Report your Priceline successes discusion area.

nicksmith100

Thanks Blindman for picking out the relevant bit, you're too kind!

According to Priceline itself suggested retail price is £217-£240 (3*-4*) for the areas and time I'm looking. I've not yet looked into how rates vary at different times but will do.

I've managed to book a 2* backup hotel with free cancellation (up until 2 days before) for £800. It's not great but it's fairly central, has private bathroom and includes breakfast so would be willing to stay there if it comes to it. So I'll probably try Priceline a bit closer to the time.

Thanks for all your help!

p.s. To the last poster, I'll pass on the advice Blindman gave to me earlier in the thread - yes try to book closer to the time but book a backup hotel. I would imagine Thanksgiving would be even busier than marathon week, but that's a total guess really!

meher

This is the cleverest business model I've ever come across This priceline is actually a huge comparison website like kayak/skyscanner for instance but kayak doesn't claim that it is bidding on your behalf, what priceline is doing is a huge search from all hotel website's database and ofcourse they must be affiliated to some good hotels as well. If you look at priceline's own websites, it's partners are:

priceline partner sites
[*]Hotel Room
[*]Discount Hotels
[*]Cheap Airfares
[*]Cheap Hotels
[*]Agoda.com
[*]Booking.com
[*]Discount Flights
[*]Cheap Vacation Packages
[*]Cheap Rental Cars
[*]Discount Cruises
[*]Cheap Hotel Rooms
[*]cheap tickets
[*]cheap air travel
[*]cheap airplane tickets
[*]Travel Guides

and all these ^ are various sites you could search to find the hotels for the dates you're looking for and remarkably lesser rates than the hotels' itself

I've used priceline and each results I got were the same as the rates at booking.com and agoda. I've booked a hotel that would normally be £700 p/n but just for £144 p/n in Venice at booking.com and that's what priceline would find for me had I gone to priceline to do the bidding. It would've done a search for the rate I bid on it's database on sites like agoda and booking.com. This is just my analysis by the way. Priceline is quite a very novel and fun business model and I had to say it.

Also to suggest that whilst checking for rates here, you could do a hotels.com and booking.com searches too parallelly, specially a booking.com search because it is fee free booking and permits you to cancel free of charge if you happen to change your travel dates or get a better offer. Hotels.com also pricematch, not just for the first few hours within booking unlike other sites, my understanding is that it does a pricematch even weeks and months down the lane if you come across a better deal. I booked a hotel in tokyo with agoda and since these sites are international, the rates keep fluctuating based on the dollar value. So if the pound weakenes against the dollar, naturally the room rates changed and I was offered the differnce from agoda and it was pretty substantial. With priceline, it is boring, you can't have all these fun and adventures not a chance you'd get any refunds or pricematching offers or even cashbacks if you're into that.

I hope it was ok to share my thoughts on this. I'm endlessly fascinated by clever business models and even more so when I realise how we all are hypnotised by similar offers but in various charades.

miss_edith

I search pretty much all of those sites and others when I'm looking to book a hotel to find the cheapest deals for the quality of hotel I want. Then I go on priceline and usually get a hotel for about 2/3rds of the cheapest rates found on the comparison and broker sites. Maybe I've been lucky but my priceline rates have always been well below anything else I could find.

blindman

meher wrote: »

This is the cleverest business model I've ever come across This priceline is actually a huge comparison website like kayak/skyscanner for instance but kayak doesn't claim that it is bidding on your behalf, what priceline is doing is a huge search from all hotel website's database

I think you need to research more as this is totally wrong

and all these ^ are various sites you could search to find the hotels for the dates you're looking for and remarkably lesser rates than the hotels' itself

I've used priceline and each results I got were the same as the rates at booking.com and agoda.

Priceline isn't always the magic bullet but 90% of the time their rates are cheaper


Priceline is quite a very novel and fun business model and I had to say it.

Pity you didn't do any thorough research before saying


I hope it was ok to share my thoughts on this. I'm endlessly fascinated by clever business models and even more so when I realise how we all are hypnotised by similar offers but in various charades.

Whilst I don't advocate Priceline or Hotwire as the be all end all for major discounts I do find their rates (with good research) are often unbeatable bargains.

Each to his own.

meher

you don't believe me :question: click on this link http://www.priceline.co.uk/ and tell me where it takes you

blindman

meher wrote: »

you don't believe me :question: click on this link http://www.priceline.co.uk/ and tell me where it takes you

It should take you here

littlereddevil

I've had unbelievable prices on priceline I coould never get anywhere else

meher

sure ^ you must've had because their data base has search results from booking.com and agoda, both that offer unbelievable rates, specially during the off season

blindman wrote: »

It should take you here

it isn't :j the same

I suspect it is a glitch because normally priceline.co.uk should take us to the priceline.co.uk site and not to booking.com site.

MyKeey

• Destination: London (Docklands Area)
  
• Type of accommodation: 5* (only)
  
• How many extra daily bids did you have available: Didn't try
  
• How much were your 2nd/3rd etc & final bids: First bid of £65 (per night) accepted for the Marriott London West India Quay, so £82.86 with the tax and their charges.

MyKeey

• Destination: London (Bloomsbury)
  
• Type of accommodation: 4 and 5*
  
• How many extra daily bids did you have available: Upgraded from 'Westminster' area, then 'Mayfair - Soho' area of £65. Not accepted.
  
• How much were your 2nd/3rd etc & final bids: Increased range to 'Bloomsbury - Marble Arch' for £60 for 1 night was accepted for the Holiday Inn London-Regents Park, so £82.80 with the tax and their charges.

Apparently save 66% on this. Nice central loction, walking distance to everywhere I wanted to go, so save on taxis!