Can someone explain to me how Priceline works, does it save you money and is it safe, I have gone on their site a few times and done searches and get to the page where i enter my credit card details and have entered a price i want to spend and then i says if it finds a hotel at my price it will book it and charge to my card......... so do you not get a choice of hotels?? and does it charge straight away or can you say yes or no to the hotel it picks for you? cheers, any help would be greatly appreciated
no choice. it goes directly to your bill. i use it all the time for austin and never had a complaint.
I don't use Priceline anymore after I discovered that their "exclusive" deals are pretty much the same as online ticketing search engines like www.sidestep.com and www.itasoftware.com Give sidestep a try. You can at least browse their prices without providing any payment information.
I looked at sidestep and compared the price of a hotel that I recently got thru Priceline. The savings on Priceline is much, much better. As mentioned above, www.biddingfortravel.com is a great site to get the parameters needed to get a good bid.
I've been pretty impressed with this site my sister told me about www.kayak.com ; It charges no fees and searches everybody.
Well maybe it's different with hotels, but for plane tickets, I've been very unimpressed with some of their lowest avaliable prices.
i'll second the bidding for travel website to give you an idea of what prices are being accepted. the deal is....no choice of hotels! You choose the area and the stars (the bidding for travel site has a listing of the hotels that have been awarded. There is a lock-out period if your bid is not accepted...and a whole bunch of other rules that can be intimdating. Registration's also a chore if you don't have a us credit card....but it can be done (i've done it) by forcing your address to US format. Take a good read of the bidding for travel site to see if you're ok with it. THey have a section on each major city...including NY. I was very impressed with my california bookings this summer and would not hestate to use it again. You are flying blind with your bookings...but the site is reputable and the deals are real.
I would suggest calling a specific hotel before using Priceline. The hotel might have a promotion going on (parking and/or breakfast incl. for example) that Priceline would not include at their discounted rate. Sometimes, depending on when you go, the hotel's rate is about the same as what Priceline (or whichever travel site you use) is charging. Also, as a pre-paid reservation, you have to go through hoops if you need to change it (calling the site instead of the hotel). I've worked at a hotel for a little more than 2 years now and the only time I would suggest using a travel site is if the rate was a lot less. Not that this would happen to you, but people that check in with these type of reservations (online) usually get the lower-end type rooms. Priceline, Expedia, Hotels.com, etc. don't have access to a hotels' room inventory so they really can't guarantee you that king or double beds that you wanted. Also, there would be people paying more, so those requests would have a higher priority. Hope this helps.
Cheaper I just checked the Sideways.com site for a trip to Acapulco in May. That site came up with $427 per person nonstop through orbitz on Continental for its best price. I went to Continental and got the same exact flight for $348. I used to get great prices on cars and hotels through priceline in Washington DC and Austin, but usually have gotten as good or better prices for airfare through the airlines. As for Priceline and the rooms and cars, I never had a problem, always very satisfied. When I would go to DC in the off-season (winter), I could get nice hotels (Radisson, Embassy) near the Capital for $50 a night and an SUV for $25 a day.
thanks guys, still not really sure, might try to get registered (overcome the non us thing) and then have another think about, at the moment we have found one we like for $125 a night (a 3 star) thru expedia and sidestep, so maybe will make a bid for $110-120 on some 4 stars may also try emailing a hotel direct
jtrans advise is sound. Do not overbid. I'd only go priceline if the price was significantly lower than what you get elsewhere. You don't get a choice of hotels, nor rooms, and once your bid is accepted I don't think you can change it. There's also an admin fee of some sort that would negate any savings that would be relatively small. As long as you know that going in....you should not be disappointed. I figure I saved about $40/night on the best deal I could otherwise get on California hotels, and $10 to $15/day or more on the car rental. (got 30 days in mid sized car at $14/day) So it was well worth it for me.
