Priceline Hotel: Experts! Best time to bid Florida at xmas?

[ausjtl]

I would appreciate any advice on the best time to bid Florida for Christmas?

[WillTravel]

My suggestion - if you are sure, sure, sure of your dates, you can start bidding any time. Just have an upper limit in mind that you'd be happy with - like maybe a bit higher than the lowest bid you can find for that area at that time. As you get closer, you can edge the price up a bit if you don't succeed. Then you have seven months to try to get this low price - and odds are you'll get the price at some point.

The main reason I wouldn't bid for something at Xmas is that I'd consider it fairly probable (like 10-15% probable) that my plans might be interrupted against my will, and I'd have slight stress for the rest of the year worrying about losing my money.

[thereuare]

Welcome to the board!

As per this thread: Should i Bid Early or Close to Arrival Date there really is no "best" time.

Best advice: once your plans are firm, start bidding.

Second best advice: book a cancellable back-up in the meantime.

[ausjtl]

Yes, thanks for your responses. I guess my bottom line here is whether a non-refundable booking with priceline so far in advance would outweigh the savings that might come by booking early. I get the feeling that it would not. I, too, would guess my cancel probability to be 10 percent. One would have, as you say, the advantage of lowballing and creeping up until accepted. I guess that leads to another question as to if priceline accepts offers based on availability only or with some degree of 'lead time until stay' mixed in. :)

[thereuare]

I guess my bottom line here is whether a non-refundable booking with priceline so far in advance would outweigh the savings that might come by booking early.

I'm not really sure if i follow, but if you're asking if a Priceline reservation would give significant savings over a 'traditional' early booking, then YES, you'd almost always be better with the Priceline reservation.

There are posts on this board in which people have already received accepted bids for early 2004 (while i have been unsuccessful, in a different zone, with my own bids for August 2003).

So just how early availability is released to Priceline is up to each hotel.

[bturner13]

Ausjtl, give us an idea where exactly in Florida and possible dates so we can take a closer look. The more details you can provide, the better!

From my experience with PL I save a minimum of 50% on hotel rooms when I book thru PL. I just booked a room at the Marriott--Orlando airport thru PL and saved a huge 76%!!! :)

[WillTravel]

I guess my bottom line here is whether a non-refundable booking with priceline so far in advance would outweigh the savings that might come by booking early.

[Scorp]

I'm not sure I fully understand the question, but I can tell you that in my experience, the deals I get through Priceline are far and above anything I could have got through any other means, including marrying/adopting and/or cloning/begging the hotel manager/owner and/or concierge/deskclerk!

And even Priceline sells trip cancellation insurance for $5 per room per night! But check out your credit card or your Automobile Association, which may offer some protection already, included in fees you ALREADY pay.

I think you have to ask yourself, what is it about this trip you are afraid of?

Is it of sudden illness or injury? If so, then trip cancellation will probably cover it for a minimum ratio of cost/security!

Is it that you just are not sure you want to go at all??? If so, is this just based upon the total cost? If so, then work out what would be the 'magic' number and just don't bid above that. You have lots of time, so you can keep trying. So, start any time, because once your goals are clearly in sight, you know what you want.

But no one can give you that magic number, because it is based on you and your dreams and desires and circumstances. :)

[TJewel]

If my dates are firm and I am sure there aren't going to be any changes I book asap. I have a vacation coming up in November and I have already booked my hotels through priceline. I guess you could say I have control issues :)

[Scorp]

If my dates are firm and I am sure there aren't going to be any changes I book asap. I have a vacation coming up in November and I have already booked my hotels through priceline. I guess you could say I have control issues :)

I don't think you have control issues, not at all! It is just a different style!

It varies for most of us, we have the trips we know we are going to take, no matter what. Then we have some discretionary ones, that are more dependent on overall cost, usually. And our careful planning usually makes sure that these are a success.

But sometimes we have room for a last-minute trip, and that may be the most delicious of all!

[WillTravel]

The factors which might affect a future booking for me are an unpredictable workload, unanticipated family situations, and the slight chance of illness. Obviously a lot of people don't have to worry about the first concern. Scorp is right about the possibility of getting travel insurance to cover illness and illness of immediate family members. (I don't think that would help, though, if the unanticipated situation preventing the trip was something like a dear friend getting ill. I admit - part of my problem here might be a pessimistic nature! :) ) But since you are the one paying, you have to be the one to decide what level of risk you are ok with.

[ausjtl]

I dont want to make this harder than it is but heres what I was thinking about: If I book a room today for dec. 26-28, 2003, and am accepted at say, $40 per night. Lets say someone else books the same hotel for the same nights on 12/15 and is given a different rate (up or down). Why is that? Is it because priceline (or the hotel) checks the room availability for those nights and they have changed?...or maybe they have changed AND they figure hey, its only 9 days away so we can better estimate if it will sell out or not so lets base our price on that.....Does anyone follow me here? Willtravel was getting the closest to my question. Thanks

[thereuare]

Prices of hotel rooms (whether thru Priceline or any other means) is based upon the supply/demand relationship, and the time remaining to sell that room.

HOWEVER, based upon this information, one would think that a hotel would take $10 for a room the nite of the stay, as they'd rather get some revenue rather than no revenue. Well, in order to 'protect' their product/brand/prices, most would rather lose the $10 sale and hold firm with their prices.

The extent that hotels are willing to discount their unused rooms (or hold their prices steady) varies from property-to-property and chain-to-chain.

The reason why Priceline and Hotwire work so well for the hotels is that they're able to get some revenue for their rooms without "cheapening" their brand name, since the room is bought without knowing the property.

Generally speaking, if you bid wisely, the savings you'll see thru Priceline will be much more significant than any other means that i'm aware of, no matter how far in advance or late you book thru conventional methods.

[WillTravel]

I dont want to make this harder than it is but heres what I was thinking about: If I book a room today for dec. 26-28, 2003, and am accepted at say, $40 per night. Lets say someone else books the same hotel for the same nights on 12/15 and is given a different rate (up or down). Why is that? Is it because priceline (or the hotel) checks the room availability for those nights and they have changed?...or maybe they have changed AND they figure hey, its only 9 days away so we can better estimate if it will sell out or not so lets base our price on that.....Does anyone follow me here? Willtravel was getting the closest to my question. Thanks

Unfortunately the answer is that there's no set formula that hotels use. (Well, quite likely some places do have a formula, but I don't think anyone has figured it out.) So - it could be that a hotel will provide the cheapest bids a long time out for guaranteed revenue - or it could be that a hotel will provide the cheapest bids at the last minute so as not to waste empty rooms - or both could be true - or neither. So even though it's sort of frustrating not being able to figure out when or if you will get the absolute best deal, you just sometimes have to be happy with a pretty good deal. (Something I keep telling myself!)

Thus, in my case, knowing there's no set pattern as to whether bidding early or late is better - I mostly prefer to bid late unless I get a really low-priced deal.

[ausjtl]

ok, thanks for the answers...they sound like good ones...