hohogap

That has happened sporadically with me, too, but if you just close the browser and start again it often works just fine for me on the 2nd (or 3rd) try.

Agreed. You are just paying for the rental of the EZPass unit, and although you might save a bit on the actual toll charges when using the EZPass versus the cash charge, I can't see it saving you any real money unless you are driving a lot of toll roads and through a lot of toll booths at rush hour. Then you can add in the worth of the time for stopping and paying individual tolls.

Great win. I tried the same dates and star rating last week and got nothing up to $65. Inventory changes quickly I see!

Yes, PRICELINE is now sporadically showing "certain limited" ammenities on the name you own price page. Often, they are limited to "pet friendly" and "swimming pool," for example, with a customer rating (hard to decipher that one). Helps if you can limit your hotel based on allowing pets. Interesting development and I'm hoping it will provide some additional infromation about opaque hotels. We'll see.

I was successful last spring on a 4* which was the Westin in the DTW airport. If you like to be close and inside the airport, it's a great bid, even if it costs a bit more. Gary

We have been unable to get any "fair price" for flights to Germany in February on Delta, so my wife has decided we're going somewhere warm instead. Still considering Santa Rosa per my prior threads, but now expanding to EYW or even the Yucatan if prices can be competitive. Thanks for your efforts on assisting us on this thread and will post what we do for our alternative plans and we always use the site's PRICELINE link or HOTWIRE link (or support page links) for all of our bidding, searches and wins!

Decided to give it a go at higher bids given there were four 3 1/2* re-bid zones in the Fulton/Gwinnett, GA PL zone. Confirmed that the Embassy Suites is in the Alpharetta zone by comparing the maps on the Hilton web site and the PL zone map (which is my target hotel, although not listed on the Boards PL hotels won previously) . Re-bid at $83/night, $85/night, $88/night and finally at $90/night before running out of re-bid zones. My offer was rejected each time. On three of the re-bids I received the same offer from PL, i.e. there was a hotel that was willing to accept a $106/night bid. As I'm willing to drop down in star quality to the Doubletree at $101 night on the Hilton web site, not sure if going higher on the bids is worth it. Would appreciate anyone's input/thoughts on the identity of the 3 1/2* hotel in the Alpharetta (not Alpharetta South) zone. And, as always, I use the BB Board's PRICELINE link and support page link for all of my bidding, searches and wins! Thanks!

Need a hotel near Alpharetta, Georgia for this date and bid PL (through the PRICELINE link on the Board) for a 3 1/2* hotel in the Alpharetta area (in the Fulton/Gwinnett zone on PL). Bid $80 and received a counter-offer for $106. Before re-bidding, I'd like to try and identify the hotel, as there are no currently-listed 3 1/2* PL hotels on the BB hotel list for this specific sub-zone. Hotel had a 9+ guest review score shown on the new part of the PL site that shows some ammenities before naming your own price. Additional ammenities were listed as follows: Swimming pool, restaurant, fitness center, free parking, free internet, business center. Appreciate any thoughts on the identity of the hotel.

I followed your advice and went up to $65 with no luck for this date using the Board's PRICELINE link all the way through! I decided to book directly with Hilton (through the BB Support Page link for Hilton) and booked the Hilton ATL for $89 direct. My Gold HHonors card gives me free internet, parking, possible upgrades when booking direct, which saves almost $30 for the night if booking through PL. Thanks for your help and strategy suggestions!

Great, thanks, I'll keep you posted. And I did not see your comment on PL showing "ammenities" when bidding "name your own price" hotels. If you could forward those to me, that would be great.

i"m interested, too. We've been setting our sights on Cali, but flights have been getting crazy and we have a 2 for 1 on Delta that could save us $$ if we hit EYW from FNT.

Thanks for the link. My maximum bid is $65 for a 4* as I can directly book the Hilton ATL for $87 and get all of my HHonors GOLD benefits. Thanks for any help you can provide. And did you get my screen shot of the PL ammenities when doing a name your own price bid?

The Board lists several LAX hotel wins on Priceline in the next couple of weeks. When do you plan to go and what are your star quality ratings for the hotels you will be bidding on?

Need this Friday night hotel near the airport for an early morning flight back to DTW/FNT on Saturday morning. I've been trying to locate the PL win board, but when I key in the relevant data in the upper right hand corner box, asking for PL wins, then clicking on Georgia, it just sends me to the PL Pinned Hotel List and a summary of all of the posts, without listing the wins by date and area. Am I missing something? Thanks for your help, and all searches, bids and wins are done through the BB Board PRICELINE link or HOTWIRE link!

Thanks for your great advice, the hotel will work great at this rate and keeps me from spending hours bidding on these dates to get the best prices!

