Priceline Hotel: Interesting bid experience Waikiki Marina

[eric3]

Really wanted the Hilton Hawaiian Village for 2/17-2/20. Had seen prices in the $130-150 range. Started at 130 but got nothing all the way to $200 over several days. This is President's week-end so I was not surprised things would be tight. Other rates I found were $239.

Once I got over $200, I started getting screens I had never seen on priceline before. They would say, can't accept $205 but we have these other deals for you and they listed a bunch of hotels in Honolulu with decent pricing. They had Hilton Hawaiian for $219 so I figured that was my top. What was weird about these screens was that it would not let me go back to name my own price like usual, even if I had rebid chances left.

I had to log out and back in with a new search to bid again. Just thought that was very strange that they were not allowing me back in to Name my Price.

Anyway, just for fun, to see what would happen and compare fees, I went ahead the next day and bid all the way up to $219 but was still rejected! So I tried to find my way back into the area with the $219 offer for HHV and when I found it, the HHV offer was now $207 including breakfast! So I took it and am happy.

Just think it is strange that they won't accept $219 with no breakfast through name your price but they are offering $207 incl Breakfast through another area of PriceLine.

Anyway, it is done so I am happy.

[AaronJB]

Glad you were able to get a nice deal w/breakfast; a hotel may offer regular rate inventory on PRICELINE but may not always choose to offer discounted inventory for the bidding side of the service - if your bids are not getting accepted when getting close to regular rates, I would not continue higher.

Thank you for using the site's HOTWIRE or PRICELINE links to start your purchases and searches.

[friend]

I think it is strange that you would even consider bidding up to $219 when you for sure would not know the hotel is the one you wanted and you knew it would probably not include breakfast. Priceline loves bidders like you, but fortunately they didn't get any NYOP inventory. You would have kicked yourself if your $219/night bid had been accepted. It would have cost a LOT more since you also have PL's fees on the NYOP bid that you don't have when booking directly.

[Sota327]

I had a similar experience looking for cars in NY over Thanksgiving (offers were made to me and Priceline was not letting me make re-bids without logging out). I think it has to do with inventory. My guess is that it is Priceline's way of saying, "don't waste your time with rebidding, we have no 'name your own price' inventory").

[eric3]

I think it is strange that you would even consider bidding up to $219 when you for sure would not know the hotel is the one you wanted and you knew it would probably not include breakfast. Priceline loves bidders like you, but fortunately they didn't get any NYOP inventory. You would have kicked yourself if your $219/night bid had been accepted. It would have cost a LOT more since you also have PL's fees on the NYOP bid that you don't have when booking directly.

You are not correct. #1 I knew there was only 1 possible hotel in my bidding zones so I didn't risk getting another one. #2 The $219 offer I saw did not include breakfast so it was no different than the NYOP. #3 The $219 offer had more than $30 in fees added on for a total of more than $249. When bidding on NYOP, the fees quoted were about $22 so even if I had paid $219 on NYOP, my total cost would have been less than taking the $219 offer.

So I never bid an amount higher than the amount I thought I could get elsewhere.

It was only the last day I bid that the $207 offer including breakfast popped up.

Thanks for your concern though.

[scottlevin]

Another issue is that if you win at a price higher than retail, PL has to give you a refund via their price guarantee.