I'm just curious how winners here feel about their experiences with Priceline since it's hard to find a group of positive reviews around the Net. Can it really be as bad some people post about? Obviously they're satisfying some since there's evidence of repeat customers on this board. I just don't hear too many good things about them. Curious about thoughts here on this board. Thanks

In my opinion there are two main complaints:

Star Quality Issues: these can be legitimate, but only sometimes to the fault of priceline. The root of the problem is that star ratings are subjective and there is no consistency within the hotel industry, which leaves a LOT of room for interpretation, and therefore each company and hotel guest can have a different opinion of what rating a hotel deserves. Add to this that not every room in a hotel is created equal (some face a freeway, others are next to an elevator, others on a high floor have a great view, while those on a low floor may have no view, etc), so it's oftten difficult, although necessary, to classify an entire hotel as a whole. You can read multiple reviews of the same hotel and they can range from "loved it" to "never again", proving that this is an industry wide issue.

To further this discussion, everyone also has a different opinion as to what is a 'good room'. We see comments from users who are disappointed because they received "a room next to the elevator" while others are disapointed with "a room furthest from the elevator". Often when paying a fraction of the price of a traditionally booked room it's easy to 'blame' it that you received a 'priceline room', but these rooms existed (and filled with other guests) long before the discount booking services existed, and in reality it's often the case that the desk clerk just assigned you a room at random, with no "ill will" intended. Refer back to the point above regarding multiple reviews for the same hotel having drastically different user experiences.

With the above noted, there are some (a minority of) hotels which do consistenly give their discount rate customers the least desirable rooms. However, we try to keep track of them here by having users report their experiences in our Hotel Reviews section.

Other Issues: most other issues stem from users not having realistic expectations or not doing their homework before they bid. These include wanting a room with specific bedding type, booking for more than double occupancy (for priceline), not carefully looking at the zone boundaries, bidding too much, or expecting a specific hotel. Priceline is very good at satisfying their side of the deal and fufilling their obligation, but when users choose to ignore/bend these terms, or don't do any research and bid 'blindly', it can lead to 'complaints'.

I think its just human nature to complain about a bad priceline experience rather than offer praise. My positive experiences far outweigh my less than desirable stays and with hotel rates skyrocketing over the past 3 years, I don't feel like paying rack rates when I can bid and save 25-50% or more through Priceline. When making a bid, go in with eyes wide open; you may get any hotel that appears on the BetterBidding list, or possibly be the first to report a new property. You need to determine if the savings is worth not knowing the identity of the hotel until your bid is accepted. I agree with thereuare that many of the complaints involve bidding mistakes such as overbidding (which can be minimized with the free tools on this board), bidding in the wrong zone, wrong dates, getting a smoking room for a non smoker, getting a king when two doubles is needed, and so on. If you have "must have" requirements such as an indoor pool, free parking, free breakfast, free internet, restaurant on premises, access to public transportation, being within "x miles" of an address, then Priceline is not for you. For me, it has been an exception when a hotel was unable to grant a request for a specific room type, often this was the result of the hotel being at or near sell out.

But as far as the services they claim to offer, there's no real reason for the amount of complaints seen all over the Net based from your experiences?

It's not really fair to account for ignorant or lazy shopping practices (like what you guys mentioned). It's unfortunate reviews are watered down and skewed with complaints based off of such ignorance and/or laziness. That's why I wanted to ask the veterans here at Better Bidding! As long as Priceline is living up to their claims (which I'm pretty sure I good scope of by now) then I shouldn't have any problems.

I'm not familiar with the large amount of complaints on the net, and I don't know what you mean by the services they have to offer, but from personal experience, Priceline's "name your own price" product is a great business model. This service simply matches bids from customers with offers from hotels; when the bid meets or exceeds the offer, the deal is done and is cannot be changed or modified. Of the few complaints I've read, most stem from lack of personal responsibility for one's own actions and the complainer has to put the blame on Priceline. Then again, some complaints involve the intransigence of the Hotel management which can happen regardless of how the room was booked. I have many more "letdowns" with HOTWIRE due to star inflation.

As for most of the complaints you read?

Most of the people have unreal expectations about travel and the service that they are using. Example they want to change the travel date, but PL will not give a refund. That is what non refundable means. Or they want 5 star service from a 3 star hotel. Or they are surprised that a 4 star hotel does not give a free breakfast.

Or they paid too much and they need to blame someone else. Do your research BEFORE bidding, not after.

What I meant by that is only reviewing the actual services they claim to provide (i.e. if you bid on a 4* star hotel in Region A you get a 4* hotel in Region A - done deal) and not all the other variables people often include in their complaints (e.g. hotel didn't live up to their expectations, didn't book the right region or hotel star rating and they want it fixex). There's too many of the latter to sort through on the Net, which is why I mentioned there are a large amount of complaints. When you look around for reviews, you'll find em. But then again, there were plenty for Hotwire as well. I'm sure there are just too many people angry or frustrated because of high expectations or they screwed and won't accept responsibility.

I love priceline. I always use it when we travel and I get rooms that exceed my expectations 80% of the time for great rates. But I do spend the time to research hotel star levels-reviews-costs-locations and I feel I know what to expect from priceline. I can see however, that if you don't do the research and you have uninformed expectations, you may be disappointed with what you get. I'd assume that's where the bulk of negative priceline feedback comes from.