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Does Number of Nights or Rooms affect price?


chpcruzr
By chpcruzr,
in

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Does anyone know if the number of nights and/or the number of rooms (or tickets for airfare) booked affect the price? Also, If I'm staying 7 nights and 2 of those nights happen to be peak times (due to an event or something) am I better off separating out those two nights so that I don't pay the higher rate for all 7 nights? Any help on this would be much appreciated, I've long wondered about this.

Also, For airfare sometimes I book flights for myself and employees via priceline to conferences but we don't need to fly together. Am I better off bidding for two tickets or putting in two seperate bids for one ticket?

Final question - If I'm staying 7 nights in a hotel, wouldn't it make sense to bid one night first to find the lowest price (using tax calculation) then bid the other six nights using just the succesfull hotels star level and zone at the calculated lowest rate?

Thanks in advance!

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1) Should I Split My Longer Stay Bid I will add also that a few hotels (very few) require a 2 (or more) nite minimum, and therefore a 1 nite stay can get rejected while a 2 nite bid at the same price (which includes the same date of the rejection) can get accepted.

2) Don't know about airfare, but i would think it wouldn't make a difference, unless you're taking the last Priceline available seat on a given flight

3) The rate you get on the first nite may be the "peak" nite during the stay and result in an overbid for the remainder of the trip (see answer #1 above). Other things that "can go wrong" include: you getting a different hotel for the last 6 nites than the first nite and have to switch hotels during your stay, not getting your 2nd bid for 6 nites accepted due to the hotel being sold out for one or more of the 6 nites, a higher rate needed during any of the remaining 6 nites would also result in your same price bid getting rejected. Keep in mind that just as hotels have different rates for their "conventional" customers based upon occupancy levels, they also have different rates available to Priceline.

Please use this HOTWIRE and these PRICELINE LINKS: HOTELS, CAR RENTALS, and AIRFARE to begin your travel purchases

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So say that there is only one hotel in town and the date is August 1. This hotel might have Priceline rates of $60, $65, and $70. If a person bids $61, then he gets the hotel at the $60 Priceline rate and the taxes are charged accordingly, and Priceline gets the extra $1. If that person had bid $67, then he gets the hotel at the $65 Priceline rate and the taxes are charged accordingly, and Priceline gets the extra $2. And so on.

I believe that if the $60 rate is available and somebody bids $67, the extra $7 goes to Priceline and the hotel gets "their rate" for the room... i don't think the hotel's rate jumps to the next level in the event of an overbid. The rate jumps to the next level when occupancy levels begin to fill up (it's all a function of supply vs. demand)

Also, I'm not sure but it's possible that maybe a hotel would, for example, allow only 10 rooms to be sold at 60, but 20 at $65, and maybe an unlimited number at $70 (just wild guessing here).

I think you're on the money with this one, but will add that even if they only sell 4 rooms at $60 via Priceline and in the meantime sell more rooms than expected to "traditional" customers, they'll pull the additional 6 rooms available and then raise their Priceline rate to $65, as the supply vs. demand equation has tilted based upon the stronger than expected demand with the "traditional" bookings... and don't forget to factor in "time" as well, since that effects the equation as well. Lots of factors, and complex computer "modeling" programs go into hotel room pricing... which is why inventory and prices change all the time.

Please use this HOTWIRE and these PRICELINE LINKS: HOTELS, CAR RENTALS, and AIRFARE to begin your travel purchases

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Thereuare, that makes sense--thanks.

It's a moot point for me at the moment, but I was also trying to figure out a strategy for a city that has multiple acceptable zones (say London or San Francisco). Suppose you would be fine with zones B, C, and D, but you'd really prefer A (but not enough to pay more than a bit extra per night, say).

So I would start out with zone A, and increase by a bit for each zone. So say you've done 3 bids total, and are now about to add zone D. So far as I know, there's no way to make Priceline "prefer" to give you zone A if there are two hotels with the same rates (for example) in zones A and D. I don't know how Priceline selects in this case.

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