The
moment you bid for a price, its system will go out to see if any vendor
is willing to give it to you at your price. You would have no idea
which airline or hotel you would be bidding for though. Despite the bad
press that are surrounding Priceline, we believe with a bit of legwork
and due diligence you can still get some great late deals here.
More Priceline Tips
In order to use the service, you must tell them...
1. Your travel dates but NOT
the time you want to leave, the risk you will run into include a
multiple stop-over airline ticket, an unknown hotel room or a "red-eye"
flight.
2. Your Destination.
3.
The price that you are willing to pay. Priceline displays the total
price, including taxes and fees, and if you choose to continue you need
to give out...
4. Lastly, your credit card number information.
It
then goes out to search to see if any of its partners have the travel
inventories and are willing to accept your offer. Priceline tries to
keep the list of its partners, which often changes over time.
5. If your bid is Rejected, you can't make a higher offer for the same item until 72 hours later for hotels and 7 days later for airline tickets and car rentals only if you refuse to increase your bid or change your travel dates.
And if you are bidding for a hotel...You
can add different areas and hotel star levels in order to bid again.
For example, if you are traveling to Tampa but you are fine with either
the Downtown area or Westshore, try bidding your lowest price and just
choose one of those areas.
If
your bid is rejected, you can add the other area, and increase your bid
slightly. You can also get around this if you are traveling with
another person, have them try entering a slightly higher bid under
their name and credit card number, but on a different computer.
(Priceline tracks cookies, and can tell if a different person in the
household is trying to place a repeat bid on the same computer.)
6. 60 minutes is the length of time you need to wait before you know you win/lose a bid.
7. No frequent flyer miles issued with the exception of a few airlines.
Knowing when to stop...
Priceline works good MOST of the time. But be prepared to lose your money if you need to cancel your orders as once your price is accepted, there is NO Refund on tickets or changes to your itenary allowed. Personally some savings are just not worth it, considering you need to give up the ability to change or cancel your reservation.
You are taking a chance here because if something does come up and you need to change your travel itinerary. Otherwise, go for it!
Hotel Rooms Bidding
With
Priceline, the exact hotel is shown only after purchase. Priceline also
doesn't guarantee bed type. But once your bid is accepted, just call up
the hotel and request, most hotels are usually obliging.
Before
you start bidding, it pays to learn bidding strategies from others to
learn about their bidding experiences and the results. One of the sites
you would like to go to is a priceline forum.
For a particular area that you are traveling to, you would do well if
you could ask and see what other visitors are getting and how they did
it.
Naturally,
there are no guarantees as to which hotel you will get, but most have
not been disappointed. If timing is not an issue for you and low price
is critical, give Priceline a try. Making a bid takes only
about 15 minutes. If it's turned down, you lose no money. Just don't go
to the site with extremely high expectations. We recommend buying all inclusive deals if bidding prove too much of a hassle.