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Your Priceline "Mistakes"


lowballer
By lowballer,
in

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Who here wants to admit to making mistakes when bidding on PL and getting stuck with a hotel that wasn't within your original parameters?

This has happened to me twice in the last couple of months, so it's gotten me thinking (never a good sign, I know).

I don't mean getting an unexpected or undesirable result by otherwise following a bidding strategy well -- such as overbidding by a few bucks or shooting for 3* Hotel X but ending up with inferior 3* Hotel Y in the same zone. I mean things like adding the wrong zone (where you didn't want to stay but wasn't a free rebid) and/or overbidding by $20+ when you were in no hurry and it was safe to assume you could have gotten the "mistake" property for considerably less.

I should be more specific: Recently I was trying for a 3* in downtown San Diego and on a rebid accidentally added a suburban zone that offered 3*. Oops, I hit in the suburban zone, which (a) wasn't where I wanted to stay and (b ) probably cost $20-30 more per night than I could have paid for the same hotel.

My other mistake was for London. To make a long story short I accidentally accepted a counteroffer, paying probably $25/night too much in a zone that wasn't my first choice when I had a lot of time left.

In both cases I was just careless. I mean hey, I've done this rebidding thing hundreds of times and always check the confirmation screen, right? These weren't obvious mistakes such as an extravagant overbid caused by a typo or entering the wrong month. So I accepted them as learning experiences and never considered disputing them with PL. It's part of the risk I took. I know I goofed. I know it was my fault. I know I should slow down. :)

Neither of my mistakes ended up being too bad in the end. Both acceptances were still under published rates. The San Diego property was a solid 3* and the location turned out OK. The London hotel ended up having a nearly ideal location, just a short tube ride from where I wanted to be.

So who else wants to admit to some buyer's remorse? I want to know whether frequent PL users do this from time to time, or whether I should be straightjacketed and kept away from PL for my own good. :) In my case it could have been a lot worse; has anyone made mistakes costing several hundred dollars or had to "eat" (not use) a reservation because it was completely unacceptable?

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What I do is simply review my bid before I'm finally ready to 'buy my hotel' because people don't realize their CC will be charged instantly, so even though I can lay out my bid in 2 secs, I wait an extra 15 seconds to review my details and re-check zones even if I know the zones haven't changed for months...

you're still getting a better deal than anything else out of there even if you end up somewhere you didn't want to be, so it's not that bad

I have a priceline reservation for saturday night in Tampa, and I was looking to maybe travel early Friday night so I was trying for a 1* and had my bid laid out in seconds...but I forced myself to review the details before I actually put it through

:)

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Well, I understand your frustration, however like your boss always says on review day.. you need to strive to be more detail oriented. Double check your work, and give it to someone to QC'ed (quality control).. I am in the finance industry and if we do not double check our transactions... the client and the company could be out a lot of $$! So the motto here is "always QC your work" because once you make an error there is no reversing it...and the same goes for Priceline.

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It's only natural to make a "mistake" every so often, especially if you bid for a different city every time.

It only happened to me once, though. I was looking to stay at a 2* or better in Atlantic City on May 7-8. But, as I kept adding zones, I eventually ran out of the more desirable ones and bid for "Vineland-Millville," not realizing that these towns are about an hour away. Naturally, this was accepted at $75 (+$18.30 in fees) for a 2.5* Wingate Inn, which turned out to be about the price I'd pay for it directly.

Alternatively, I could have stayed for about as much at a hotel in Absecon, a town next to Atlantic City, or else in Vineland, but for a lot less. I was so embarrassed, I didn't even report the "win" on this board, as I always do.

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I was travelling in Europe last summer and bid for 3 nights (2 rooms) for myself and some friends in Venice at an internet cafe. I cheked my dates using the Windows calendar like I always do at home, but not realizing that in Italy their calendar starts with Monday (instead of Sunday), our reservations were for a day later than we thought.

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Was bidding for hotel in Bangkok, my aim was the Shangri La on the river. After trying for several weeks, ( every bid got rejected and even with free rebids I was just not getting it), I was getting careless I guess. So, when after a wait of a few days I went back in and got rejected again, I added Silom and did the rebidding, got rejected and then I thought "let me add Sukhumvit and increase the bid, that way I will get Shangrila". Must have been on dope that day, for what I thought absolutely made no sense whatsoever. So, I ended up with the JW Marriott paying $90 per night where I could have easily gotten it for $75.

