WillTravel

I don't know what this signifies, but Priceline now has an indicator of ratings on the home page that leads to the Star Level Guide (look at the middle left for the link). 1* is not listed there. But I still see cities that have 1* hotel bidding.

Didn't Priceline used to have screens for something (maybe airfare) where you were given the maximum you would have to pay, but it usually turned out to be less? In this case, there's no such indication. I would be reasonably certain that the price you are shown on the confirmation screen is what you will end up paying - do you agree? But we do need someone to do some live field testing :)

I think you are exactly right, and that's what all my test bids indicate.

I think you are on to something with the agency relationship issue. And you're right that some states were complaining about the tax issue just as you described it. I did get an answer back to my question about how upgrades work within a couple hours last time I tried emailing Priceline (although the info is wrong, can't have everything :)) I just looked again and they are still having their old erroneous information in the Help about taxes and charges. I did go to law school, but I'm not practicing as a lawyer, and particularly not in the field of taxes :) Priceline Hong Kong is still doing Priceline bids the "old way," for now anyway.

It's possible Priceline is now paying taxes on the bid amount, as many states want them to do, like you said. But the new system doesn't indicate to me that they are necessarily doing this. The only thing for sure is that you can no longer tell anything by the taxes and service fee combo. Whether you bid $50 and get a $50 Priceline room, or bid $50 and get a $30 Priceline room - your total payment in each case will be exactly the same (if both bids are in the same city). One more thing. The new total charge seems to be based on the total amount for all nights. So a ($25 bid for 4 nights for 1 room) or a ($100 bid for 1 night for 1 room) or a ($50 bid for 1 nights for 2 rooms) end up with the same total charge (by my experiments).

Tried this with Victoria, BC (which also used to have a 10% tax rate charged by Priceline). Unsubmitted bids for a one-night stay: 20 ->$26.74 25 ->$32.30 30 ->$37.86 100->$115.70 Here, with each $5 bid increase, the change is $5.56. Thus, in the three cities I have tried, the incremental change is constant, but I haven't tried different nights for the same city. Note that both Burbank and Victoria should have the same tax rate, but the increment is different.

I was trying to test out Priceline's new tax and fee structure, so I decided to set up a bid for Victoria, BC, Canada (a common spot for me). Since it's still long before 6 PM, I started with a same-day bid. After entering the dates and city, Priceline displayed this message: We're sorry, but we don't have any hotel rooms available tonight in Victoria. If you can stay in a different area or change your check-in date, we would be happy to place your offer. I guess they are telling the truth :). Has anyone ever seen that message before, or anything similar for other than a same-day bid?

Unfortunately the answer is that there's no set formula that hotels use. (Well, quite likely some places do have a formula, but I don't think anyone has figured it out.) So - it could be that a hotel will provide the cheapest bids a long time out for guaranteed revenue - or it could be that a hotel will provide the cheapest bids at the last minute so as not to waste empty rooms - or both could be true - or neither. So even though it's sort of frustrating not being able to figure out when or if you will get the absolute best deal, you just sometimes have to be happy with a pretty good deal. (Something I keep telling myself!) Thus, in my case, knowing there's no set pattern as to whether bidding early or late is better - I mostly prefer to bid late unless I get a really low-priced deal.

I tried Burbank, CA for one night (which apparently has a tax rate of 10%). $20 - $27.54 $25 - $33.30 $30 - $39.06 The increment here is $5.76 per $5 bid increase. So I tried: $80 - $96.66 - sure enough, the $5.76 increment continues to work.

It's possible that is something they forgot to delete. Good question about the local tax or hotel occupancy tax - I thought that was maybe for special fees where you had to pay extra, but now who knows.

