Priceline Hotel: Help with targeted Waikiki Resort bid

[Rexbard]

My recent bid was accepted by the Sheraton Waikiki. After arrival, I may be extending my stay, and would like to try another resort. From reports here, the Sheraton is accepting bids from about $99 - 115. I've also stayed at the Hyatt Regency many times for $110. Is there a bidding strategy that will pick up another resort in the area for under $130?

[Rexbard]

I've also stayed at the Hyatt Regency many times for $110.

Correction: I won Priceline bids at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki for $121 and $130, not the $110 that I mis-remembered in the first post.

[bbbb]

Correction: I won Priceline bids at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki for $121 and $130, not the $110 that I mis-remembered in the first post.

You can't pick hotels. You are going to win what ever hotel PL has for sale at the time you bid, if you bid high enough.

[Rexbard]

You can't pick hotels. You are going to win what ever hotel PL has for sale at the time you bid, if you bid high enough.

I understand that you can't explicitly pick hotels. However, I thought I once read that as you bid higher, what you are given changes.To create a fictitional example, perhaps Sheraton Waikiki is given most of the time for bids up to $120, Hyatt Regency is given most of the time for bids between $110-$150, and Halekulani is given for bids $400+. If this were true, I could bid in the $130-150 range to try and get the Hyatt.

A better example might be in these posts, where it looks like the Outrigger Waikiki is given for mid $100 bids, whereas the Sheraton is given for low $100 bids.

I can see how it could be incredibly dangerous to rely on this, though. I'd hate to bid $350 hoping to get the Halekulani and end up with the Sharaton.

Anyway, since I couldn't find where I read this, I thought I'd ask here. Thanks for the confirmation.

[Colfax]

Pretend there are three hotels in a zone with these Priceline rates for your dates:

Sheraton $90

Hyatt $120

Omni $150

Bid $89 or less, you get nothing.

$90-$119, Sheraton.

$120-149, Hyatt.

$150+, Omni

Let's say you want the Hyatt and you're willing to pay $120 for it, even though you could win a different hotel for $90. If you knew strike prices in advance you could bid $120 and win the Hyatt at lowest possible dollar. But you don't know strike prices, which can change from day to day. If you bid $120 and the strike price is really $130 then you'll still get the Sheraton on a $30 overbid.

Bidding high doesn't guarantee you'll get the Hyatt. But bidding low guarantees you won't get the Hyatt. There's no bidding strategy that guarantees the Hyatt when you don't know the strike prices.

Priceline might also have arrangements that give certain chains or hotels a "bump" in bookings, which could override the simple scheme above. I don't know that, just speculating.