Priceline Hotel: Tweak my bidding strategy please...

[kathylu]

I am helping a friend place his first PL bid (how exciting!). He wants a 5* hotel in Hamburg, Germany for 3/10/06 to 3/12/06. The only catch is that he needs three rooms. After researching here, it appears that there have been recent winning bids in the $85-90 range. He bid tonight at $90 and was not successful. He wants to know if he should raise his bid price on the next try. My feeling is no...I think the reason he didn't get it is because this is still almost seven weeks before his trip. My guess is that the inventory is not there so far in advance. I think he needs to stick to his price and just try again every 72 hours...do you agree? Or would you suggest another strategy? He does have a cancellable back-up reservation, just in case the PL gods are not smiling on him. Thanks.

[thereuare]

Raise bid amount or lower star rating.

[blindman]

1 Check out the rates on the Hotel web-site to see if the $90 Pl bid is realistic

2 If possible check what rates the hotel was when $90 bids were winning.

3 Check on Hotwire to see if the hotels comes up on there and at what price.

4 Decide on the Maximum bid he'll ever make and never go above it.

5 Be patient :)