Getting The Best Deals With Priceline.com

Jul

2010

Tuesday

The cost for trips and vacations sure can add up.

Hotel room: $150/night
Rental car: $60/day
Airfare: a whole whole lot!

Not to mention all of the random expenses like going out to eat or any fun activities you want to do while you are gone.

Since I’m pretty sure I might be insane, I agreed to leave the morning after I got back from a blogging conference in Colorado to go with my husband and children on a trip to ANOTHER conference in another state. Yes, insane.

But with the insanity of taking two back to back trips, I have felt a little more sane knowing that we could save a whole lot of money by using the “name your own price” section of Priceline.com along the way.

Priceline Deals
So what exactly is Priceline?

It’s a website that lets you name your own price for hotels, rental cars and flights! You can pick any price you want and they will check their system to see if a company would be willing to go that low.

But there is a catch…

You can’t choose which hotel you stay in, which rental car company you use, or which airline you fly when you use the “name your own price” option. You pick the quality you want, or the size car you want, and then Priceline assigns you to a hotel or car rental company that meets your selection requirements.

We have scored some incredible deals by using Priceline like my rental car last weekend being 50% off, and the hotel we are staying in tonight being almost 70% off (for a VERY nice family-friendly hotel).

I mentioned on the Surviving The Stores Facebook page earlier today that I found a great deal on our hotel for tonight and a couple of readers posted two sites that are helpful when determining what price to bid (so that you don’t go too low or too high):

BiddingForTravel.com
BetterBidding.com

Both of these sites list what people have paid in cities across the nation by using Priceline, as well as giving you an idea of which hotel/rental car company/airline you are likely to receive when you bid.

I’d love to hear your Priceline experiences! Have you have good experiences? Bad experiences? What other sites do you use to find the best travel deals?

Jon

The best advice I can give on Priceline is to learn the art of "free bids" which present the opportunity for placing a number of bids in a short period of time -vs- the normal protocol. The www.biddingfortravel.com site does a great job explaining this and providing feedback on success stories.

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Jody

I've been using priceline for over 9 years and love saving $. As for flights, I recently bought a ticket through priceline and was able to 'confirm' a seat for an earlier flight (the airlines stay far far away from calling it standby these days). It really depends on the customer service rep you get on the other line. I probably got lucky, but I also called twice before I was able to get the change made. I was told about the 'buying in bulk and not being able to change' deal, but somehow the 2nd rep I spoke didn't question it. The rule is, be calm, ask for other options and be ready to pay some more if needed (Delta charges $50-$150 to confirm seats). I don't book flights via priceline as much as I used to. I think you get better deals on hotels & car rentals. I have also in the past been able to rescind bids as long as it was a legitimate error i.e., wrong location, wrong dates. I believe the unwritten rule is one cancellation per year, since I've done a couple cancellations. They charge a cancelation fee, but if you rebook within 7 days, you get refunded a portion of it. I use and post on betterbidding.com and tripadvisor.

Luciana

I love priceline to book hotels and car rentals. I used the site several times and I have never being dissapointed. I got very good hotels and resorts for excelent prices. I use betterbidding.com for reference. I didn't know about the other site. Thank you

Jeremy

A warning about Priceline: don't miss your flight. I have a close friend who recently booked a flight on Priceline, and missed her plane. The airline wanted to re-book her on a later flight, either by changing her ticket, or putting her on standby, and couldn't. Priceline purchases tickets "in bulk" and "pays cash" regardless of what method of payment you use. As a result, the tickets are non-refundable, and you can't go standby on another flight on most airlines. Priceline refused to help her, saying there was nothing they could do, and the airline was bound by the ticketing policy. Buyer beware.