Hotliner

I looked at the Hotwire hotel list for Poughkeepsie NY area and only saw 3* Holiday Inn Express. But ended up with Best Western Plus the Inn & Suites at the Falls. I guess this hotel needs to be added to the list now. I would have preferred the Holiday Inn Express because of location, but they are both highly rated by customers. We'll see how it goes. Oh yeah, the Hotwire Standard Rate for this hotel was $150 and Priceline was $134.

2.5* Kennedy Airport (JFK), Holiday Inn Express - $70 Saw a 2.5* on Priceline Express for $80. I then logged onto Betterbidding.com. Between Betterbidding's hotel list and the discount noted on PRICELINE EXPRESS I guessed the hotel was probably the Holiday Inn Express. I then clicked your link to PRICELINE and tried $70 on Priceline NYOP and got it on the first try. The regular rate on Price.line was $160. So I'm happy - Thanks!

First bid was for $60 and it was rejected w/o counteroffer. Later tried at $70 and was accepted. Now I wish I had re-bid $65 to see if that would have been accepted. Also, I used the PRICELINE link from Betterbidding.com so I think that gave me good Karma. Question: It is not clear to me whether we should be posting the bid price or the total price in the description. In my case the bid price was $70 but the final price (inc taxes & fees) was $86.78.

Based on my reading of this forum I expected a winning bid of somewhere between $93 and $120. So I bid several times starting at $80 and incrementing by $5 each time: Round 1: 1st Bid (Wailea-Makena): $80 Rejected 2nd Bid (+Kihei): $85 Rejected 3rd Bid (+Kahului): $90 Rejected Round 2: 1st Bid (Wailea-Makena): $95 Rejected 2nd Bid (+Kihei): $100 Rejected 3rd Bid (+Kahului): $105 Rejected Round 3: 1st Bid (Wailea-Makena): $110 (Priceline countered with asking me to bid $130) * 2nd Bid (+Kihei): $117 Winning Bid * When I reached $110, Priceline offered me the opportunity to rebid at $130. Based on my past experiences with Priceline I used a free rebid (by adding another zone) and upped my price by 1/3 of the extra $20 they suggested - to $117 and it was accepted. So maybe $117 is the new $120. Thanks BetterBidding for giving me the pricing information to save time and money when using Priceline / Hotwire.

I used BetterBidding’s Priceline and Hotwire Calendar of Wins for my vacation period and reviewed the Kaanapali resort bids made as far back as April for stays throughout the summer. My research led me to expect to get the Sheraton in the $175-$190 range or the Hyatt in the $150-$155 range. I ended up winning the Hyatt at $160 and here is the process I used: Round 1: 1st Bid (Kaanapli-Lahaina): $135 (Priceline countered with asking me to bid $160) * 2nd Bid (+Kihei) : $145 Rejected 3rd Bid (+Kahului): $150 Rejected Round 2: 1st Bid (Kaanapli-Lahaina): $145 (Priceline countered with asking me to bid $175) ** 2nd Bid (+Kihei) : $150 Rejected 3rd Bid (+Kahului): $155 Rejected Round 3: 1st Bid (Kaanapli-Lahaina): $135 (Priceline countered with asking me to bid $160) 2nd Bid (+Kihei) : $155 Rejected 3rd Bid (+Kahului): $160 Winning Bid * From my previous experiences with Priceline (I have bid on Priceline hundreds of time – I used to do a lot of consulting work travel) if they offer you a rebid at a higher price, you can usually win by increasing your previous bid by about 1/3 of the spread between your previous bid and what they are offering you. Of course you can’t enter that directly, you have to add an area or change a date. However, as you can see in this case, and this is the first time ever I have encountered this, they stuck to their guns at $160. ** This counter-bid surprised, offended, and scared me. Had I lost my opportunity to win at $160 or were they gaming me given my higher starting bid of $145? I decided to keep my nerve and start over again at $135 and see what happens. They came back with $160 again and so I resumed my $5 increments from the first day and we reached an agreement at $160. Thanks BetterBidding!