I have heard that Priceline has changed their system so that you no longer see taxes and the $5.95 fee separately, but bundled together. Also, the service fee is no longer consistently $5.95. If so, this is a *very* recent change. But it might explain why the computer systems are slow. Can anyone confirm this is actually the case? Edit: This is true. Here's what the confirmation page shows for a bid for Copenhagen for July 4-6. Offer Price Per Room, Per Night: $50.00 Subtotal: $100.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $30.70 I haven't submitted the bid yet. Taxes are supposed to be no more than 20% under Priceline's old system. That would be a maximum of $10 per night, so that is $20 tax (maximum). Then the fee would be $10.70 for the transaction. However, if they used the real 25% tax figure, then taxes would be a total of $25, and the service fee would be $5.70. So I'm going back and putting $55. Offer Price Per Room, Per Night: $55.00 Subtotal: $110.00 Taxes and Service Fees: $33.32 Total Charges: $143.32 (again not submitted) If they were using the 20% maximum, then taxes would be maximum $22 and the service fee would be $11.32. If they are using 25%, then the taxes would be maximum $27.50, and the service fee $4.88. I don't think this bid has any chance ($50 or $55 for a 4* hotel in Copenhagen!). But you can run the same test with other bids - just don't submit them. Maybe we can work out an algorithm. Edit: Tried just one night this time. If I bid $50 here - then total charge $67.60 If I bid $55 here - then total charge $73.91 If I bid $60 here - then total charge $80.22 The difference as you move from one to the next is $6.31. Similarly, for my 2-night bids, the total difference in charges between the $50 and $55 bid works out to be $12.62 (double $6.31).

The factors which might affect a future booking for me are an unpredictable workload, unanticipated family situations, and the slight chance of illness. Obviously a lot of people don't have to worry about the first concern. Scorp is right about the possibility of getting travel insurance to cover illness and illness of immediate family members. (I don't think that would help, though, if the unanticipated situation preventing the trip was something like a dear friend getting ill. I admit - part of my problem here might be a pessimistic nature! :) ) But since you are the one paying, you have to be the one to decide what level of risk you are ok with.

My suggestion - if you are sure, sure, sure of your dates, you can start bidding any time. Just have an upper limit in mind that you'd be happy with - like maybe a bit higher than the lowest bid you can find for that area at that time. As you get closer, you can edge the price up a bit if you don't succeed. Then you have seven months to try to get this low price - and odds are you'll get the price at some point. The main reason I wouldn't bid for something at Xmas is that I'd consider it fairly probable (like 10-15% probable) that my plans might be interrupted against my will, and I'd have slight stress for the rest of the year worrying about losing my money.

Sorry for your friend, but if he's happy - OK. I'm still trying to get a complete handle on how Priceline does upgrades, and this experience might provide some interesting research data. Does the fact that this bid didn't get an upgrade mean that there's no MTS hotel (on this date) that has a price that is anywhere in between the $50 Priceline price for this hotel and the $112 he somehow happened to bid? In other words, a 3* bid for $112 in MTS was doomed to failure at the time of the bid?

It's fun to write another nice review after another Priceline stay. This one was actually a Priceline Hong Kong bid. (I've posted that saga elsewhere, but essentially I was personally offered a counteroffer by a Priceline HK sales representative, which I took. Taxes showed it was only a slight overbid.) As I indicated on that thread, I suspect a bid of about $33-35 USD would work on Priceline.com at the 1* level in Victoria for summer bookings (including May). You can likely get a much cheaper rate during the off-season. So far I've only read about this hotel and Paul's Motor Inn showing up at the 1* level in Victoria, but of course any hotel in the area is always possible. As to the room, the property is a 3-story motel (see http://www.accentinns.com/victoria). The room was standard, bright, and clean. I had asked for two queen beds ahead of time. There was a small kitchenette. We had a ground floor no-smoking unit, which was just fine. The restaurant on the property, Brannigan's, has standard American-style food that is pretty reasonable. I'd say this room was a bit nicer than the one we had at Paul's Motor Inn (see my other review), although that one was fine also. It's a trifle less convenient for access to downtown Victoria, but it's a trifle more convenient for access to the Butchart Gardens. Anyway, if this hadn't been Priceline and prepaid, I might have cancelled. I'm in deadline mode, and my daughter got a can't-miss birthday invitation a couple weeks after my bid. But - I wasn't about to lose the money :). So what I did was take my mother along for a Mother's Day treat -- which she really appreciated and I enjoyed myself also. Plus, I got to relax, and now I have a much clearer head about finishing my necessary work :). Victoria is in fully stunning mode this weekend - as nice as I've ever seen it. Perfectly sunny, flowers in full bloom, etc. The ferry ride was spectacular as always, although I've taken it dozens of times. I'm looking forward to returning again!

Very cool! You also answered a question I had, which was whether Priceline ever goes up two star levels (I already knew that it would go up one) :)

That is scary. I wonder if it's just a simple database entry error on their end. That wouldn't necessarily mean it was easy to resolve if you had gotten a room in the wrong area, though.

