rockymountains

Similar to the OP, I tried bidding for 3* Omaha, downtown, for 2/7 thru 2/9. I was able to re-bid several times because adjacent zones don't have 3* hotels. $45, 49, 55, 57, 59 all rejected. Looking at previous posts $45-55 seemed to be a lock. I guess I'll try again tomorrow.

2* Stockton-Modesto (Tracy) Extended StayAmerica Tracy $35 ... 3/11/10-3/12/10

Not a bad price.

Does anyone bid the same price on a hotel, get rejected, then try again numerous times? How often does it work?

I really scored on this one. Normal price is $121 per night.

I got an e-mail from Priceline to "Try Again" with my bid of $18 on a rental car, since it's been more than one day since I last bid. That's not true, I last bid about 14 hours ago. When I tried again, it rejected me for the same reason, less than 24 hours. Are these e-mails just marketing tactics, or is somebody willing to accept $18 if I bid again?

I'm browsing Priceline and Hotwire for the Denver area. Their geographic areas are very different in some places, maybe intentionally so. I'm trying to find the North Washington area on Priceline. Any suggestions? Priceline groups Denver hotels into the following areas: Boulder Downtown Cherry Creek-Aurora Denver Airport Denver Downtown Denver North Denver West Longmont Tech Center Hotwire groups Denver hotels into the following areas: Aurora Cherry Creek Denver Airport Denver Central - North Washington Denver North - Thornton Denver Northeast - Henderson Denver Tech Center Denver Tech Center South Golden area Greater Downtown Denver Lakewood North Lakewood South Littleton - Ken Caryl - Highlands Ranch Stapleton - Northeast Denver Westminster-Broomfield Wheat Ridge

I went back one year in these forums to count the deals on rental cars. This is not a scientific study - I counted quickly from the title of the thread only. My counts might be off +/- a few. Hertz - 123 deals Alamo - 112 deals Avis - 68 deals National - 32 deals Budget - 13 deals There's obviously a huge disparity. How would you interpret these numbers? Does Hertz have much better prices than Budget? Does Hertz participate far more often than Budget? Your thoughts welcome.

Is it possible to get "official" lists of the cities covered by PRICELINE / HOTWIRE? This would save me lots of time and trouble. Thanks!

Thanks for the advice. I just thought of a potentially major problem for my trip. Baseball playoffs are approaching. The Colorado Rockies will most likely win the NL wildcard and be in the playoffs. If they win the first round (NLDS), the league championship (NLCS) runs October 15-24. Being the wildcard team, they would play in Denver on October 18th, 19th, and if necessary, the 21st. The same days I'll be in Colorado unless I totally rearrange the trip. I'd like to think this won't happen, but the Rockies suprised everybody in 2007.

My bad, I should have clarified my analogy - I meant Ebay in general where items' prices skyrocket in the final hours or minutes. A better comparison would have been last-minute airline tickets or rental cars sold thru traditional methods (not deal websites like we're talking about). I guess what I'm asking is this - generally speaking, if I wait until the last 24-48 hours to reserve a room with PRICELINE / HOTWIRE, how would the prices compare if I had reserved weeks or months earlier? No difference?

That's really helpful, thanks. One last question, for now - how does the pricing at either PRICELINE or HOTWIRE compare to say, eBay? What I'm wondering about is last minute prices (24-48 hours in advance)...do they tend to go up, go down, stay the same? Are there any other pricing quirks to know about?

Oh yeah, with Priceline and Hotwire, how long does the bidding process take? Do you get instant feedback right away? For obvious reasons, I don't want to spend hours of my vacation waiting for bidding to be approved/denied.

Hi Aaron, could you clarify what you mean by "priceline is far lesser" in your first sentence? Not sure if you're talking price, availability or something else. I had someone suggest on a different forum that I find hotels at low prices and reserve 2 or 3 nights on separate reservations. Then cancel the nights I don't need. Could I do this with PRICELINE or HOTWIRE, and if so, what rules apply? I'm a little worried about getting screwed by this method, whichever way I make the reservations. i.e. wrong night gets cancelled, they double or triple charge me anyway, etc, etc. Although I haven't looked extensively, the small towns where I might stay seem to have reasonable rates. I'm concerned most about Denver, Salt Lake City, etc.

I'm going on a 10 day road trip soon. October 14-24, beginning in Omaha, Nebraska. I plan to drive west through Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and maybe Kansas. Right now I have no plans - on purpose - because I hate being held to a strict schedule. I know approximately where I'll be every night, plus or minus a day, but not for certain. Never used PRICELINE or HOTWIRE before so I wondered if this was possible since my itinerary isn't etched in stone. Does anyone have advice or suggestions they would like to share?