Priceline Hotel: Amsterdam bids failed BUT here's a lowdown!

[Dolphin]

Bid on Amsterdam hotels in the city centre, something weird going on at the end of June - didn't get anything but can now give you the price you can definitely get certain star levels for (so bid a bit lower!)

5* only - bid $141 - rejected

4* bid $137 and received +$22 offer

4* bid $141 on a different day and received $169 offer

3* bid $93 and received an offer of $143

[AaronJB]

Thanks for detailing your bidding strategy, hopefully you will be successful and get a good deal shortly. :)

Please use the site's PRICELINE link to start your bidding.

[BacSi]

Thanks for detailing your bidding strategy, hopefully you will be successful and get a good deal shortly. :)

Please use the site's PRICELINE link to start your bidding.

Now this may be a really stupid question. But this bid is so much higher than any winning bid I have seen for 2009. And by a lot. Is there any chance the rejection (or very high counter offer) came because it was such a high inital bid? Is that possible at all?

I did read the thread on how the hotels may set their various rates for winning bids they would accept thru PL. Not that I understand it at all.

I wonder what would happen if the OP bid say $75-80 for a 5?

I have read all the posted winning bids for 2009 both here, bidding4, and trip advisor for AMS in 2009. I have seen dates that are close where folks got the hotel for 1/2 of what the OP bid. But none on those exact dates.

[Romelle]

The amount that will win a bid varies by date. A LOT. Munich hotels are out of sight during OctoberFest. Frankfurt hotels are out of sight whenever there are major fairs at the exhibition halls. I don't know examples of Amsterdam events, but the same logic applies.

Bids in dollars for the exact same foreign city and date will win at different levels when there are shifts in the dollar and euro/pound/yen/?.

What will win will change when a lower price hotel fills up, and bidders are left with only availability in more expensive places (still same star level).

Last minute bids might work at levels much lower than earlier bids if a hotel decides to jump in an offer unsold inventory a few days before the actual date.

So -

First - I don't think you need to worry about how hotels set their rates. It is confidential to the hotel and Priceline. There is theory here, and probably reasonably well-founded theory, but one really doesn't need to understand it in order to bid. Your brain power is best spent investigating current rates for your dates and working out a bidding strategy.

There are various ways to get an idea of what might work when bidding.

You get a pretty good clue when someone has won for your exact same dates, zone and city. BUT - that person may have gotten the last of that hotel's rooms, and you have to go higher to win at a more expensive hotel. OR - it is even possible when bidding closer to your date to find a better deal (New York seems to only put out the good stuff at the last minute.)

Close dates might give you a general idea, but major events throw that off.

Hotwire is a good easy check. One usually can do better via bidding on PL. I've seen quite a few different estimates on the variance, but they seem to center around 5 to 10%. There are even rare reported incidences of people paying more via Priceline than via Hotwire. There is of course the problem that Hotwire ratings are probably more generous than Priceline ratings, by maybe a 1/2 star.

Looking up actual hotel rates from their web sites (rack rates) is always informative, and should be done as a matter of course before bidding. Sometimes hotels have web specials that are lower than the rates at which bids will win. Las Vegas is a good example of the possibility of this. You can also spot the extra high$ "event" days. Usually though, one can think about bidding at maybe 1/2 the hotel's rack rates.

Looking up rates via Expedia is handy as they show you a range of dates for up to two weeks.

To answer you question about what would happen if the OP bid $75-$80 for the 5*, the most probable thing is the bid would simply be rejected since it has already been established that $141 won't win. The one exception to that is if a new hotel had just added some very inexpensive rooms to the Priceline inventory after the rejection of the $141. Unlikely, but I had to note the theoretical possibility.

Summer in Amsterdam just tends to be really expensive, and events can make it even more expensive.

So - long answer, as you really had more questions buried there, and they were complex, not stupid.

It would take a monumental computer glitch for Priceline to reject a bid just because it was too high. 99.99999etc. sure that was not what happened.

On another post, I just saw somebody patting him/herself on the back for continuing to win at X-dollars. What the poster didn't recognize was that hotels are in so much trouble right now that I am reasonably sure a bid of 20% less would have won. Priceline had no trouble accepting this too-high bid.

