iBidlow offers two tools to assist users with purchases on the
Priceline
'name your hotel price': iBidlow on Priceline and My Budget's worth @ Priceline.
Priceline's own website offers a dedicated
section
with some tips and popular destinations.
They also summarize the purchase process into 4 steps:
1. Pick the star level and dates (as well as the city and sub area)
2. Place your bid
3. Get an answer in seconds
4. Try again if your offer is not accepted
iBidlow's role is to help you decide a plausible bidding range on every need,
and share the names of the possible hotels that may be rewarded upon a successful bidding.
Top Ten Tips
1.
Best price guarantee. If within 24 hours of the booking, you find a
lower price for the same stay (equivalent room type, same hotel and travel dates),
Priceline would pay back the difference on the room rate and offer a $50 coupon for a vacation package (See coupon
details
). Complete details on
Priceline.
2.
All bookings are non-refundable and non-changeable. If there is one thing you
should avoid when booking on Priceline it is making a booking for uncertain travel
dates. One of the reasons Priceline are able to offer low rates is that the
reservation is fully guaranteed revenue for the supplier, meaning that as a
customer: there is no way out. Hence, better postpone the booking until a
range of few weeks and even couple of days before the booking, to reduce
uncertainty and allow flexibility in the trip planning.
3.
You may book a room until 11.00 PM local time on your arrival date. This is
true for all US hotels but usually works for international ones as well.
4.
All rooms are for 2 occupants only. Priceline does not allow a different
choice than the default figure, and the only option to add a 3rd or 4th occupant is
to consult with the chosen hotel after the booking is confirmed by Priceline.
5.
You may upgrade your room. Priceline rooms are usually the most basic available
on the chosen hotel, but upon arrival to the hotel you could upgrade to a better room
paying an upgrade fee that equals the difference between the regular rate of the basic
room and the upgraded room. For instance: say you paid $50 for your room, while the
regular rate is $90 and the upgraded room costs $100. You should be able, at the hotel counter, to add $10 and receive the upgraded room. The same goes for adding a breakfast. Some hotels offer continental breakfast to all guests and as Priceline guests you are no different, but if the breakfast is not inclusive to all guests you would have to pay an additional fee for it.
6.
Using you rewards program is partly possible. A Priceline booking would normally
not be qualified to receive reward points, but you would still be able to:
A.
Have other expenses in the hotel (such as upgrade) qualified as rewarded expense.
B.
Contact the hotel general manager prior to your arrival and ask for a
free qualified upgrade or status treats.
7.
Priceline is not for every city. Priceline works
much better in some zones (say, New York, Chicago, Orlando)
than it does in others (Mostly international such as Barcelona,
Brussels, Paris). This happens for a variety of reasons, the most
basic of these being competition. If Priceline does not contain
enough hotels in a city, the zones offered are likely to be larger
than usual, and the discounts much smaller and sometimes non-existent.
We write this as a 'tip' in order to help bidders avoid frustration
and bad experience when bidding in these cities. As a rule of thumb,
we learnt that Priceline works well in most US cities, especially
in the category of 3.5-star and above, but has harder time finding
great deals on small US cities, on low hotel classes and in many
international cities. This brings us back to our bidding strategy tip -
stay calculative in every purchase you make.
8.
There is no point in bidding higher in search for a 'better' hotel. Priceline's
model allows all hotels in a category to compete, with the lowest bidder among them
to win the customer offer. That being said, bidding more would not improve your chances
to get a better hotel within a category, as a 'worse' hotel may offer a lower acceptance
price and be awarded to you. The only way to improve your hotel option is to raise the
minimum bar of star level you are willing to accept along with the raise of your offer.
9.
Priceline is for US based consumers, but there are ways for non US to bid as well.
Priceline asks for a US billing address when making the purchase, but it does
not ask for a US based credit card in order to process it. If you are bidding
on Priceline and do not have a US address associated with the credit card, there
are two main ways to bid on Priceline which currently work.
A.
On
Priceline.com
use your home address (street, city) but choose California as state and a California
based zip code (say, 90210).
B.
Use
Priceline.co.uk
- This is a different version of Priceline's name your price
but its operated by Priceline and the deals are similar, with the exception
that the currency used is British Pounds. The UK version accepts international
bidders and though we are not experienced with it, we believe you should encounter
no problems or differences while using it.
10.
There is no advantage in bidding 1 night at the time. In fact,
you're likely to receive different hotels and suffer from moving
between the hotels every night. What should also be considered is
that Priceline's fees structure includes a relative fee and
a fixed one, with the fixed fee being paid per booking. What you
may do is book for the shortest time you may stay, and use the option
'extend your stay' in order to keep your rate and stay extra
nights in the same hotel. However, this offer is not always
available and even when it is, you can only extend it to as many
night as were in the original bid, but not more than that.
How do we bid on Priceline?
This is a rather personal testimony which may not work for anyone.
It works well for us but requires some time and patience.
1.
We review possible hotels in each zone/star level category using the iBidlow hotels database.
2.
We consult with the iBidlow algorithm to determine a bidding price target.
If the algorithm has no offers for a zone, we look at the prices of a lower
price category hotels and use it as a benchmark.
3.
We build a zone strategy. At first, we would never use more
than one zone in the initial bid. We then review all zones in a
city that don't have hotels in our star category or higher, and would
use them when re-bidding. You can follow the movie embedded below to see
how this strategy works in practice. The main idea is to resume bidding
with slightly increased bids (say, $1) until the price is accepted or until
the re-bidding zones are all used.
4.
We would usually bid for a category higher than our target
(i.e. 4-star instead of 3.5 star) - but will only do that after verifying that
the hotels offered on the 4-star category also meet our needs. If the bid
is rejected, we can simply bid for our original star category with no extra hassle.
5.
If building a zone strategy is not an option, we take into account the timing issue.
Priceline allows a re-bid within 24h, so if the time allows it, we will bid again in
the following day.
6.
In some cases Priceline may provide a counter-offer for the bidding price.
Our thumb rule is to bid 10% below this figure assuming such offer would also be accepted.
7.
In any case, we try to stay calculative. Have an alternative deal at hand,
calculate the full room cost including the taxes and fees, and be sure we
like the potential hotels in the category. Failing to keep these may lead to
disappointment, though in general we were mostly happy with Priceline outcomes,
else we would not be coming back, would we?
The Priceline Re-Bid Video:
Other Priceline name your price Products
Flights:
- Airline tickets offered on the program must begin in a US destination and must be a round
trip ticket
- Flights awarded may be within the dates chosen (it could be anytime between
12.00AM to 11.59PM)
- Priceline would not disclose the flight details until the purchase is complete
- Expect savings of 15-30% of the published fares
- If rejected, you may bid again after 24 hours
Car rental:
- Available mostly in the North America
- Cars must be returned to the same pickup city
- Prices may be as low as $10 a day
- Most if not all large rental companies in the US participate in the program