It still was a great save, and a wonderful hotel and we loved the location and have nothing but good things to say...but I did spend the first few days chewing on my finger nails frustrated at the stupid mistake!!!

D.

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I've done it too

trying to book too many trips to too many places at the same time

this summer we are flying from gatwick in england but for some brain staggering reason i have booked two rooms at the marriott at heathrow (about 45 minutes drive away) - to make matters worse (really?) i have booked two rooms with priceline for my family - two adults and two children and then find the marriott has two double beds per room .......

my husband just laughed and said 'well at least we'll arrive at the marriott earlier the day before we travel' .. the really bad news is that we have to leave the marriott at around 5.15 am to arrive at gatwick for our check in

i should also add i have relatives in windsor (very near the marriott) where we could have stayed for free

(ho hum)

i suppose the motto really is CHECK the confirmation page - I do now! :)

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Well, after my post above..karma struck. I went to Portland Maine this past weekend and had originally booked another hotel as a back up prior to my priceline win . We had a wonderful time and stayed at the Double Tree Hotel. The priceline bid was perfect as I always double check everything prior to completing the process

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As someone who trains people for a living, I believe you have to make a mistake (or witness someone else's tragic mistake) before you learn to Double Check Your Work...

Two Summers ago, I signed on to bid 2.5 Star in Elko, Nevada (knowing only the Hilton Garden Inn would come up based on previous experiences). However, I elected to do this from work. My boss came into my office, so I minimized my IE screen. When he left, I opened a new window (for some stupid reason) and went into Priceline again and started a new bid. He then came back in again...

MINIMIZE...

After he left, I went back to the First Window I had opened...I had not selected dates on this window (the dates were correct in the other window) and proceeded on to bid. Lo and behold...I won the Hilton Garden Inn for $35. WOOHOO! Well, woohoo for about 5 seconds until I noticed that my reservation was for TONIGHT! :)

I wanted to arrive 30 days later than today! ARGH!

I called Priceline in a panic. They said they could see the other session I had open too, and could see how I could have made the error. And they agreed to cancel the original reservation for a $25 fee. They said that it was a 'One-Time Only' deal and I would not be able to cancel another reservation ever again...at least with that account :o

I had to re-bid for the actual dates, and I ended up winning, but at $55. So the room ended up really costing me $80, but hilton.com had it at $95. So I saved a couple of dollars.

This was a major lesson learned. I review everything so meticulously now. It could be very expensive and/or inconvenient to be so careless.

But I don't think I learned the entire lesson I deserved, since I'm typing this from work right now :)

Wait...here comes the BOSS! :) <minimize>

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  • 5 months later...

Long time no post!!! WEll, this summer as we were booking our massive tour of the US, one of our stops was Palm Springs. A stop between Vegas and San Diego. Did the bidding and got the hotel for something like 44 dollars a night! We were excited until we saw that we had bid on the wrong night and ended up having to bid again and get two nights in a row in Palm Springs. Lesson learned: ALWAYS double check ALL of your information before submitting!!!! Oh well.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had to go to a convention at Disneyland. Since I wasn't with my family, I couldn't justify staying at a nice place near or in Disneyland.

So I got a priceline bargain, just a "few blocks" from Disneyland.

Well, the address sounded pretty close, but no taxi drivers would take me cause it was too close. But walking was a nightmare. The blocks were endless. I was carrying suitcases, and the neighborhood quickly deterioates.

I was scared. Once I got to my room, I didn't leave till daylight.

Douglas

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  • 2 months later...

My worst one wasn't PL but it still illustrates the same point - DOUBLE CHECK!

The hubby and I were flying to Tampa from Detroit, and I'd been looking for flights all day. I couldn't find anything under about $250. I had run a search on one of the big 3 that came up bunk, so I clicked a button on the bottom that said "try your search again." It took me back to a page to enter my info. The departure date was correct, the cities were correct, everything looked good. I changed the departure city to another acceptable airport and hit search. The fare came up at $120! Naturally I was super-excited and booked it before it vanished. :)

Turns out the return date had reset itself, and the return flight left 3 hours after we arrived!!! I didn't even notice until a month or so later when I double-checked the reservation. The airline's fee to change the flight was $200 + the difference, so we ended up just booking one-way tickets home. My stupid $120 tickets ended up costing over $300.

I now check the details with OCD-like dedication.

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