Too early to bid on Priceline for Oct?
 

I am a beginner at Priceline but after reading about the wonderful deals others were getting in London for 4 star hotels - I gave it a shot. I was offered a hotel for about $200! Now that's probably not bad for London, but it's way more than the other people who posted paid.

So I thought maybe it's early days yet?
Carol

Yup, that's too much. I got my 4* hotel in London for August at $70 a night... go lower! Those 'offers' when your bid fails? Ignore them. They are always higher than what will be accepted if you try. You have plenty of time!

Go to one of the bidding websites, like www.betterbidding.com or www.biddingfortravel.com. Do a little research on 'free re-bids' and ways to make sure you have the best price. Since you have plenty of time, you have the leisure of abandoning a bid and starting over in 3 days... with a slightly higher price.

If you're ridiculously too low (for example, there is some bottom minimum that priceline won't even process as a bid - - below $20?) thenn there never is a "too early" nor a "too late".

But if you're vaguely in the price range, then this is one of the beauties of priceline... if you're too early now (three months ahead - - and yes, it probably is too early; the hotels are not yet nervous about too many unsold rooms) - - then it will not be "too late" three days from now. Just add $5-10 (or 5-10%) and try again in three days!

Best wishes,

Rex

Do read, as GreenDragon recommends, biddingfortravel.com. Look at the reviews of potential hotels in the area you're bidding, read the bid results and when you're ready to bid, get assistance from the board. I just looked and there are a couple of Oct 4* winning bids under $70.

Hi Green Dragon, Rex, & Betty,
Yes, I have read Bidding For Travel - until my eyes crossed....
I only saw about 4 for the entire month of October in the last 3 pages, and none for the early time when I'm going. I am only interested in the Mayfair zone, as we are going to try to walk to the theatres, etc. There's almost no activity right now in the 4 star Mayfair zone.
But thanks for all the suggestions.They are good ones - and I will wait a couple of days and try again.
And I do think I"m early, Rex - so I won't have to get panicky at this point!
Carol

You could also check last year's October 4* Mayfair offerings for an idea...

Green Dragon,
I didn't think about checking for Oct a year ago. I did give it a quick look last night - but kept getting kicked off the site. Still didn't look like many in October.
Strange, we were here for two weeks about 5 years ago and the reason we came in Oct is because our hotel (The Burns) dropped to about half/price what it was in September. Maybe Oct is considered high season now in the UK? But it was chilly and some rain - not the best weather that year.
Anyway, I'll keep looking and thanks,
Carol

Carol, unless you are bidding for a long stay you should have no problem getting a Mayfair 4 star for around $100 in Oct, and it's not too early. Just keep bidding every 72 hrs.

LAWoman,
Those are encouraging words! I will keep bidding.
But that brings up some questions - I have not run across this in the bidding directions - but I skim fast and may have missed it.
How do you "abandon" a bid?
In my case, they made a counter offer of 166 pounds to my offer of 100 pounts. I didn't want it, so I added a 4* in an area that didn't have 4 * and raised my bid a bit, but still go the same offer of 166. So I was ready to leave but didn't see a place to opt out, so I just left the site. Is there a better way to do this?
I am surprised at how few people post to the "Bidding for Travel" or the "Better Bedding". It goes for 2 or 3 days with no update. Is there another place to see what is actually being bid and awarded?
Thanks,
Carol

There's no need to "abandon" a bid. When they say "Sorry" to you, that bid is already finished, done. You can rebid with other dates/zones/class, but that's a seperate bid.

Yeah, it seems kind of slow for London on biddingfortravel.com. Compared to US locations, number of people traveling abroad is much lower.

Brahmama, there's info at Bidding for Travel about the strategy for bidding a PL counteroffer. You say you bid 100 pounds. (Are you sure it wasn't 100 USD? I don't think you can bid in pounds on PL) Your counteroffer was 166 USD (?). I believe (but I'm not absolutely sure) that the strategy suggested on BFT is to rebid for half the increase in counteroffer, or $133. Unfortunately, you can't "just skim" at BFT. You have to learn all the nuances of bidding, but if you're willing to do this, your reward can be significant savings.

Hi Betsy,
Thanks for your response. I have read all the suggestions and was referring to "skimming" when I read through the 2nd time, looking specifically for something about "Abandoning the Bid" because I read that in someone's post!
Yes, you are absolutely correct. I did offer 100 USD of course. Then when the counter offer came for 166 USD I added another zone without a 4 star and raised (leaving on the Mayfair) it to a paltry 105 USD but I received the same thing again.
I guess at that time I *should* have gone to 125 USD or whatever my top limit was! I was a little nervous!
However, I think I want to wait until I see the hotels that are beeing awarded before I bid my limit. I have read some reports that some hotels were more desirable of course. I really just need to be in that area and I'm sure I'll be pleased at anything I can get for under $125 (plus tax)
Any other strategies that you might suggest? Of course I would love to get the Waldorf Hilton but it's not come up for quite a long time.
Carol

There aren't any "free rebid" zones in London anymore for 4* bidding, although there used to be. That means that if you want Mayfair-Soho, you should not add any other zone to your bid, because all of the zones have 4* hotels. So you could end up with a location you didn't want. You'll just have to wait the required interval between bids.

