Priceline for Hotels

In the next two days I am going to discuss two different schools of thought in terms of getting value/pricing when purchasing hotel stays.  Do you want instant gratification with a lower price today or brand loyalty with free stays (and other free amenities, e.g., upgrades, free wi-fi) at a later date?  This is part one of a two part series.  Let's first talk about instant gratification by getting the best hotel price through Priceline.

Priceline is more than just an ordinary travel reservation website. What makes Priceline unique is their feature called Name Your Own Price. Priceline now hides the NYOP so click here to access it. With Name Your Own Price you choose certain criteria (travel dates, location, hotel star rating), name a price you're willing to pay, and find out if a hotel accepts your offer.  The major benefit of using Priceline is that you can save a lot of money using their Name Your Own Price feature because hotels with excess capacity sell off their rooms to Priceline. But there are some drawbacks that Priceline users should learn about to become a better bidder. First, reservations are almost never refundable, so don’t book a hotel unless you’re certain your travel dates will not change. Second, you may get a hotel brand you don't like or a hotel lacking a particular amenity you wanted. It is best to book using Priceline when your flexible on hotel location and don’t require a specific hotel amenity.

The hardest part about "bidding" for a hotel on Priceline is determining how much to offer as you don’t want to overpay. You might think of starting at $1, and if your bid is not accepted, then rebid at $2, then $3, and so on until your Priceline bid is finally accepted. This won't work. You basically only get one bid opportunity in a 24 hour period for any given travel date and destination. If your offer is rejected, you have to wait 24 hours, use a different credit card, or change your dates/destination.

I am now going to break this post into two parts based on two different personalities.  The first personality is, "I love to save money but I am a busy person and time is money.  I want to bid quickly and know I got a good value."  The second personality (this is me) is, "I am going to make sure I can brag to all my friends that I got a price no one can beat."

For those who have the "Time is money" personality, Go to Hotwire then subtract 20-25% to arrive at your Priceline bid and hope your price is accepted.  While I don't recommend this one stop shopping, I throw it out there as an option.  Even for the "Time is money" personality I recommend going one step further before bidding on Priceline. A great resource for becoming a better bidder is Bidding for Travel, Betterbidding and Biddingtraveler.  In this forum, Priceline customers discuss winning Priceline bids.  This gives you an idea what amount you should bid in order for your bid to be accepted.  The Time is money personality need not read any further, as their eyes may glaze over and begin to think, "What crazy person would go to the hassle of doing what is listed below?"  Remember the title of the blog is Traveling for Less, so for those of you who are ready for a 5 star hotel at a bargain price, keep reading.....

For those of you who are like me and want to make sure they are truly getting the best possible price I am going to break down how the bidding process works.  The first thing you’ll notice when bidding on Priceline using Name Your Own Price is that Priceline breaks cities into many smaller areas. For instance, Las Vegas is broken into 15 different areas. This is important because Priceline will let you rebid instantly, no 24 hour waiting, as long as you add another area to your bid. You might be thinking that if you add another area, won’t you risk getting stuck with a hotel in an area of town you don’t want? The way around this is to add an area that doesn’t have any hotels with the star rating you want. I’ll walk you through an example:

Step 1 - Determine Your Hotel Star Rating and Area: Suppose I want to stay at a 5 star hotel on the southern part of the Las Vegas Strip on a particular date. After entering my search parameters (city, travel dates) on Priceline's Name Your Own Price, I am shown a map of Las Vegas. Since I want to stay at a 5 star hotel in the south part of the Strip, I click on “Las Vegas Strip Vicinity South" and notice that 5 star hotels are available. Have a look at the screen shot below. The availability of a 5-star hotel is indicated by the 5 orange stars. Had a 5 star hotel not been available, the stars would gray. 

Step 2 - Find Other Areas That Do Not Have The Same Hotel Class (Or Better): Remember, if a Name Your Own Price bid is rejected, I can rebid just by adding another area. But since I only want to stay in the Las Vegas Strip South Vicinity, I must be careful to not add any area that has a 5 star (or better) hotel on my next bid. If I do, I run the risk of getting a hotel in an undesired location of Vegas. You can see from the screen shot below that Lake Las Vegas (my current selection as indicated by the check mark) does not have any hotels in the 5-star Luxury category (as indicated by the gray stars instead of orange).

This is good. It means that I can add the Lake Las Vegas on a rebid and not have to worry about getting a hotel in that area. Remember, just by adding an area, I can rebid immediately.

After repeating this for each Las Vegas area, I determine that there are 11 areas in Las Vegas that do not have 5 star hotels or better, which will give me a total of 12 Priceline bids.  Have a look at the screen shot below and note that I have 11 different areas of Las Vegas selected and none of these areas has a 5-star hotel for my travel dates. This is a great for me! Now I am finally ready to start bidding. IMPORTANT NOTE: Resorts are considered 'better' than 5-star hotels, so make sure not to include areas that have resorts available or you may end up winning a resort in an area you don't want.

Step 3 - Place Your Bid: Your first bid should only include the area you want to find a hotel. In my example, it is the Las Vegas Strip South Vicinity. If you aren't sure how much to bid, here is a formula that was recommended to me.

1. Find Out The Market Rate: Since this is just a hypothetical example, I am going to say that the market rate is $100 per night for a 5-star hotel. If I were actually reserving a room, I would check out several sites including Hotwire & Bidding for Travel to determine the best deal I could get for a 5 star hotel elsewhere.


2. Determine Your Maximum Number of Rebids: Using the example above, I learn that I can make 12 bids in Las Vegas without having to wait the required 24 hour period.


3. Calculate First Bid Amount: The Formula is: 
         First Bid = Market Rate - ($5 x Max Number of Rebids) 
   
   In my example, 
         First Bid = $100 - ($5 x 12) 
         First Bid = $40 
   
   
   I am now ready to place my first bid for a hotel on Priceline using a price of $40. This might seem low, but remember, I have 11 more bids if this one is not successful. In fact, I prefer to have my first bid rejected as it serves as a way of letting me know I'm not offering up too high a price on my very first bid.


4. Increment Your Bid Amount and Submit Rebid: If the first bid at $40 was rejected, it is now time to rebid and offer $45 by adding to my bid one of the areas that had no 5 star hotels.


5. Continue to Add Additional Identified Areas Until You Have No More Bids: I will use $50 for my 3rd bid, $55 for my 4th bid, ... , and $95 on my very last bid. Hopefully somewhere along the line, one of my bids was accepted. If I get to $95 and none of my bids were accepted, I abandon Priceline and reserve my hotel room at the site that was offering a 5 star hotel for $100.

This process might seem complicated at first but after trying it once, it actually becomes easy. I will admit it is a bit cumbersome but it can also save you a lot of money and when you are staying in a 5 star hotel at a 3 star price you will be happy.

One caveat-when you book your hotel through Priceline you do NOT get hotel points which leads into 
tomorrow's discussion about hotel loyalty. 

Finally, if all this talk about Las Vegas has you thinking its time for a trip, click on the Orbitz link at the top of the page for a money saving promotion.