I like Scorp's suggestion of checking the hotel web site to get an idea of dates on which the price is likely to be higher. I sort of get the impression that a fair number of hotels there are quite happy to have just a few Priceline rates - maybe something like a weekday and weekend rate for each season, and a major holiday rate. They aren't nearly as complicated as airlines, for example, and don't change their rates every hour or two :) (Maybe some hotels do, it just seems a lot do not.) So if you can see a few winning bids for a given area over a period of time (like this forum provides and will provide even more of in the future), or even more specifically for a single hotel, and then calculate the Priceline rates for those bids based on taxes, you can get a fair idea of what the magic numbers are over the course of a year. No guarantees of course. But that's why boards like this one are so valuable :)

Here's my boilerplate response, knowing nothing about Gainesville - if you want to look at various properties around there, try TravelAxe (http://www.travelaxe.com). For example, I tried running it just now, and it has a price for the Baymont Gainesville that is probably in total somewhat less than the Holiday Inn and it might still be suitable (but I really doubt it's a 3*). But if you do use it, I'd double-check to make sure whether any price you get includes or does not include taxes and fees.

I don't know if you can get as good a deal if you are already in Canada, but I see that http://www.destina.ca is offering some pretty good rates also to Toronto, on the same general principle. I'd go if I could!

Example of Priceline.com information that it disseminates to customers: I received a Priceline.com promotional email today that pointed out someone's deal where they won a bid for $85 for a 4* in the Embarcadero. But lots of people have been getting the 4* Hyatt Regency there recently for $47-55.

For starters, refer to this topic: http://www.betterbidding.com/?act=ST&f=173&t=103& It gets more complicated if you have more than one night's stay. Some hotels charge the same Priceline rate every night, while others have multiple rates for different nights (and I've read some even have multiple rates for the same night). So the best you can do is determine the average rate that Priceline paid for the room over the course of your stay. Apparently Priceline demands you bid to at least the maximum Priceline room rate over the course of your stay. (E.g. if one night has a Priceline rate of $40, and the other nights have $30 - you have to bid $40 for the whole stay.) That's why people sometimes suggest splitting up your stay if you can't get a reasonable bid accepted for the whole period. I'm also trying to determine is if tax rates for one-night stays usually indicate that Priceline paid a whole-dollar amount for the room. My anecdotal experience and reading says yes - except for foreign currency cases. What is your experience? Then there are cases like this bid: http://www.betterbidding.com/?act=ST&f=155&t=547& The hotel told me the tax rate is 15.8%. This would indicate an average rate of $27/night, but I won with $26! This bid has something similar, as the tax rate charged should be 10%, indicating I again underbid. However, it's possible foreign exchange affected the result: http://www.betterbidding.com/?act=ST&f=166&t=548& Please indicate your experiences of any anomalies in taxes, any indication of whether Priceline has fractional-dollar rates per room, etc. It's also possible Priceline just plain calculates wrong sometimes.

(I guess I'm going off-topic for rscima's post, feel free to move where appropriate - maybe a new tax topic.) Sorry to hear that. It's definitely best to check the tax rate yourself or ask the hotel to make sure you have the latest figure. My Seattle bid (posted elsewhere) was interesting re taxes. It was for two nights at $26/night. The hotel told me the tax rate is 15.8%, which is confirmed by other sources I read. With the taxes I paid, this worked out to a Priceline rate of $27/night (just about exactly). So in theory, how did I get the room? Other sources indicate the Seattle tax rate is 15.6%, as did that web page, which would indicate even more of an underbid. I was perplexed by that one :) . ========= Re the fractional rates - Suppose in one zone with three hotels of equal star value: Hotel A had a rate of $35.01, Hotel B had a rate of $35.02, and Hotel C had a rate of $35.03, that would work out badly for Hotels A and B given Priceline's hotel selection algorithm. One reason, besides the one-night bid values, that I suspect Priceline doesn't have fractional rates on a per-night basis.

It is possible for sure that there are fractional Priceline rates. It just seems that so often one-night stays come up with tax values that indicate a whole-dollar amount. I'd say that happens most of the time, if we look at all the bids. I mostly like that web site because it compiles all the tax rates in one place, which is very convenient.