Priceline Hotel: Paris 9/21-9/24/2010

[Bruce]

Started out with bids of $90 for 4* St Germain-Latin Quarter-Montparnasse trying for the Marriott Rive Gauche. Have gone up to $115. All rejected with no counter offers. What is really annoying, rarely does it allow me to add areas, but opens up the Priceline select your hotel page as an alternative. I have the Hotel Jules for $452 (including vat) for those 3 nights as a back up. Don't know if I should wait for a while or be happy with what I have (which I'm not thrilled).

Thanks for any suggestions.

Bruce

P.S. As always I used the Betterbidding/PRICELINE link for my bidding.

[lcheni]

Just wondering without any free-4*-re-bid zones, how did you rebid from $90 to $115 trying to get a hotel in the Germain-Latin Q?

[thereuare]

Rates are high for these nites, but it's still 2 months before your stay... why not continue to bid twice a week to see if you can better this deal between now and then? I assume back-up is refundable? (or it is a non-refundable rate you're considering locking in now?)

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

[Bruce]

My back up booking is refundable. I've not been adding zones, but just re-bidding every few days.

How high should I go for a 4* and any suggestions for a 3*?

[thereuare]

What is really annoying, rarely does it allow me to add areas, but opens up the Priceline select your hotel page as an alternative.

You don't have any re-bid zones when bidding 4* in Paris, are other zone(s) which are acceptable?

For instances where PRICELINE sends you to their retail offerings, it good to use the PRICELINE link on the top right corner of BetterBidding... that search box opens PRICELINE in a new window so all your search criteria stays in the search box. Then when you're sent to the 'retail' section of PRICELINE, you can simply close the current browser, click the GO button in the search box again, and the bidding page is automatically re-loaded without having to re-enter all of your dates, city, etc again.

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

[aralos1999]

I'm bidding for the week after and experienced the same response from PRICELINE, no offer to rebid but getting PRICELINE select a hotel as an alternative. I'm kind of speculating here, but it may be suggesting that PRICELINE has no inventory yet for September. I'm basing my guess on even Expedia does not have inventory yet for September, only August at the moment. Hotel website only offering rack rate, not even advanced booking rate. Going back one year ago, some of the successful bids for September are in August, so I think hotels in Paris are holding inventory until 4-6 weeks out.

I've used the PRICELINE link above to bid, but since they are all failed bids, not sure it will benefit BetterBidding?

[thereuare]

I'm kind of speculating here, but it may be suggesting that PRICELINE has no inventory yet for September.

I don't think this is the case... we've seen "re-directs" to the retail section of PRICELINE under a variety of scenarios: bidding close to dates, far away from dates, bid prices close to acceptance, bid prices far from acceptance, etc, etc.

I think they're simply trying to 'capture the sale' as the average user of their site may try bidding once or twice, and if not successful go on to purchase a hotel thru conventional booking channels (whether that be thru PRICELINE's retail offerings or thru a different website). By presenting retail offerings after a rejected bid i'd venture a guess that they convert a lot of bidders into buyers, as it's a customer who is ready to make a purchase.

[Bruce]

That obviously isn't the case - I just bid $120 and was offered to rebid at $140. I'll wait a day and try $130.

[aralos1999]

Well, I can only report what I experienced bidding for Paris 4* in late September. I've been bidding every 2nd day since mid-June and each time, I ended up in Priceline "Select A Hotel" land, and there is no way out of it. Have to wait 24 hours to rebid. I was looking for a 8 nights stay, may be the length of stay has something to do with it?