Has anyone used Priceline.com?

[ali-s]

I used Priceline to bid for our overnight stay in Amsterdam last year, though you can get a good price with the Express deals if you don't want to bid. We had two rooms and we needed two beds in the boys room so once I knew the hotel I emailed them and requested the 2 doubles for the boys.

[Leggibone]

I was looking at the 4 star coastal LA on this earlier, but I'll check LV too, there is 3 of us though, so would we be better giving these deals a miss?

So 5 star Las Vegas strip south, for £125 a night? What's the catch... The 5 stars are all like £180 a night... And name the price... What's the catch with that? This website is very intriguing...

[ali-s]

Originally Posted by Leggibone

I was looking at the 4 star coastal LA on this earlier, but I'll check LV too, there is 3 of us though, so would we be better giving these deals a miss?

So 5 star Las Vegas strip south, for £125 a night? What's the catch... The 5 stars are all like £180 a night... And name the price... What's the catch with that? This website is very intriguing...

See more...

The catch is you don't know the name of the hotel until you've paid, but ' clues' are provided in the description of the hotel so a bit of browsing on betterbidding or your own research can usually narrow it down.
Name the price you choose star rating and area then give the lowest price you'd like to pay ( but be realistic, you won't get a 5* for £5 )you don't get any clues as to which hotel it is. You get one or two bids per day so can increase your bid gradually until you ' win' a hotel. But be sure the star rating , area and price are what you want because once you've ' won' the payment is taken from you card and you can't change your mind. But you can get some excellent deals this way.

[MadHatter1]

I used priceline.com to stay in the Grand Floridian because it was such a good deal.

It can be a concern that they only guarantee the room for 2 people, but I called the hotel beforehand and they assured me that the vast majority of their rooms have 2 double beds.

[gavvy]

It depends on the area too - I know in New york there are many hotels that only have one bed in them, rooms tend to be smaller there and there is no way I would book if you were expecting more than 2 of you to stay there, its too much of a risk as rooms are non refundable.

[Leggibone]

Originally Posted by ali-s

The catch is you don't know the name of the hotel until you've paid, but ' clues' are provided in the description of the hotel so a bit of browsing on betterbidding or your own research can usually narrow it down.
Name the price you choose star rating and area then give the lowest price you'd like to pay ( but be realistic, you won't get a 5* for £5 )you don't get any clues as to which hotel it is. You get one or two bids per day so can increase your bid gradually until you ' win' a hotel. But be sure the star rating , area and price are what you want because once you've ' won' the payment is taken from you card and you can't change your mind. But you can get some excellent deals this way.

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So I popped my dates in for a regular hotel search in Vegas narrowed it down to the area i would buy the express deal for and the star rating (5*) and 5 or 6 hotels came up, would it be one of those 5 or 6 we would get?
I was also looking at 4* in Disney area (FL) on that website too and they range from grandfloridan, contemporary and akl onsite to Hyatt and such in dtd area, what would be the likelyhood of us getting a Disney hotel from the express do they have like a random lottery system Where they choose from their 4star ones or are we most to get one of the cheaper dtd hotels? im really entrigued by the amount of money we could save (ny we couldn't risk getting one bed though) esp in Vegas and La?

[smedley]

Don't always assume name your price is going to be that much cheaper than the express deal, I tried name your price for SF for this trip, but in the end it wouldn't accept a bid that was lower than the express deal anyway so I just booked that.

[ally1966]

I have twice used Priceline to book hotels in London. On both occasions I made an initial bid that was a lot lower than their Express price for that area / class of hotel. On both occasions it was declined but after a day or so I received an email stating that they had found a suitable hotel that was prepared to accept an offer just a few pounds higher than my bid. In both cases this saved me a small fortune on the published price and was still lower than their Express deal. Sometimes it's worth holding your nerve!

I have only used Priceline when booking for 2 people and one time did end up sharing a double bed with DD. This didn't matter to us but I'm not sure that I'd risk it if there were more people travelling. I'd never thought of phoning ahead and requesting a larger room though.

[ali-s]

Originally Posted by Leggibone

So I popped my dates in for a regular hotel search in Vegas narrowed it down to the area i would buy the express deal for and the star rating (5*) and 5 or 6 hotels came up, would it be one of those 5 or 6 we would get?
I was also looking at 4* in Disney area (FL) on that website too and they range from grandfloridan, contemporary and akl onsite to Hyatt and such in dtd area, what would be the likelyhood of us getting a Disney hotel from the express do they have like a random lottery system Where they choose from their 4star ones or are we most to get one of the cheaper dtd hotels? im really entrigued by the amount of money we could save (ny we couldn't risk getting one bed though) esp in Vegas and La?

See more...

Not necessarily unfortunately, they don't make it that simple some hotels come up time and time again for the Express deals , others only appear once in a blue moon, others may only appear on Name your price. If you have a look on betterbidding you will find the hotels that come up on a regular basis, but still no guarantee you won't get a random new one when you try. It's best to use it if you aren't bothered which hotel you stay in as long as area and stars are right.W e wanted to be in a decent hotel in the centre of Amsterdam so it worked fine for us, 4* for £70. And double check the area as well - Priceline sometimes changes the areas depending if it's an Express deal or Name your price.

Originally Posted by smedley

Don't always assume name your price is going to be that much cheaper than the express deal, I tried name your price for SF for this trip, but in the end it wouldn't accept a bid that was lower than the express deal anyway so I just booked that.

See more...

This is true, always check Express deals before you bid. I was happy with our 4* for £70 but I checked Express deals afterwards and could have had 5* for just a few £s more.

[DIBBadmin]

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