Priceline Hotel: 3.5* Madison (Downtown) Hilton Madison Monona Terrace

oldmanbob · May 20, 2012

Summary: $55 per night for three nights = $165, then add in taxes and fees of $33.06, = total cost of $198.06. Most online hotel sites had rates of a minimum of $100 to $168 per night, so my savings was acceptable. One Note: This property DOES have a mandatory parking fee of $13 per day. This raised my overall total cost to $237.06. I was aware of the parking fee from my research prior to bidding and it was an acceptable cost I was willing to incur if I won this hotel.

Madison had two zones that were acceptable: Madison downtown and Madison East. I preferred Madison East. My bidding approach took me over mumerous days using the

permutation approach. I stuck with my desire to have at least a three star hotel.

Having two accepable zones that both had at least a 3 star (or higher) and two other rebid zomes that only had 2 1/2 star or lower, the permutation approach alloted a total of 1 original bid and 11 rebids each evening. This approach took me quite a few days as I did not want to raise my bid. I started with a low bid of $37 and raised by $2 each bid. Using this approach required having to come back to better bidding about 5 times each evening to relaunch Priceline to clear out a previous selected zone. I have learned that re-launching is the only way to get the full 12 bids possible. My bids started at $37 and ended at $59

Yes it took a lot of time, but I had made a spreadsheet that identifed each zone to select for each bid as well as kept track of the bid entered and time entered. many would say (my wife) it is silly to go to such lengths, but it was more a game and an ego trip... I wanted to beat it!

I kept rebidding the same amount each day... never rasing my final bid any higher than originally bid on day 1. The 3rd night my bid was accepted by the 3.5 star Hilton in downtown Madison. My successful bid ended up $3 per night lower than my highest bid the previous two nights. I actually find that getting a winning bid is 2nd to the enjoyment in the actual process. It is the thrill of the hunt I enjoy most. The only thing I was a little unhappy about, was two days after winning my bid Priceline had a face book event where liking them gace an extra $7 per evening bonus for hotel bids and it was a few days too late for me.

I was able to get 12 bids a day because there were four total zones I could use and two of them were acceptable .

Zone A = my first choice zone: Zone D was my second choice zone. Zones B & C were two zones that alloted for free rebidding because they only had 2.5 stars properties. I alos learned to check the star rating on Priceline between each and every bid! One nevre kn ows when the Priceline computers will add or change the start rating ion any of its zones. I would hate for that to happen in the midddle of my boidding process, so I recehceck every zone I am bidding between each rebid.

Order of my bidding is as follows:

Zone A was mymost preferred zone, Zone D was a 2nd "Ok" zone I could be happy with. Both had at least a 3 start hotel. Zones C & D were justfree rebid zones becaause they only had 2.5 stars.

bid 1 A

bid 2 AB