Priceline Hotel: Bidding Strategy needed 5* Vienna (City Center)

[icedancer]

So the 5*'s in the city center appear to be the Bristol and Intercontinental.

Bristol is pricing out at ~$373 (Single)

Intercontinental is ~$239

Max bid is $125

Priceline is claiming that the median price for a 5* luxury hotel is $242.

Any thoughts on this one?

[thereuare]

When bidding 5* in Vienna you have two re-bid zones. If you're not familiar with re-bidding please read Priceline Re-Bidding Explained and feel free to ask questions and/or confirm your re-bid zones with the board before proceeding.

Select 5* City Center...

Bid $100, if rejected add re-bid zone1...

Bid $110, if rejected close browser and re-access priceline however you did previously.

Select 5* City Center and re-bid zone2...

Bid $120, if rejected add re-bid zone1...

Bid $125.

Your maximum bid is still 50% below the best available rate thru traditional means, so we'll see how it goes.

Any questions feel feel free to ask.

Good Luck and let us know how it goes.

[icedancer]

OK, I followed the strategy and was rejected up to $125. I'm going to try again over the next several days before raising my max bid or lowering my * rating.

FWIW, the taxes and fees seemed very high -- something on the order of 27%.

Thanks for the suggestions, as always.

[icedancer]

So I went to try again tonight, and saw that Priceline had some special deal -- the price of the Intercontinental through their regular booking engine had dropped to $188. Do you think I should take this to mean anything, as far as bidding strategy goes?

I followed the same strategy as you suggested above and was again rejected up to $125. Going back to the IC hotel's own website, the lowest available price was still about $239.

[thereuare]

Do you think I should take this to mean anything, as far as bidding strategy goes?

It could mean that the opaque rate has been lowered as well, but not as significant as if the rate on the Inter-Continental's own website went down as the hotel's own website is the best place to see the 'true' supply/demand relationship. Since you did try again and your bid was rejected, even if the opaque rate was lowered, it didn't go down enough for $125 to be accepted.

[WillTravel]

You could try for the Intercontinental Best Rate Guarantee, but of course 10% off $188 might still be more than you want to pay, even if your claim is accepted.

[icedancer]

Just to follow up, I have re-tried several times and have been unsuccessful up to $145.

[icedancer]

Another update -- I found the Hotel De France (in the Ringstrasse, and listed at 5* on Priceline and other sites) for $182 including all taxes, fees and breakfast on Otel.com. I've booked this as my backup. This equates to a maximum bid of around $135-140 + taxes and fees on Priceline, taking into account that breakfast isn't included. I may try once or twice more before the cancellation penalties kick in on the backup, but $135 doesn't seem too promising.