Priceline Hotel: Newbie Question

[ehagerty]

I have never purchased anything on Priceline. I am an annual passholder for Disney and currently hold a reservation for $139/night for 6/17-18 at the Wilderness Lodge. The AP rates weren't as good this year as prior years, so, for the first time, I am considering alternatives.

When I am on Priceline, I was able to select "Resorts" and $60/night - and it appears that it will accept (I get as far as it wanting my credit card number). If I accept this offer, will I definitely be getting one of the seven "resorts" on your list?

Also, how can I get sleeping capacity for 4? Hope to request 2 beds directly with the hotel? Reserve 2 rooms? I didn't see an option for specifying the number of people.

[ufjoe21]

Some major confusion here....

It's NOT accepting your offer, you are OFFERING a BID of $60, they NEED your credit card number to TRY to see if it IS accepted.

The list of seven resorts are what have come up in that zone in the past, it's a pretty darn good indication of what's available, but it's no guarantee. Everything is subject to change, but based on the lowest available rates for the seven resorts we know of you can have a pretty good idea of what might come up and what might not.

Priceline is for double occupancy (2 people), hotwire does offer up to quad occupancy (4 people), so priceline might not be the best choice for you, you can bid on more than 1 room yes.

[ufjoe21]

Quick advice for your newbie question, hopefully I'll explain it correctly :)

First things first............you got to www.priceline.com, select your city and state, your dates of departure and arrival, select the ZONE of the city you'd like to stay in, for Orlando there are several areas, I'll assume you want the WDW zone, carefully observe the maps and see if this is the area you want to stay in, look over the lists of hotels that have been won in this zone to be sure this is the general area you'd like to stay in. Then you select a star level, you wanted resort just so you know it's rated between a 4* and 5* hotel and usually has luxurious service and several amenities but you probably already know you want a resort, also there is typically a daily resort fee paid once you check out so buyer beware, then you can offer a bid price, if you're bidding on the WDW zone I'd personally suggest start bidding at $55, then you will need to offer lots of information, name the reservation will be under, credit card information, you can review all the peritent information including total costs including taxes,etc. Then you will submit your request, if priceline finds a hotel that accepts your offer your credit card will be charged and your hotel will be revealed. Buyer beware you can't get a refund, techincally you can try to dispute the charge through your credit card issuer but typically this doesn't work with pricline because they have it all over their website that you can't get a refund, and if you do typically you're blacklisted from using priceline ever again. So if you're willing to let them pick the hotel for you you're good to go!

Now, in all likelihood your first bid of $55 won't be accepted, so now you can re-bid, you must raise your bid price and change some detail about your trip EITHER check-in and check-out dates or add another zone to your bid

now in your case you want a resort, so if you add a zone of Orlando that DOESN'T have a resort you can add it to your bid and of course you won't get a hotel in say the West Disney area, because the West Disney area only has 2* hotels available, also you will need to raise your bid price, I'd say raise it $5 each rebid, so

bid WDW for $50

if rejected add the Downtown zone and raise to $55

if rejected add the Florida Mall zone and raise to $60

if rejected add the Kissimmee zone and raise to $65

if rejected add the Maitland-Altamonte Springs zone and raise to $70

if rejected add the Orlando Airport zone and raise to $75

if rejected add the Orlando East zone and raise to $80

if rejected add the West Disney zone and raise to $85

if rejected add the Winter Park zone and raise to $90

personally you may want to stop bidding at $80 or whatever! the point is you should at least increase your bids by a few dollars or there won't be much chance of it being accepted but since Orlando has so many zones not consisting of a resort you can afford to bid several times so you can bid in small increments with the hope of having your bid accepted at the lowest amount, if you 'run out' of these rebids then you must wait 72 hours for the same kind of bid again, but if you want to bid for say a 3* hotel that's ok and you can try a similar strategy

[dianev]

I also want to point out that especially in the Orlando area its not difficult getting a room with 2 beds. Most of the hotels have them since its a family area. We have never had a problem but again..it isnt guaranteed

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

I would star here: I'VE NEVER USED PRICELINE or HOTWIRE.

Before following the strategy mentioned above i would make sure you understand RE-BIDDING.

ufjoe21, if a re-bid zone changes between the time you post and the time the user reads it, and the user knows nothing about re-bidding, they can easily end up in a zone that they do not want.