Strange?

[cntrfieldsmom]

For fun I punched in my small hometown to see if our Holiday Inn Express would be participating in priceline. To my surprise priceline listed a 2* and 1*. We only have one hotel. What's up?

[shammes53]

What town would that be? Are you from Minnesota by chance?

[ufjoe21]

For fun I punched in my small hometown to see if our Holiday Inn Express would be participating in priceline. To my surprise priceline listed a 2* and 1*. We only have one hotel. What's up?

you live in a small hometown...........what's the surprise about having only 1 hotel listed in a small town?

[fly_up_front]

I think what she's asking is if there is only one hotel in a zone, why are both 1* and 2 * levels listed.

One reason would be to preserve the opaqueness. If you know absolutely for certain that you will get a specific property there would be limited reasons to book through the hotel at their prevailing rate. It also presents the possibility that there's some little low quality property out there in addition to the one you know about.

PL's guarantee you'll get your requested quality level or better allows them to do this.

[blindman]

Fly_up_front has the correct answer.

PL does this in many cities though it's not usually that obvious.

Might be worth you saying which town this is and what the Holiday Inn Express is like, e.g. location satff etc.

[MichaelBei]

I stay a lot in small towns. Well over 90% of the time, I am not successful with Priceline. I have seen a number of 1 and 2 star bids reported in these towns that require bidding up to a few dollars below the hotel's published rate to be "successful"; sometimes the net rate after adding on Priceline fees is higher than what you would have otherwise paid. Since I (almost) never bid up to more than 15 or 20 dollars below the published rates (that's only about $6 to 12 dollars below published rates after you add Priceline's fee) I am rarely successful.

I suspect that inventory is often non-existent in small towns in th sense that only 1 or 2 hotels participate with Priceline and for any given night they more often than not haven't made any rooms available through Priceline. Case in point, I have tried numerous times over several years to get rooms in small towns along I-81 in Virginia, including:

Bristol - I have seen the Courtyard won by others, occasionally the LaQuinta is cheap enough for me to priceline it, although they are more sloppy here at maintenance than most LaQuintas.

Marion - always rejected quickly, never even an offer to rebid immediately

Wytheville - always rejected quickly, never even an offer to rebid immediately

Radford - always rejected quickly, never even an offer to rebid immediately (indicating inventory)

Christiansburg - always rejected quickly, never even an offer to rebid immediately

Staunton - always rejected quickly, never even an offer to rebid immediately

Harrisonburg - I have received counteroffers, the Four Points there has been won by others. Never has been cheap enough for me to take it over the Marriott Courtyard which I book myself.

New Market - always rejected quickly, never even an offer to rebid immediately

Woodstock - always rejected quickly, never even an offer to rebid immediately

So, almost all of the time, I don't use Priceline when traveling in this area (Roanoke has Priceline hotels, but the locations are not good for me - not close enough to I-81). Same is true for most other smaller towns I stay in.

Priceline, does not, in my opinion let you know when they have no hotels offering rooms at discounted rates for the specific night you are bidding, they only grey out a town / zone for you when there are currently no hotels participating at any level (at least that's my story and I am sticking to it).

[cntrfieldsmom]

Thanks for the explanations!