Yes, I Saved 50% On This Priceline Hotel

Let's assume you want to book a hotel on Priceline. You choose certain parameters (travel dates, location, hotel star rating), name a price you're willing to pay for a hotel that meets your criteria, and find out if a hotel accepts your offer.

The major benefit of using Priceline is that you can save a lot of money. Hotels with excess capacity often want to fill their rooms but are reluctant to lower their prices because it can dilute their brand. By not revealing the name of the hotel until after you buy, Priceline creates a win-win for consumers (who save money) and hotels (who fill their empty hotel rooms).

There are some important drawbacks with Priceline. First, reservations are almost never refundable, so don't book a hotel unless you're certain your travel dates will not change. Second, there is no guarantee that a hotel will have a particular amenity. I almost never use Priceline when I am traveling with my children because we prefer to stay at a hotel with a swimming pool (which is not guaranteed on Priceline). Finally, Priceline hotel reservations will only guarnatee a room that will accommodate a maximum of 2 people.

As a general rule, I use these 3 questions to determine if Priceline is right for me:
1. Is there a possibility that my travel plans will change?
2. Is it essential that I have a particular hotel amenity (e.g., swimming pool, airport shuttle)?
3. Do I require a room that will accommodate 3 or more people?

If the answer is no to all of the above questions, start bidding... and saving money.

You might be thinking, "Since I get to name my own price on Priceline, what is to stop me from bidding $1 for a hotel room, and then incrementing my bid by $1 until Priceline accepts my bid?" I tried this and it doesn't work. The problem is that Priceline will only let you bid once in a 24 hour period unless you change something about your bid such as the date or location.

There is a technique that will allow you to instantly rebid several times without having to wait the 24-hour period, change your travel dates, or settle for a hotel in an area of town you do not want. It works like this:

The first thing you'll notice when bidding on Priceline is that major cities are divided into many smaller areas. For instance, Las Vegas is broken into 12 different areas. This is important because Priceline will let you rebid instantly as long as you add another area to your bid. You might be thinking that if you add another area, won't you risk getting stuck with a hotel in an area of town you don't want? The way around this is to add an area that doesn't have a hotels with the star rating you want. For example, if you are looking to reserve a 5 star hotel, just add an area that doesn't have a 5-star hotel and place a rebid. Here's an example.

Suppose I want to bid on a 5-star hotel in the Las Vegas Strip South Vacinity. Take a look at the Priceline screenshot I've included here. You can see here that I have selected several areas in Las Vegas, none of which have a 5 star hotel. (You can tell that a 5-star hotel is not available in these areas because the stars are grey instead of orange).

First bid: On my first bid, I might bid $80 and only select the Las Vegas Strip South Vacinity.

Second bid: If my first bid is rejected, I will add an area that doesn't have a 5-star hotel, such as Boulder Strip. Priceline will let me rebid because I've added a new area. However, since Boulder Strip doesn't have any 5-star hotels, I don't need to worry about ending up with a hotel in that area. I might decide to increase my bid to, say, $85.

Third bid: If my second bid is rejected, I will add another area that doesn't have a 5-star hotel. In this case, Fremont Street, and perhaps I will bid $90. Again, I do not need to worry about getting a hotel on Fremont Street since there aren't any 5-star hotels in that area.

I will repeat this process until (a) I run out of rebids, or (b) my bid is accepted. Just be careful not to add an area that DOES have a 5-star hotel or you may end up staying in an area you don't want.

There is nothing worse than bidding on Priceline and having your very first bid rejected. How low could you have gone? How much money did you leave on the table?

Before you bid on Priceline, you should try to answer these two questions: 1. How many bidding chances do I get? 2. How much are others paying for similar Priceline hotels. The answer to the first question is easy (see the section above). The answer to the second question is also easy thanks to a website forum called HotelDealsRevealed.com. At this site, forum members post and share their Priceline winning bids as showin in this screen shot.

There are no hard and fast rules for how much to bid, but obtaining the above information before you start bidding is useful. Suppose that 5-star hotels are going for around $100 per night on Priceline and that you have 8 bidding opportunities. I would suggest starting at around $75 and incrementing your bids by $5, thereby maxing out at $110.

Thanks to Priceline users who share their winning bid information, HotelDealsRevealed.com has compiled lists of hotels known to be available on Priceline. As you can see, here is a snippet of the Priceline hotel list for Las Vegas. The only problem with these hotel lists is that Priceline hotels come and go all the time, their star rankings change, and Priceline even changes area boundaries from time to time. Therefore these lists should be used with caution and not relied on as a sure thing.

I should mention that this site has Priceline hotel lists for most US and Canadian cities, not just Las Vegas.