Priceline Hotel: 2.5* Greenville-Spartanburg (Greenville) Courtyard

[MichaelBei]

Bidding for 2.5* or higher. Rejected at $25 (received offer to rebid at $31) and $30 (add south zone), went to a different computer, changed cards (but this isn't necessarily the key, first card has been accepted before), added gsp airport zone (also acceptable) and rebid at $28, accepted. Don't know why first bid was rejected, same thing happened at Lake Lanier, GA; please see my separate post there.

Check-In Date: Thursday, July 29, 2004

Check-Out Date: Friday, July 30, 2004

Greenville

70 Orchard Park Drive

Greenville, South Carolina 29615

864-234-0300

Your Offer Price: $28.00

Number of Rooms: 1

Number of Nights: 1

Subtotal: $28.00

Taxes & Service Fees:

$9.13

Total Charges: $37.13

[thereuare]

Well it seems as if you didn't even need to change computers or credit cards since you added a new zone (just making sure that others understand that your method did conform to Priceline's guidelines).

Did you ever dispute or question a charge with Priceline with the 'problem' credit card? Could also be a problem with their system as i mentioned in your other post, but it seems to be happening too frequently to be a random glitch; although i do recall a similar situation a few weeks ago where a bid was rejected on one machine and then the traveling partner had bid on another machine and was accepted at a lower level. Inventory getting added between the two bids is also a possibility but it's happened too often to you to attribute it to that.

Do your rejections always come on the same computer? (and subsequent acceptances come on the 'other' computer)

[MichaelBei]

I don't know if the computer is it - because it doesn't always happen, and it has happened on 2 of the 4 computers I own. To get a bid accepted I do apparently have to switch computers because I still don't know what is triggering this behavior by Priceline. All of my recent bids that have been accepted have been the first bids I made that day or the first bids I made on a particular computer or computer session that day. I have bid over half the difference in counteroffers several times in recent months, not a single one of these rebids has been accepted.

I have never disputed a Priceline charge through my credit card company. I complained to Priceline only once about a hotel quality issue, and got a partial refund. I also complained once about a hotel trying to charge for early check out, and got a good Priceline response (I did not end up, however, needing to ask for any kind of refund). Dozens of other times, I have just been a happy Priceline customer. I am not happy at all about having to deal with the uncertainty of whether Priceline will accept my bid when they have inventory at my price (and having NEVER received any message from Priceline that they rejected my bid because of some problem other than lack of inventory - they always claim it is because of lack of inventory). :)

Should I offer a sacrifice to the Priceline gods? :)

[thereuare]

One other idea would be to load a different browser on your computer just for Priceline bidding. My guess is that some anti-virus program is blocking cookies or a variable that gets passed from page-to-page... if Priceline doesn't get that variable (for security reasons) they give you a rejection.

Also, you may want to go into Internet Explorer (if that's the browser you use) and allow cookies and all other such things from priceline.com (if you need help with this send me a PM)

Just some additional thoughts.