pres001

Does anyone have recent experience bidding for a car in San Francisco? I need a car for a Napa trip mid April. I've booked $140, all in for a 3 day rental that I can cancel. That's the best rate I've been able to find.

You beat me by $ 3. I got the Courtyard for $ 55. I will be there 7/27 thru 7/30. If you have any questions let me know and I will try to find out for you.

Most Philadelphia visitors find a car useless and parking charges are very high in the Center City. If you are visiting historic sites and museums you don't need a car. I won on priceline the 3* Courtyard Marriott for $55. Parking charge is $45 per night, so I won't have a car. If you drive to Philadelphia maybe you could turn in your rental car and pick up another rental when you leave town. If you do need a car try bidding in the City Line area for a 3*. That area is close to Center City with either free or low parking charges at hotels. Remember if you have a car and drive into the historic area you will pay a lot to park for a few hours. Philadelphia has good buses and trains. You can get a day pass for $ 11.

I used the link above for my successful bid on the Courtyard Marriott in downtown Philly. I had time before my trip, so I started bidding low 3 1/2* $ 40, denied. Raised to $45 denied, lowered to 3* at $45 denied. Raised to 3* $50, denied. Finally accepted 3* at $ 55. I am happy.

Well, I think I finally have a final, final decision. I don't know if I thoroughly explained my situation on previous posts. I am flying into Tampa alone tomorrow and 3 people are flying in on Sunday to meet me. Then we leave on a cruise Monday. So, I looked at Hotwire today and compact car rates came down to $13 per day. Full size are still high $49 or so. What I decided to do was rent a compact car for the first 3 days I will be there alone then rent a full size for just the last day that I will be with 3 others. I went direct to Alamo's site and got the final total of $106.62 all charges included. I even googled and found a 15% off coupon for Alamo on some website, which is included in my $106.62. This compares to $180 plus that I had with Budget for a full size for the entire 4 days. I also know from past experience that Alamo will shuttle us free from the rental car drop off to the cruise port, which will save another $25. taxi charge. With all those factors considered I am going to pass on PRICELINE and just go with the known quantity that I have.

Yeah, but on the company websites full size cars are going for $80 to $100 per day. 25% off that leaves me at $60. per day. I bid again today on PRICELINE at $26. They said no, but they could get me a car for $34. At least they just did not flat out reject.

My $25. bid was just denied. I am getting worried now. I might get stuck with my reservation of $36.

Prices may or may not change between now and May. I hate to bid that early because, of course, Priceline will charge your credit card as soon as your bid is successful. I like to wait for Priceline until I am closer to my travel date. As a back up I reserve a car at the best rate I can find on a site where I can cancel without penalty and am not charged at the time of reservation. Then I just cancel the reservation if I succeed on Priceline. As I indicated in my previous post I have a car reserved at $36 per day. I am not at all happy with that price, but for a 4 day rental I can live with it if PRICELINE does not come thru. My latest unsuccessful PRICELINE bid is $23. I will try again today at $24.

I am not sure about the ins and outs of Priceline bidding for one way rentals or non airport drop offs, but I have cruised out of Miami and I remember many of the rental car companies had downtown Miami drop offs with free shuttles to the port. I have a couple more things for you to consider, just to confuse you even more. You could look for a cheap hotel, Priceline could help you there too, near the Miami airport. That way you could either drop your car off at the airport car rental and take a taxi to the port for about $30. Or, you could look for a hotel with free parking, keep your car until the morning of your cruise and return it downtown and shuttle to the port. It does make some sense to me to break up your rental the way you are contemplating. Since you will be in Orlando for a good chunk of the time, if you can get a cheap Priceline bid for that portion of your trip you will probably be cheaper off in the long run. It seems like a real headache to me to have to drop off a car at one rental company and get to another one if you have off airport locations. I am not that familiar with MCO to know how many rental companies are on site. You could end up taking a shuttle from one rental return back to he airport to pick up another shuttle to your next rental company.

The $36 rate is before taxes. I am not happy with it, but it is much lower than I have found elsewhere including Hotwire. I was skeptical of the discount Florida car rental web site, but when I tried it they did not ask for a credit card or any info besides an e mail address. They send an e mail within 24 hours with an offer at a specific price and the name of the car rental company, in my case Budget. I then needed to send an e mail in response verifying I wanted the reservation. After that I got an e mail from Budget with a confirmation # the same as if I had rented direct from Budget. I still have not given a credit card #, so it's hardly a risk. I tried the discount Florida web site again yesterday for my dates and got a reply at $48. this time. Incidentally I am returning the car on Feb 22nd, a 4 day rental. I am now going back to PRICELINE, linking thru this site and I am now up to $ 22.

Denied again at $20.00. I will start going up $2 a day and see what happens.

I found a website, www.discountfloridacarrental.com, which has much lower than published rates for my dates. Thru that website you get a reservation that you can cancel without penalty and you are not charged anything until you pick up your car. I have a full size car reserved at $36. per day. I am not happy about that rate, but it is even lower than Hotwire rates, and as stated cancellable if I score a Priceline bid. I am going to go back and try $20. again on Priceline.

