Priceline Hotel: using Priceline by Australians?

[nofrills9]

I am from Australia and I tried to bid for hotels in NYC with Priceline, and it required me to put in the billing address for my credit card (which is Amex) and my contact tel number. How to I do these for Priceline to accept because it seemed like Priceline only accepts US or Canada addresses and tel nos? Does anyone know any trick for this? Thanks.

[thereuare]

See this thread: Priceline Outside of US

We've moved this thread to the New York section of the board... please include the date(s) of your stay.

[nofrills9]

Thanks, thereuare. What I have done when I tried to bid for NYC and was not successful because my bids were probably too low US$190 for 3*/4* in the MTE, MTW and soho areas - I put in my real address in Australia, but for the City I put in montreal, Quebec, with the correct postcode for montreal and my sister's telephone number in montreal (as I will be there before I head over to NYC).

The dates we will be in NYC are 8th to 11th September. Have you any suggestion what price I should bid for 3* / 4* hotels for the above areas (MTE, MTW - preferred, and soho, last preference)? Many thanks.

[AaronJB]

I don't think you're too far off on bidding. Hotwire has a 3* for $249 in the Times Square area, while the 4* properties on Hotwire are generally around $275-300 or so.

I'm guessing $225 may be what's required for a 4*, while a 3* may be around the $200 mark?

[nofrills9]

Thanks, Aaron. I will try again tomorrow my time - brain is not functioning too well at this hour (bed soon).

I do have a question, though - when I was doing the bidding earlier on today (my time), Priceline would say sorry we cannot accept $... for a 4* in MTE / MTW etc, please change at least part of your bid - eg zone, star and date, or increase your bid. I did not want to include any more zone, or lower the star to below 3*, and I cannot change the dates which I want, so I decided to increase the bid, but it kept giving the same error message. Why did Priceline not consider my increase bid instead?

[AaronJB]

It sounds like you made the same bid already. If you make a specific bid (4* MTE, for example) and it is not accepted, then you cannot make that bid again for 24 hours. However, you can make a different bid (for example, 4* MTW) right away. If it's saying that you have to change part of your bid, then that means - in my experience - that you've already made that bid and that it wasn't accepted.