Priceline: Tax rates and room rates

[WillTravel]

For starters, refer to this topic:

http://www.betterbidding.com/?act=ST&f=173&t=103&

It gets more complicated if you have more than one night's stay. Some hotels charge the same Priceline rate every night, while others have multiple rates for different nights (and I've read some even have multiple rates for the same night). So the best you can do is determine the average rate that Priceline paid for the room over the course of your stay. Apparently Priceline demands you bid to at least the maximum Priceline room rate over the course of your stay. (E.g. if one night has a Priceline rate of $40, and the other nights have $30 - you have to bid $40 for the whole stay.)

That's why people sometimes suggest splitting up your stay if you can't get a reasonable bid accepted for the whole period.

I'm also trying to determine is if tax rates for one-night stays usually indicate that Priceline paid a whole-dollar amount for the room. My anecdotal experience and reading says yes - except for foreign currency cases. What is your experience?

Then there are cases like this bid:

http://www.betterbidding.com/?act=ST&f=155&t=547&

The hotel told me the tax rate is 15.8%. This would indicate an average rate of $27/night, but I won with $26!

This bid has something similar, as the tax rate charged should be 10%, indicating I again underbid.

However, it's possible foreign exchange affected the result:

http://www.betterbidding.com/?act=ST&f=166&t=548&

Please indicate your experiences of any anomalies in taxes, any indication of whether Priceline has fractional-dollar rates per room, etc. It's also possible Priceline just plain calculates wrong sometimes.

[WillTravel]

All the above is now invalid and redundant since Priceline has changed their tax and service fee charge scheme.