I have had success in the past bidding for cars in Tampa, TPA. So far I am up to $18.00 per day for a full size car. I need that much room as there will be 4 of us with lots of luggage. I have had no problem bidding and getting mid size or compacts in the past. Does anyone know if it is harder to win a bid on a full size? I will be traveling Feb 18th, so I still have some time. I don't think we are going at such a busy time, so I don't know what the problem is except that regular car rental rates have gone thru the roof in Florida. Priceline has saved me the last 3 times I needed a car at TPA, but I am getting a little concerned now. I should have mentioned that when I submitted my losing bids I did link to PRICELINE thru this site and will continue to do so with future bids.

Your offer price $18.00 per day Total rental days 5 days (4 days and 22 hours) subtotal: 90.00 taxes and fes 36.90 Total charges 126.90 Lowest pub price 326.53 Total savings 199.63 Published prices seemed really high. Best price I found with a discount code was $34.00 per day. I bid $15. for a midsize about a week a go and was rejected. Changed bid to compact for $15. rejected again. I waited until today 10/27 and bid $18 for a mid size and the bid was accepted. I got a good deal thru Priceline on my last trip to Tampa also. And, I really like Alamo in Tampa.

I use Trip Advisor (TA) quite a lot. I would never rely solely on TA propularity ratings of hotels. For one thing TA lumps all hotels from budget to luxury in one category and reviews, as always, are very subjective. If you want to use TA as a source for info on hotels I suggest you go to the TA site and read the actual reviews. You might find that a high or low score is based on some factor that is not even important to you. Of course if a hotel is TA rated # 5 out of 100 you might pick that one over a hotel that is rated 95 out of 100, but I honestly mostly ignore TA hotel ratings even though I use the site often for trip planning.

My bid of $40 was accepted by the Homestead Studio Suites in Clearwater/ ST. Pete. for 3-31 thru 4-6-09. I had been playing with bids in the $25 to $35 range for the last couple of weeks, but could not get anything accepted for my dates below $40. I had booked a reservation with the same hotel (on the hotel website) for $54.95, which I have now cancelled. Yes, I linked to PRICELINE from this site.

Since I have a reservation locked in at $54 I am not overly concerned about missing out on a Priceline bid. It would be nice to save a few bucks, but this time it is not going to make or break my trip. I will be patient and report back to let you know how I do.

Thanks, I have a few weeks to go, so I am trying to be patient, and I have a room that I can cancel reserved as a back up.

I am inexperienced with PRICELINE bidding and stil trying to figure it out. I started Priceline bidding on a 3* hotel in Clearwater, Fl. for 3-31 thru 4-06. I started really low at $25.00, not expecting success. I received a message (in red) that said something to the effect that my bid has a low chance of acceptance. I submitted the bid anyway and was rejected. Playing with it I raised the bid to 30 and was again rejected. I raised to 35 and then 40 getting the same message, but I never submitted those bids. When I raised my bid to 45 the message went away. I did not submit the bid. Is that message an accurate reflection of what I can expect to pay? That seems too easy. They don't really tell you exactly what you have to bid to get accepted do they? Do bids often get accepted even when they are below the suggested bid price? I have reviewed this web site and kind of understand changing bids to add areas, etc., but I did not read anything about this message that appears during the bidding process.

Forgot to mention that I did use the link to PRICELINE and will do so again when I book my hotel.

Hi folks, I am new here, so pardon me if I am posting in the wrong place. I need a rental car in Tampa and found published rates crazy high (380.00 per week for a compact) for Mar 31st thru April 6th. I went to Priceline and just booked for $141.15, including taxes for 6 days, or $17.00 per day before taxes. My first bid was accepted, so I guess I should have bid lower. National accepted my bid. I looked at Hotwire and they wanted $180.00 before taxes. I wanted to share this because advertised car rental rates were soooo high.

I won a Priceline bid for a hotel in Clearwater, Fl and was prompted to take a rental car for $12.00 per day. That was cheaper than what I had reserved, so I took it. When I was reading what I bought I discovered the car was to be picked up at Clearwater ST. Petersburg airport, PIE. I am flying into Tampa International, TPA. I called Priceline customer service and they were willing to cancel my bid for $12.00, the cost of one day's rental. I am a novice Priceline user, obviously. I just wanted to share my experience with others and promise to be more careful in the future. I am extremely happy with my accepted hotel bid.

I got a $40.00 bid Priceline accepted for the Radisson Clearwater Central 1-15-08 to 1-22-08. I started at $30.00 for a 2*, central St. Pete and Clearwater, rejected. Raised to $32.00 and added St Pete Beach, rejected. Raised to $35.00 added Clearwater Beach, rejected. Raised to $40.00 added Bellair Beach, bid accepted as listed above. Expedia rate for my nights is $107.00. Best previous rate I could find anywhere was for a 1* Days Inn at $53.00 per night.

Bids of $70, 80 and 90 were rejected. $100.00 bid was succesful for Oct 18th - 21st. Sheraton Philadelphia City Center $100.00 per nite 300.00 subtotal 53.22 taxes and service fees 353.22 total charges

Now I am more confused about the tactic of adding a zone I don't want in order to rebid. I thought the theory is to add a zone that does not include hotels in the catagory requested. How can I guarantee that if they are always adding hotels, etc? Could I not get stung by a new addition in an area I don;t want?