone B has only 1*, 2* and 3* hotels (or 1* and 2*), and your original bid for a 4* hotel in Zone A has been rejected, you can add Zone B as a free rebid to your Zone A offer. You will not get a hotel in Zone B because it does not offer 4* hotels. Of course when you add the zone, you'll need to increase your bid amount and not lower your original quality level. To determine which zones offer which star levels, go to Priceline just as though you were going to place a bid and place a check mark in the box of the zone as though you were going to bid that zone. Scroll down and note the highest quality level offered in that zone. Then scroll back up, uncheck the zone and check the next zone and note the highest quality level offered in that zone. Do this for each zone listed. Make sure that only one zone is checked each time. And you should always re-check zone definitions and quality levels offered prior to each bid (even if you just bid the same city the day before), as Priceline makes changes to quality levels offered and zone definitions all the time. When performing this check, make sure the check-in date is not the current date, or you will not be able to check the zones that do not offer same day bidding. Once you have exhausted your bids and free re-bids, you must wait 24hrs before bidding again.

Hopefully this isn't too confusing. It's really easy to use and can save you A LOT of money. If you have any questions, let me know... this is something I enjoy doing!

Anyone else have any advice for using Priceline?