Priceline Hotel: 3* Buffalo (Airport BUF) Millenium Airport Hotel

[TaxesAndFees]

I just stayed at this hotel this Sunday night 8/24. Sadly I bid $75 for this room as it was before I found this board. When I checked out, the front desk gave me a folio that showed the actual room rate as charged to Price Line as $63 with taxes of just over $8. For a total of $71. Priceline charged me $93 ( $75 bid + $18 taxes and fees).

Priceline charged me OVER $18 in taxes and fees... $10 over the actual taxes that were charged... added in to the $12 room rate profit, they made a pretty good $22 / $93 = 23% profit margin on me... quite a racket they have going on over there.

The whole thing about a grouping taxes and fees together in undisclosed amounts leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. I contacted Priceline corporate to find out what exactly my service fee total was but they say they can not tell me, because its not "in their system." I wonder if they tell the NY State dept of revenue that also...

A side note about the hotel. It looks like an old holiday inn. The hotel is not spectacular, there was one of the biggest spiders I've ever seen in the hallway of my floor, but there is a bar and the room was nicer than the rest of the place. It was worth the rate I got on priceline, but their published rate of $155/night is very questionable.

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

It appears that your 'real' complaint is that PRICELINE made too much profit from your purchase, but I don't think you have much of a basis since the total amount of your purchase, based upon your bid price, was shown to you before your purchase (and you agreed to it). Now that you learned how much they made you can't claim that the amount wasn't fair... if you bid too much it's not PRICELINE's fault.

The booking fee is based upon the bid amount, so as you bid higher and higher, the fee goes up as well. If you had bid the "exact" amount needed, PRICELINE's booking fee would would have been about $6-7 on your booking.

What was the price of the hotel for the nite your purchased if you booked directly thru their website?

Please use these PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links to begin your travel purchases.

[TaxesAndFees]

Their rate was $155/night. As I said, priceline saved me some money even though the previous post and my folio seemed to indicate that I overbid.

Though I was surprised by their 20%+ profit margin, my real problem is not how much priceline profited from my purchase. . My real problem is the lack of transparency in the dealings, namely that priceline could not and would not tell me how what the "service fee" was to use their service.

It was the first time I successfully used priceline, I did not know how any of this worked. If what you say is right then the actual taxes of $8 plus their service fee of $6-7 adds up to $14 or $15... they charged me $18. So they over charged me $3. I've reread their FAQ's etc. The only one that ever mentions over estimating taxes and keeping that over estimation as a profit is the very last link you can click about taxes and fees before you purchase. ANY other link I found about taxes and fees did not explain that they would be keeping any payment made over the real tax as profit, except for that one.

When I called Priceline and asked them to tell me what their service fee was for my purchase, they wouldn't and in fact said they couldn't. It wasn't possible, "the system isn't capable". How in the world can you run a business charging a service fee and not disclose what in fact that fee is? Or have the capability to determine the fee?? That is my problem.

I paid somewhere between $0 and $18 dollars to use priceline and no one can tell me more than that.

How can I be sure that the correct taxes were paid? What if by some ripple in space-time, there were no taxes? If they are not disclosing the fee they would charge you $18 in "taxes and fees" misleading you to believe that you were in fact paying a portion of that as taxes.