Priceline Question: How does "See available prices and choose your exact hotel" affect bidding?
 

Hi, I blogged about it here, but of course, no one reads it, so I need to ask someone on this forum.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z1214211B

Does anyone know what that Priceline feature really do? In my case, a hotel can be had in Westminster for $112, so does this mean that if I bid in Westminster for $112, I'll get it?

How does that list correlate with inventory and bidding prices?

I may end up not using Priceline, but I want to understand this website for the future.

Thanks.

I find it interesting that in this section PL doesn't segregate the Mayfair/SoHo hotels -- they're lumped with Bloombsury, etc.

It's all very curious.

I don't know, and I have neer used priceline for Europe - - though I use it more and more for the US - - but just wanted to comment, that for any priceline "strategy" question, you are probably going to get better answers on www.biddingfortravel.com

I take everything they say there as gospel, and it seems to me that it never fails me!

Best wishes,

Rex

Hmmm...see if there's any info at biddingfortravel.com.

Have you looked at that same section for the US (assuming one exists)?

Basically the question is this. You look at that section in PL, and it says hotel XYZ is available in zone ABC (a zone you're interested at your star level).

It tells you ABC can be had for $E.

So it seems like you can bid below $E. If you bid $E, you should get ABC (or equivalent).

I wonder if this simple-minded explanation is really true.

So I guess it's a general question -- could apply to US or Europe.

I could ask for BFT, but it seems to be more a forum for posting questions on specific bids.

I've a specific question, but I'm not necessarily going to bid.

And I really dislike doing the research, frankly (that they want to see rack rates for all the hotels on the list, etc.).

I'm lazy. :-)

I've two comments on the blog that there's not much of a correlation.

Maybe if I've time to kill tomorrow, I'll bid on PL and we can have a little experimental data, but I'm leaning towards a non PL hotel at the moment.