Priceline Hotel: Name Your Own Price Vs. List View

[matt21]

I have a general question regarding the Name your own price option on Priceline that I can't seem to find an answer on. I am looking for a hotel in a specific area, on a specific date, but don't necessarily care which hotel. When searching my area and dates on list view, there are only a couple of hotels still available and most are 3 stars or above. If I Name my own price and choose a 3 star hotel, am I guaranteed to get one of the hotels that are still available in list view? I could live with any of the ones that are listed there, but is it possible to end up with some hotel that Priceline calls 3 stars, yet I never even knew was an option because it wasn't listed in list view anywhere?

[AaronJB]

Welcome to Betterbidding.

NYOP and the retail side of PRICELINE are different and there is the possibility that you may get a hotel on the bidding side that does not have inventory on the retail side. There are also hotels that may participate on the retail side, but not the bidding side and vice versa.

If you need assistance with your stay, please provide the complete details of your stay - thanks.

Thank you for using the board's HOTWIRE or PRICELINE links to start your purchases and searches.

[matt21]

Thanks for the info. I'm looking for a hotel in Niagara on the Lake, ON for Sept. 21st to 22nd. I looked through the posts and noticed most people were winning the White Oaks Conference center, which is what I figured since it is the cheapest of the 3 starts. Straight up price for that hotel on those days is $261 and I noticed that people were usually getting it for about half. I started my bids at $125 and finally ended at $150 with no luck. I can't imagine why I couldn't get it for that price. Hotwire doesn't even list options when I try their "secret hot rates" (which I'm guessing is the equivalent of Priceline's Name your own price). How are there hotels available during the dates I want but none seem to be coming up when trying to bid? Am I just SOL for these dates at this star rating?

Thanks.

[thereuare]

...I noticed that people were usually getting it for about half.

Are the wins that you are referring to half of rates for your dates OR half of rates for the dates that the user won for? Since we don't see that much bidding in this area i assume the wins are for previous dates for which you really don't know the pricing for the dates that the user won for... while there may be wins at (let's for example stay) $125/nite, you really don't know if hotel direct rates for those dates were $175/nite or $261/nite (unless the user mentioned in their post)

How are there hotels available during the dates I want but none seem to be coming up when trying to bid? Am I just SOL for these dates at this star rating?

Just as hotel rates are dynamic... so is the amount of discount a hotel is willing to provide. Using an extreme example:

Scenario 1:

Let's say a hotel is relative empty and has low occupancy for a given date and their hotel direct rate is there for $100. Since the hotel needs the business they may be willing to discount 50% and offer rooms thru PRICELINE / HOTWIRE at $50/nite.

Scenario 2:

Let's now assume that a different nite the hotel is very full and they only have 5 rooms left, so they offers rooms for this nite at $400/nite. Although there is much more profit in rooms for this nite, the hotel is less likely to discount as deeply as above (or offer rooms at all to the opaque suppliers) since they have very few rooms left and prefer to try to sell them on their own at full price to any customers who 1) need that specific hotel, 2) are not price sensitive, or 3) walk-in customers on the day of arrival.

So in scenario #2 above, you can see how the hotel does have rooms available, but since demand is strong, they are not willing to discount as deeply for this nite as they are during a time of more 'normal' demand.

The hotel could tomorrow receive confirmed reservations for a large block of rooms and could pull any inventory they were willing to offer a small discount on... or they could receive a cancellation of a large block of rooms and suddenly find themselves with more inventory then expected, and give the opaque suppliers inventory to sell (or discount existing inventory more aggressively). Supply/demand factors are constantly evaluated based upon new reservations/cancellations and hotel pricing, including what is offered to PRICELINE and/or HOTWIRE, is adjusted accordingly.

Hope that adds a bit more insight for you.

So with the above in mind, how high are you willing to bid at this time for a 3* hotel in this area where rates for 3* hotels are currently selling for $261?

Please use the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your travel purchases.