Tried $49/day again (including $6/day bonus cash, bid was only $43/day) and Priceline accepted the bid for a standard SUV at Alamo in DEN, 2/29/12 - 3/4/12. Thanks for your great advice! Here's the trip summary: Offer Price Summary Bonus Cash Per Day: $6.00 (per day) Your Offer Price Per Day: $43.00 (per day) Total Offer Price with Bonus: $49.00 (per day) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Charges to Your Credit Card Your Offer Price: $43.00 (per day) Total Rental Days: 4 days(3 days and 20 1/2 hours) Subtotal: $172.00 Taxes and Fees: $80.04 Total Charges: $252.04 Lowest Published Price: $917.01 Total Savings:* $664.97 (You saved 73%) And, as always, this successful bid, and ALL my searches and bids, are made through the BB web site PRICELINE link or HOTWIRE link!

I had the same experience, but the rate was through Enterprise, which wasn't a listed "name your own price" car rental company on PL.

Thanks. I had read that link prior to posting, but it still seems really odd that a 5th request for an "on request" room for the same nights at the same hotel would be successful after the prior 4 were denied. I guess this really confirms that hotel inventory changes quickly, and when you get a great deal, pounce on it as you never know what might happen in the future! Thanks for all of your efforts and the great upgrade of the Board's web site.

I've bid through the links on this Board and LMT often provides an altenative booking source that has come up with great hotels in certain situations (Hiltons, particularly seem to sometimes be far less than on other sites). Anyway, I bid an "on request" room for New Orleans in January, and the rate of $62.52/night for 2 nights was great. It was "on request," which gives LMT about 24 hours to try and confirm availability at your price. It was denied, so I re-bid using a different bedding option, still denied. I wrote LMT to complain that they should take down the "on request" hotel as it was clearly not available. Their response was that inventory changes and "on request" might be "available" in the future. So, enjoying the thrill of the bid, I repeated my prior process, and instead of getting a denied, the response was "Hotel Sold Out for your dates." Fine, not a problem, until I was goofing around a week later and re-bid AGAIN, just to re-write LMT and complain about keeping such a low cost/high star hotel on their board. Surprisingly, I recieved a CONFIRMED response and we're booked! What is anyone else's experience in this regard? I was totally flabbergasted, but happy. The only downside is I have 4 tentative bookings on my credit card at $152.56 each as "holds" and LMT says they won't delete them affirmatively, just wait for them to drop off in the course of business (which could be 30 days). Best available rate on Hilton web site was $239.00/night. Thanks for any comments!

Is this a HOTWIRE link bid through this Board? If so, the Board has hotel listings of all wins reported to the Board for both Priceline and Hotwire. You can access this page through the "I want to see" link at the top of the page and then clicking in "location" and selecting "Other Countries." Then you can see if anything has been reported to the Board for your location and star rating and try to match the ammenities up (no guarantees of course). I did a quick check, and saw only 5* properties reported for Budapest, but the Moderators will be able to help you try and identify the hotel through their resources and are much better at identifying whether other reports might exist. Good luck!

The BetterBidding Board provides a link for Hotwire and Priceline wins reported to the Board by its members that you can access to search for similar dates and hotel star qualities. In your instance, you would look under "Other Countries - Priceline (or Hotwire)." There are no Singapore wins reported for Christmas time this year, but the moderators should be able to help you with the best bidding strategy if you can provide them with the dates of your travel, star rating you seek, and the best retail rate you have been able to find in your search for a hotel during this time period. Good luck!

Rather strange result for this bidding protocol. LMT had listed the 4 1/2* Hilton Riverside New Orleans as "on request" for $62.52/night when I first started bidding for this 2 night stay (with taxes and fees of $27.51) for a total bid of $152.56. After bidding, and being denied 24 hours later, I re-bid using the different bedding option, just in case. Still denied. I wrote LMT and asked how they could continue to list the Hilton at such a great price when they KNEW that the "on request" was denied and the option was no longer available. Their response was that on request could change at any time, so they keep it up, which led me to re-bid at the same rate twice again, using both bedding options. This time it wasn't just "denied," but the response was "Hilton Sold Out for your dates." Fine, the rate was almost too good to be true anyway. So I was goofing around and continuing my searches through the BB links on this Board, and decided to give it another go earlier this week just to see what LMT had listed currently for my dates. Hilton still showed up, and for a goof, I bid it AGAIN just to write LMT and try to figure out what the heck was going on. Today, recieved a "CONFIRMED" email with voucher for the 4 1/2* Hilton Riverside for my dates. I thought I might've punched in the wrong dates I've been bidding on this trip for so long, but it was the correct dates. Total price for 2 nights the same at $152.56. Great price, but very odd to get accepted on my 5th try! As always, all bids, searches AND WINS are made through the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links (and other links) on the BB Board! And, with mercy, this hopefully closes this thread!

Now up to $49/day including bonus cash. Thought I had a win for a Full Size SUV, but the 15 minute wait proved no go. Will keep trying each day through the BB PRICELINE link!

$86/night on HW. Ammenities include: Fitness Center Pool(s) Restaurant(s) Laundry Facilities (self-service) High-Speed Internet Access Spa Services Doesn't match any HW hotels ammenities noted on the BB Board. Thoughts?

I'll be interested in the moderators comments. I've always thought like you that the quoted phrase is how it works. I'd like to think the money was "real," but it always seems when I try to use it the cost is always a bit higher that a straight bid.