Aggressive Priceline Counter Offers

[MichaelBei]

I ran into something a couple of days that I have not experienced before in bidding on Priceline for hotel rooms in the US (have seen something similar for foreign bids).

In Las Vegas I bid for a 4 star hotel room in the Convention Center at $45, received a response that I could get a room right now for $100 (slightly different language from that normally associated with rebid offers):

During our search we found a hotel room available for $100 per room, per night. If you are willing to accept this new price, you can get your hotel room right now.

I have never gotten a counter bid offer (as opposed to this buy it now offer) with such a wide discrepancy between what I bid and what the room could be obtained at. I was only willing, however, to bid up to $62 in this zone, which I did and was unsuccessful.

After this I bid for a 3 star hotel in the same zone at $32 and got the same kind of buy it now offer for $50. I was only willing, however, to bid up to $42, and I was unsuccessful.

Have others had similar experiences for domestic hotel bidding? Is this going to replace the old Priceline counter bid offers (for which one could usually half the difference and get a hotel room)?

Parenthetically:

Later I found the 3* Orleans available with a large 2 queen bed room at $23, which I booked conventionally (yes, this is a different zone than I bid on Priceline previously, but I didn't even bother to bid on Priceline for this since it would require a bid of $14 or less to save even one dollar off of what I got at the Orleans (because if you back out the taxes you find that the minimum priceline fee for a hotel reservation is currently in excess of $8.