Priceline Hotel: 4* Dominican Republic (Santo Domingo) Hilton Santo Domingo

[westcan]

I received a 24 hour coupon of $7.00 discount which could be used for 10 nights.

I bid $45 (so total $52) for a 4* hotel in Santo Domingo for Feb 8-10 2013. Did not win.

Now I was locked out for 24 hours so my coupon would have expired so needed to change some of my hotel details. I really needed to stay in Santo Domingo so was unwilling to add in a new area in case I actually won a 4* hotel somewhere else, and I do not trust the 3*-3.5* hotels in Santo Domingo so I did not want to change the * level. I could change my dates though because I remembered that PRICELINE always seems to offer to extend your stay after you win a bid. So I changed my dates to Feb 8-9, hoping to win with the coupon and then extend the date.

I did that and bid $50 (so total $57) and won the Hilton Santo Domingo for the Friday night Feb 8. Sure enough PRICELINE came back and offered to extend my stay.

***BUT - my assumption was wrong that they were simply offering to extend my room for the same price***

I clicked yes I wanted to extend my stay, and they offer either to 1) check in at some date earier, or 2) check out at some date later.

I chose 2) and put in the date of Feb 10 to check out (so one more night). Priceline then said they would check - and came back to me saying that there was no room at that price but they made me one of their offers at $62. I took the offer.

so it appears that this "offer to extend" is really just another bid on a room, and it is not guaranteed that the offer to extend will allow you to extend your stay at the same price as your winning bid.

So Bidder Beware!

The damage:

Feb 8-9, $50 ($57 with coupon) + $22.87 taxes(on $57) = $72.87

Feb 9-10, $62 + $24.30 taxes = $86.3

Total for 2 nights = $159.17

PRICELINE also has a new feature called PRICELINE EXPRESS Deal and was offering the two nights including taxes for $178.64 for a 4* hotel, but did not say which hotel. Looks very similar to a HOTWIRE type bid.

Priceline's retail price for the Hilton on those two nights would have been $109/night + tax, or for the Centenario V, $85/night + tax

Used the PRICELINE link on this site for all my research.

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your success!

so it appears that this "offer to extend" is really just another bid on a room, and it is not guaranteed that the offer to extend will allow you to extend your stay at the same price as your winning bid.

Correct. Rates are date specific, and PRICELINE doesn't know if you'll try to extend nites to the beginning or the end of your stay, and for multi-nite stays if you'll try to add just one additional nite or multiple nites, so availability is not guaranteed until you try to extend and it's confirmed by PRICELINE. The advantage of extending your bid, and how it differs from simply just placing an entirely new bid on your own, is that you're only bidding for the same hotel as your previous win, so no risk in having to change hotels mid-stay.

While not at the same price, glad to see that you were able to extend the stay for not much more money and won't need to change hotels.

Thank you for sharing your win and using the PRICELINE links on the board to begin your bidding.

Enjoy your stay.

[westcan]

The advantage of extending your bid, and how it differs from simply just placing an entirely new bid on your own, is that you're only bidding for the same hotel as your previous win, so no risk in having to change hotels mid-stay.

Very true, I hadn't thought of that