Bidding on Airfare to Hawaii

[Counselor4444]

I'm a newbie for priceline "name your own price" bidding. I already posted my questions in the hawaii forum for hotel questions... now i am also considering bidding on airfare.

I have set dates when I want to go, but don't necessarily care the time of day that I go that day.

According to priceline's website, non-stop flights are looked at first by priceline and if none of those are available, i could get flights with up to 1 stop.

My first question is: because there is 1 stop I could theoretically end up with a 15 hr stop over right? That's what makes me a bit nervous about bidding on flights. I'm ok with a 1-4 hr stop over, but not more then that. How risky is it that I may get an insanely long stop over?

My second question is: how do I figure out how much to start my bidding at? I'm looking to go from EWR to HNL from 8/26-9/4 Over the last few weeks I've seen flights range in price from $670-850. I'd like to get a flight for around $500-$550 plus taxes and fees. Am I crazy?

Anything else I should know about bidding on airfare?

Thx!

[thereuare]

If you look at this Priceline Guarantee page, the 3rd bullet point states:

If you have a connection, your layover time will never be longer than three hours for domestic flights.

What is the breakdown of base fare and fees/taxes?

Please use the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your travel purchases.

[Counselor4444]

I didn't see the 3 hr rule! Great! So, I'm interested in bidding on airfare. Right now, non-stop flights are $882+ taxes and fees=$955 Flights with 1 stop start at 700 +taxes and fees= 800 Although it is my understanding that these prices are going to drop in the next few days a bit. (I saw them last week for less- about $750 + taxes and fees for non-stop and about $650 + taxes and fees for 1 stop) How much are flights discounted on priceline when you name your own price?

[thereuare]

Although it is my understanding that these prices are going to drop in the next few days a bit.

Why would this be?

Airfare bidding is hit or miss... the savings can be nice, but wins are far and few between based upon the current airfare environment (capacity is down, occupied seats are up) so i wouldn't have my hopes set too high.

Following the techniques in this Airfare Re-Bidding thread you can get an almost unlimited number of re-bids... so you can start at about half of the base fare (plus fees taxes) and increase $10-$25 dollars per each re-bid.

Please use the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your travel purchases.

Let us know how it goes or if we can be of further help.

[Counselor4444]

According to fare predictor websites, (and my knowledge about prices from EWR to HNL) current airfare prices are a bit high. Just two weeks ago they were considerably less and I believe they will go down again.

I used the PRICELINE link in this forum and tried some bidding. I bid up to $538 per ticket + taxes and fees with no luck.

I'm going to wait a few days and see if the price of the air goes down and then try to bid again. I will keep this thread updated! And once I get my airfare I'll begin to bid on the hotels.

[thereuare]

Good luck and keep us updated.

[Counselor4444]

As expected airfare went down yesterday. A round trip flight with 1 stop on US Air from EWR to HNL went down to $609 + taxes and fees. I bid up to almost $500 on priceline using the better bidding link and decided that it didn't make sense to keep raising my bid when I wasn't going to save much off the published fare and I cold pick the times I wanted. So, no luck. On to bidding on hotels!

[ced]

This week we bid on tickets from LAS to LIH (Kauai, HI) using the PRICELINE link in this forum.

Before bidding we researched airline flight times and decided our plans would work with the guaranteed flight times. I think Priceline guarantees your flight will leave between 6am and 10pm with an arrival prior to 12:30am the following day.

We started bidding at $400 a ticket. Our bid was accepted for $525 roundtrip. We saved $190 per ticket, 24%.

[thereuare]

ced,

Congratulations on your win.

Can you please post the details of your purchase (including flight times, connection airports and length of layover) as a NEW TOPIC so that others will be aware of your win when searching the topic titles on the board.

Thank you for sharing your win and using the PRICELINE links on the board to begin your bidding.

Have a great trip!