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  Hotel Strategies

Priceline’s Name Your Own Price tool is usually the cheapest possible way to get a hotel. You can expect savings from 30-70% off the regular rates. It is often cheaper to use Priceline to stay in a very nice hotel in the middle of downtown, than it is to pay the regular rate for a motel, located out on the edge of the city.

If you are willing to invest the time and effort, Priceline’s “Name Your Own Price” tool is a fantastic way to pay the lowest possible price for your hotel reservation. However, if you aren’t careful, you can wind up staying in an undesirable hotel, or paying too much money for your room.

With Priceline, you select the neighborhood (zone), and the star rating of the hotel that you are interested in, and then make a bid for an amount you are willing to pay. If Priceline accepts your bid, the hotel is automatically booked, you find out the name of the hotel, and your reservation can’t be changed or cancelled. If they don’t accept your bid, you’ll need to bid again at a higher price, or for a different zone.

Priceline vs. Hotwire

While you will wind up paying a bit more for your room, it is far easier to take advantage of Hotwire, than Priceline.

With Hotwire, you may not know the exact hotel you are going to get, but you know the most important information about it—how it was rated, what type of beds you are going to get, and what amenities it has. Without any additional effort, you have enough information to know whether you are getting a workable hotel at a great price. And if you want to spend some additional time, you can figure out exactly what hotel you are going to get. Get a Great Hotel Rate with Hotwire (and Other 'Opaque' Booking Tools)

With Priceline, you only know the neighborhood and star rating. You could wind up with a lousy hotel, with a less desirable room configuration, or without access to a key amenity. Unless you want to roll the dice, using Priceline means that you need to spend the time to figure out all the hotels that you might get, and how much you should bid. Even then, if one of the possible hotels in a “zone” is undesirable, it is too risky to bid for that zone. And you can never know exactly which hotel you are going to get. Always assume that you are going to get the least desirable hotel that matches your star rating and neighborhood. If that is fine, then use Priceline. TravelStrategies:*Priceline/Box

An overview of how to use Priceline effectively

To use Priceline successfully:

1. Determine the WORST hotel that you could possibly get if you bid on a specific star rating and zone. Follow our advice to figure out what hotels you are likely to get. .
2. Decide whether you are okay staying at ALL the possible hotels. You might wind up getting one of the better options; but you need to be prepared to get the least attractive possibility.
3. If so, decide the most that you are willing to pay for the worst hotel, given your other alternatives. Find the going rates for a regular reservation (or for one with Hotwire), and determine how much you would be willing to pay for a non-refundable reservation, assuming you get that hotel.
4. Adjust your maximum bidding price to $10 less than the pre-tax rate you’d be willing to pay (to accommodate the extra fees that Priceline will add). Priceline will also add taxes, but you’ll be paying those in either case. So, use the pre-tax rate as the comparison for determine how much you are willing to bid.
5. Start bidding, following our strategy for trying to get the lowest possible price. Never bid more than the maximum amount you decided on (in Step 4). But start out bidding less. .

Good zones, and bad zones

Priceline splits up every city (and the surrounding areas) into several different geographic zones.

Some of these are “good” zones, meaning that all the hotels, with higher star ratings, are decent choices. Some of these are “bad” zones, where at least one of the hotels isn’t very attractive. If you are looking for a hotel in a good zone, you are in luck. If not, Priceline winds up not being a very good option—you’ve got too big of a chance of getting the rotten apple.

For example:

• In Ka’anapali Maui, the only 4-star hotels that have been reported as participating with Priceline, are the Hyatt, Sheraton, Westin, Westin Villas, and Kapalua Villas. These are all fine beachfront resorts. Either you’ll be able to get one at a great rate on Priceline, or you won’t, but you won’t be stuck at some place you don’t want to stay.
• On the other hand, if you bid for a 4-star hotel in the Chicago Loop, you might get a great hotel like the Burnham, but you might also get stuck in a very tiny room in the Palmer House Hilton. You might be reluctant to bid on that zone, or may only want to bid with a maximum amount that is low enough, that you would be happy, even if you got stuck with the Hilton room.
• Sometimes, there is only one possible hotel in the zone. For example, the only 4-star hotel that has been reported on Priceline in the McCormick Place zone in Chicago is the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. Any bid for that zone and star rating is essentially a bid for that specific hotel. Similarly, the only 5-star hotel in Wailea is the Four Seasons Maui—you can safely bid the maximum amount you would be willing to pay for a non-refundable reservation at that hotel.

More details on why “Name Your Own Price” hotels are harder to take advantage of than Hotwire

• You don’t have information about the true quality level of the hotel. When you book with Priceline, you decide the specific hotel zone (e.g. downtown, university district) and the minimum hotel star rating you are willing to accept. However, the problem is that a four-star hotel could be an outdated hotel with some particularly undesirable rooms, or it could be a really nice place to stay. A 2.5-star motel could be a dump with a grumpy front-desk clerk, or it could be sparkling, and have great service. Priceline’s star ratings are not a guarantee of actual hotel quality. On Hotwire, you can see actual user ratings from Hotwire and TripAdvisor, and not just the star rating of the hotel, so you have a much better idea of what you are getting.
• There is no guarantee that the hotel will have the features that you care about. Maybe you really want a place with a pool, or on the beach. You can assume a few things based on the star rating of the hotel, but you can’t guarantee any specific amenities on Priceline. On Hotwire, you can see the amenities, before you commit to the hotel.
• There is no guarantee of a specific bed configuration. Priceline only guarantees that the room will sleep two people. If you are traveling with a family, you could get stuck with a room that doesn’t accommodate everyone. Or you could be stuck with two beds, when you really wanted one; or vice versa. With Hotwire, you can explicitly book a room that will accommodate the right number of guests, and can usually tell exactly what bed configuration you are reserving.
• You can rarely determine exactly what hotel you can get. Neither service is designed to let you know which hotel you will get. However, with Hotwire you are agreeing to book a specific hotel, just one where the name is hidden. It is often possible to figure out which hotel it is. With Priceline, you are essentially always bidding on a set of hotels. Even if you figure out what the set is, you can’t know exactly which of the hotels in that group you are going to get.

With both Priceline and Hotwire:

• You won’t be able to cancel your reservation. Once your bid is accepted, you’re stuck with the hotel, even if your plans to change.
• You typically won’t get points or perks for your stay. And you should consider yourself on the bottom rung of the ladder when it comes to any room assignments or special requests.

Get a Great Hotel Rate with Hotwire (and Other 'Opaque' Booking Tools)

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