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Sunday, June 5, 2011

How To Get Your Low Bids Accepted On Priceline

You have seen it advertised, and maybe tried it. Now make it work for you. www.Priceline.com  offers 2 basic services for 3 travel products: airfare, hotels and rental cars.

The services are:

1. Fixed price travel service just like any other travel agent.

2. “NAME YOUR OWN PRICE”

The fixed price travel service is nothing unique and offers nothing special in terms of pricing, (unless they post a mistake rate)

The “Name Your Own Price” service offers Great Travel Prices with savings of up to 60% if you know how and: THE BIG WINNER is HOTELS

The savings are really significant and with the help of these sites:

www.Biddingfortravel.com

www.Betterbidding.com

www.Travelbuddy.com

www.Tripadvisor.com

Here’s how it works: biddingfortravel.com, travelbuddy.com and betterbidding.com are sites that lists successful previous priceline bids for airfares, hotels and car rentals around the world. In addition, they list reviews for the hotels in a given city and by region and by star level. (5* is the best, 1* is really bad). Try to bid 4*, 3*  if the reviews are ok  and 2 ½* in a region you  want to stay in.

Example: If  you  need to go to  Boston, first go to www. priceline.com and “name your own price” hotels and find the various regions listed for the Boston market and the top hotel rating in that zone. Then open another window and head to www.biddingfortravel.com. In that site , go to “hotels”, then “Mass”, then “Boston”. You can check previously accepted prices in the various regions of Boston, get reviews of the hotels and decide what star level you are comfortable with. If  Downtown, you might find  Copley and Back Bay regions are too expensive,. try  the Airport region .You could  typically win the Hyatt Harborside for $42 per night.It's  a beautiful hotel with shuttle to the airport and to the subway (T) stop to downtown. Typical weekend night at the Hyatt would be $129. Ask for a waterside room.

NOTE: To be most successful using Priceline you MUST read the section on bidding and rebidding.

Suppose you want Zone Airport and a 4* hotel. From previous bidders you see that $42 has won in the past, so your first bid is Zone Airport, 4 stars at $35. If you don’t win, then add another zone that has lower star levels ONLY available, and this time bid $37. If there are 5 zones without a hotel over 3 stars, you have 5 free rebids until you get the best price.

Rebidding allows you to start low and move your price higher without changing your parameters. READ these sections of www.biddingfortravel.com  before going to priceline.com to actually place your bids. Once booked there are NO REFUNDS.

  Travelers using  Priceline rooms in over 30 US cities, London, Dublin, Paris and Rome have rarely been disappointed. Do your research on www.biddingfortravel.com or www. betterbidding.com first, and double check the reviews at www.tripadvisor.com. Remember to bid one star level higher in Europe for US comparison hotels. Remember that one bad hotel in a given zone and at a given star rating should force you to bid a higher level or different zone for that city. By using these 5 sites in conjunction, you will save the cost of hotels by 50% or more for the rest of your travel life.PS: Practice this technique with several imaginary cities WITHOUT hitting the “Buy my Hotel” button. Do your research. There are NO REFUNDS.