What: Know in advance what bids are likely to be accepted at Priceline.com
Where: biddingfortravel.yuku.com
Hey Offcost.com visitors you are about to be let in on a secret way to get great deals on Priceline.com. I’ve used this for years and now you’ll get the scoop!
The problem with Priceline.com, for most people, is you can’t choose the hotel you want to stay in. Also, how do you know what is a “good” bid for a hotel? How would you like to get a 4 Star Hotel for $35? Duh…who wouldn’t! Well, the secret is a website called Bidding for Travel. The detailed instructions are below. Yeah, it looks complicated but it really isn’t. They whole process takes less than 5 minutes.
Let’s go through a sample for a Hotel in Dallas.
Step One: Visit biddingfortravel.yuku.com
Step Two: Scroll down to USA Hotel List and the City ( in this case Dallas ) or just click this link.
Step Three: Do some research – Near the top will be a link ( DALLAS HOTELS LIST (INCLUDING FORT WORTH) ). This will show you what hotel chains are in what geographical area and what their rating is ( 4-star, 3-star, etc.). This is key because you don’t get to choose what hotel you are going to get on Priceline.com but you can choose the amount of stars ( the higher the better ) so you can determine by looking at the list if you would accept one of the hotels listed in that area. For his demo we are looking to see what Hotels are in the Downtown Dallas area. We see that if our bid for a 4-star hotel in Dallas is accepted we should expect to either get the Westin City Center (formerly Le Meridien), Hyatt Regency, or the Fairmont Dallas. Each of these hotels would suit me just fine…just not at retail!
Step Four: More research – Now let’s see what other Priceline.com bids are being accepted. Back on this link you will see where people are posting their winning bids. Looking through this I see someone posted they got the 4* Galleria Westin 2/1-2/2 for $45! So, this should be the max we bid on Priceline.com. Searching more you can see some people paid more and some less.
Step Five: Go to Priceline.com, click the Hotel Tab, type in your city ( Dallas ) and the dates you want to stay. You will notice that you get a list of available hotels with RETAIL pricing. To the right of this screen is an ad where you can “Name Your Own Price”. That is where we want to go.
Step Six: Now we are going to really save on Priceline.com. On the “Name Your Own Price” screen we are going to click the area we want to stay ( important! only check one box! ). We choose Downtown Dallas. Now, scroll down and choose the 4-star cuz we know the 3 hotels we are going to be choosing from rock!
Step Seven: Name Your Own Price. Getting nervous yet? You are about to get a sweet deal! The screen is now asking us to “Name Your Own Price”. They have a nice little suggestion there of $145 for our choice. WHAT-EVER! We know people have gotten this for $45 bucks! So, we got a choice to make. We can enter in $45 bucks and probably get the hotel or we can go lower and maybe get it. If you don’t get it you have to wait 72 hours before you can choose that location and star level again or you can choose another location ( remember we only clicked one box in step six ) and we can rebid.
That is a general overview. There are even more tweaks to this method available on the Bidding For Travel website like how to get free rebids. I recommend you read through that site and educate yourself on all the possibilities. This works great on Rental Cars and Airfare too! Some things to note. The reason you are getting a good deal on a hotel room is because these hotels would rather rent out the room for the night at a discounted rate than just let it sit empty. The closer you are to the date you are looking for the better chance you have to get it because the hotel is realizing they aren’t booked up yet.
Using this method I stayed right across from The Alamo in San Antonio in a 4-star hotel for $38/nite. The hotel’s website wanted $109 for the same room. Oh yeah, we also drove around in a luxury rental car for $8/day!
Please comment and let me know how this works out for you…or if you have any questions. Good luck!