Romelle

The presence of the counter-offer is a for sure indication that Priceline has something. The trick is to find out where it is. All one knows is something will work between the last bid and the counter.

[BacSi]

"Summer in Amsterdam just tends to be really expensive, and events can make it even more expensive."

Agreed and thanks for your very informative answer. And for not calling me stupid : )

But they are tracking all priceline bids for Amsterdam over on TripAdvisor (and refering folks here for assistance and to bid) And nothing during the summer months as far as a winning bid is remotely close to the inital bid this OP made.

Virtually all 5 star winners for the summer are less than $100USD.

It must be an event. But what event? I am seeing good winning bids for throught out the summer including QueensDay.

Unless there is a big event I do not know about this bidding history just makes no sense based on all the other winning bids I have seen.

I will see what I can find out about any events.

[Dolphin]

Now this may be a really stupid question. But this bid is so much higher than any winning bid I have seen for 2009. And by a lot. Is there any chance the rejection (or very high counter offer) came because it was such a high inital bid? Is that possible at all?

I did read the thread on how the hotels may set their various rates for winning bids they would accept thru PL. Not that I understand it at all.

I wonder what would happen if the OP bid say $75-80 for a 5?

I have read all the posted winning bids for 2009 both here, bidding4, and trip advisor for AMS in 2009. I have seen dates that are close where folks got the hotel for 1/2 of what the OP bid. But none on those exact dates.

Now, who do you think I am? :) I started from about $70. I spared you the details of my multi-day biddings and only gave the FINAL bids... they are high and I still didn't get anything. Which means someone else may as well save themselves hassle and bid on other website. No idea what sort of special events they have in those dates, I cannot think of any apart from my birthday which is why I can't be flexible with the dates! I got a 3* hotel in the end via a different booking website, it was quite cheap.

[BacSi]

"Now, who do you think I am? "

Someone who does not post their entire bidding history ?

Now this makes more sense with a bidding history. Not a lot though. That $141 and $137 is still so much higher than anything else I have seen for the summer and even for Queensday. I will get back to you guys here once I find out what might be going on that time period.

Glad you got something.

[Romelle]

BacSi

If you are thinking of bidding, it would be good of you to start a separate thread with your specific dates, desired star level(s), zone(s), etc. That would keep it separate from Dolphin's post, and more useful to other readers.

Are your dates perhaps exactly the same as Dolphin's?

For that matter, have you started bidding yet? To confirm to yourself that a hotel can't be gotten at a lower rate, the easiest way to do that is to place a bid. Then you will know for sure. Of course, make sure you are OK with actually going ahead, because once you bid and it wins, you've bought it.

You need to take a look at the rates for YOUR DATES on a couple sites like Expedia and Hotwire. Those are real and you can really buy for them. The postings on Tripadvisor are some sub-sample of them, and ...I hate to say this but it needs brought out .... dependent on the honesty/exactness of the posters. Some people like to brag of a good deal, others might forget to mention the taxes or even type the dates wrong. Most are well-intentioned, but there are exceptions.

Romelle

And Dolphin - HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Can't think of a better place to spend it than AMS! Romelle

[BacSi]

Romelle, I am not bidding for those dates. I am though helping to track PL rates for AMS for all of 2009 at another site not named bidding4. I will be bidding later in the year for my nest trip.

My interest in this thread is only because it falls so far out of what we have been seeing for the spring and summer in AMS.

[BacSi]

Well I got the answer. There is an international medical conference that ends on July 3. That is why the OP had no luck at the lower bids.

[Romelle]

Well I got the answer. There is an international medical conference that ends on July 3. That is why the OP had no luck at the lower bids.

BacSi - another possible source of events in cities could be www.flyertalk.com - TheWorld section - and Europe within that. Amazing breadth of information on that site.

Romelle

[BacSi]

BacSi - another possible source of events in cities could be www.flyertalk.com - TheWorld section - and Europe within that. Amazing breadth of information on that site.

Romelle

Thanks.

Let me say that you guys do a wonderful job here (as you did at that other place)

We are refering folks from the Trip Advisor AMS/Forum to place their bids here.

Hopefully they will do so.

Without you guys none of this works.