Priceline Hotel: 4* San Jose (Sunnyvale - Santa Clara) Hilton SC

[nvherron]

Bidding Strategy...

4-Star Santa Clara $39 - Rejected

4-Star Santa Clara & San Jose $45 - Rejected (Counter-Offer for $11 more)

4-Star Santa Clara & Palo Alto $46 - Accepted

I realize that I wasn't using free re-bids, and that was fine by me. Any of these 3 cities were acceptable for this itinerary. I was going to use free re-bids in $1 increments, as necessary, from here to keep my winning bid as low as possible after I got the counter-offer. Besides, I knew there was no way in the world that the Westin in Palo Alto was going to come in that low. And if it did, then great!!! That would have been preferred any way.

The only thing confusing to me is that another poster got this same hotel for the same night for only $45?!?! :) I wasn't surprised that I couldn't win with same exact bid, but was surprised to get it for only $1 more. Seems weird that a hotel would raise it's Priceline rate by only $1. Makes me think this has something to do with Priceline's bidding strategies. Oh well. I'll gladly pay $1 more. Most excellent deal.

[thereuare]

Hotels can have multiple rates loaded into the system at once. It's very possible that they'll release 'x' number of rooms at $45, and then have others at $46. Rates may have also gone from $45, to $55, then back down to $46.

Or it could have to do with the recent postings we've seen about bids being accepted after the same bids being rejected immediately prior (ie- a 4* bid rejected at $200, but a 3* bid at $150 getting accepted minutes later and upgraded to the 4* level). I think there may be back-end issues at work here, as it is happening too frequently lately to be attirbutable to 'rates changed' during the bidding process. Lots of possibilities, i'm sure time will tell.

Thanks for the report and enjoy your stay.