timmah

Well after almost a month of not getting anywhere I decided to close this out. With the 5 dollars bonus cash for today I sat down and did the math. My former highest bid was 70, a few times to no avail. So today I bid 75 (+5 bonus) for a bid of 80, which is roughly 90 with tax. Rejected, they did a counteroffer for 96. I declined and then used kirkland to rebid 85 (+5 bonus cash) for a bid of 90. It was accepted (for a total of $106 w/taxes and fees) for Courtyard Seattle North / Lynnwood Everett. This is for Wednesday, Sept. 21. I was a little disappointed in not getting a better deal, but 90 is better than the standard rate of 120 / 140 depending on how you book it online.

Well that's good to know, but how do you know? How can I check what the rates are? Will the rates be lower closer to the date or will they rise? Do you happen to know the reason why rates would be higher on a random weekday in September? Thanks so much for all your help on this.

So I've seen the guy who got a 65 (which adds up to 81 total with taxes and fees) for one night in Lynnwood Edmonds this weekend; at the same place I've been trying to get a room at. So I'm confident eventually I'll be able to snag a 65. I am surprised though, I went up to 70 on like the 27th of August just to be done with it, and it didn't go through. Lately I've been randomly hitting up the website every few days and bidding 55 / 65 with the Kirkland rebid option. They never take me up on it. I'm beginning to wonder if there's some kind of event going on the 22nd..but then again..it's a Wednesday night. What could possibly be going on. There was an interesting Haggler article on the New York Times talking about how hotels bill priceline substantially less than what the consumer ends up paying. I'm guessing it's around 60%. It makes me wish I could just proposition the hotel directly and cut out the middleman, but I think that would defeat the point. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/your-mon...-tax-dodge.html Best of luck to all the better bidders out there.

So that's 81 dollars plus tax, or you got it for 65 and with tax it's 81? I'm a little confused.

True, but as of today I've gotten 3-4 emails spread out over last week stating that someone has been winning 3* in Pike Place for 50 dollars a night. When I checked the hotels out individually in that area they were significantly more expensive than the Lynnwood Edmonds area, so who knows what's going on.

Got an email alert from priceline saying that 3* for 50 bucks was a recent winning bid. Tried again for 45 / 55 just now for Lynnmond with the kirkland rebid for 3*. Still not having any luck. Figured I'd get a bid in before midnight. Probably try again next Monday. Still have plenty of time before the 22nd of September. Will update when it goes through. As an aside the "median bid" has gone as low as 70 and as high as 228. Ridiculous.

Hey man, thanks for the write up. I had the same theory that bidding too far in advance won't get you any killer deals. It's good to get a data point in support of that.

I'm not so concerned about the stars, I have scouted out the locations of all the 3 stars priceline offers in the area and not only are they on bus routes from the airport / downtown, I'll have easy access to the testing site from any of the hotels. The 2.5 stars, some of them in are odd locations. I would rather not have to rent a car. Price isn't a dealbreaker really, I was just hoping to get a killer deal rather than an average one. I had never heard of this, so I feel like I've learned a lot through this whole process and am very appreciative of all your hard work on this website.

Today bid 65, 67 (which would have been around 81 dollars total with taxes etc) Still no acceptance. The priceline software is extremely buggy. It will flag low bids even when they are higher than previous bids, which did not cause a 'low bid' warning. Weird, huh? The median price is also just completely all over the place, even sometimes above the standard rates for the hotels. I will bid 70 dollars on Monday, and then if that doesn't go through I think I'm going to have to wait a few weeks and try again in hopes that the hotels release more inventory, lower their standards or whatever it is they do. I've seen historic bids accepted for around 50 dollars for the area and the time of the year, so even with inflation I don't really understand why 67 wouldn't go through.

Tried again for 59, 62. No dice. I'm split between waiting a month and starting again at 50, or slowly increasing until it locks a hotel so I can get it over with. At least the "bid too low" warning message went away post-50. I am revising my limits because I suddenly realized I had figured all these prices were with tax included, but it adds 15-20 dollars to the total. Ouch.

Used your rebid method to add Kirkland to get two bids in, and bids for 55 and 57 were rejected. I'll keep at it tomorrow. Thanks for all the advice.

I didn't want to put the date on here but I guess it doesn't matter. Sept. 21st, a wednesday night. Thanks for the tip on rebids, i'll try that out tonight. I got all the time in the world though. I did read something today about how hotels release more availability to priceline the closer it is to the date. Based on historic bids for the area, I think I'm going to go up to 60 and if I don't get anything, try again closer to the date. Best Western has a 75 dollar deal in the same area, so I'll just keep that as my worst case scenario. Thanks for all your help!

I have to take a licensing exam in Seattle, so I don't want to spend any more money on a hotel than I have to. The testing location is within a couple of miles of any spot on the priceline area, so I'll probably end up walking. I was shooting for Courtyard Marriott, or probably Holiday Inn Express. I think they have another International something or another, but it's rated highly so whatevs. Been trying to lock down a hotel for one night, when I found out about this priceline bid thing I've been going crazy haha. One particularly interesting thing I noted, was that even though I had thoroughly researched the base rates of all the hotels in the area, on my second attempt priceline was attempting to convince me that these hotels normally go for 197 a night. Every other time, though it quotes me around 120. Tried 45 and been slowly increasing it every day. Last attempt was 53. It's been a lot of fun ever since I found out they don't penalize you for low bids. I figure there's no loser three star hotels, and there's no way these hotels are fully booked on a random weekday. I'll update the thread when it goes through with the final amount.