And thank you for THAT piece of info in particular! I think I added something like Whitecastle - (whatever I had looked at only went up to 3 *) and I would have been horrified to have been award a 4* in Whitecastle!!
Carol

Carol, a lot of people rely on the hotel lists at BFT in order to determine free rebid zones. But that is not a safe way at all, and the disclaimer at the top of their list states that. I'm not sure which zone you added, but some people wrongly think the London Bridge zone is "safe". But it's not, it is just that no reported hotel has been awarded there, but there certainly is the risk of "winning" there. You can tell this is a possibility by going to Priceline, and selecting the London Bridge zone. It gives you the option of selecting a 4* hotel.

Carol, how many nights do you need?

Would just bid $100 for Mayfair, don't counteroffer, and don't worry if you are rejected. You have lots of time.

I seem to have more luck in the morning, for some reason.

Willtravel,
Thanks for the tips. I'll just stick with Mayfair from now on!
LA Woman,
We only need 3 nights. I am going to do just as you suggested - keep rebidding the 4* in Mayfair and you're right - we have a bunch of time left. I'll give the morning a try too! I'm thinking the hotels may come down mid-fall.
Carol

OOPS! Big change on Priceline. We had been out of town for a few days, and I just re-tried Priceland and guess what? NO MAYFAIR!
I guess they couldn't get any hotels to give them rooms?
Anyway, the closest area to Mayfair is now: Bloomsbury - Marylebone - Soho
I certainly don't want to be stuck in the northern part of Bloomsbury.
So I guess I'll have to rely on the discount sites - lastminute.com, superbreak.com etc.
I was so disappointed......
Just wanted to let you know.
Carol

What do you mean by "No Mayfair"? The zone is there, with available bids from 2* to 5*.

Carol, you went to the wrong section of the priceline website (the section that is like hotels.com and gives you guaranteed pricing).

If you want to bid on a room, go to priceline.com and use the blue section to the left. Choose the yellow-orange tab "hotels". Make sure you are comfortable with your entries - once you've bought the room, there's no turning back!

There most definitely IS a Mayfair zone. Are you sure you have actually been bidding on PL all this time?? It sounds to me like at least part of the time you've been on the fixed-price side like LAwoman mentions . . . . .

Ok, I must have goofed - sure glad I asked about it.I had an email from Priceline that said it had been 3 days and that I could bid again, the same bid. So I just clicked on that - and it took me to the screen that shows available regions and then clicked to get seven more and Mayfair didn't show - as I posted earlier.

So I went back after reading your suggestions and this time I guess I clicked the right thing and Mayfair did come up. I bid $100 for a 4 * again, and it didn't accept it, but did counteroffer with $133. Which isn't bad - but I'm not in a huge hurry.

I still can't figure out what I did wrong the first time to get that weird screen? But there were also a bunch of hotels listed and it did say that I could "pick my choice right now". It wasn't the blue screen.

I will be more careful!

Carol

An update and a question:

I have been rebidding every 3 days (Mayfair $105) and have not been accepted but I've been offered (no opportunity to rebid for some reason) an accomodation for $164.

I've also been checking my favorite on the discount sites, and tonight Flemings Mayfair is available for 3 nights for a total of $634.75 including taxes and full breakfast. Should I just go ahead and book that? It does have a hefty penalty for cancellation so I couldn't use it as a standby hoping for Priceline to accept a bid.

And any opinions about Flemings Mayfair?

Thanks for your help,

Carol

You can try to inch in on that $164 figure by repeating your bid when your time limit expires, and upping a bit. It's also quite possible some other hotels will make inventory available, possibly at a lower cost, before October.

You might want to consider making a new bid in the Bloomsbury zone, though, given that people have gotten the 4* Thistle Marble Arch for bids as low as $54.

I don't know anything about Flemings Mayfair.

Since you have so much time, it's important NOT to get anxious or impatient with Priceline. Have you booked the best you can find that you can cancel? I usually use the Thistle website (and keep checking as their prices flucutate enormously) as my "cancellable backup".

Study the FAQ's at biddingfortravel.com and keep an eye on recent winning bids, especially if they nearly coincide with your dates.

There's no guessing on timing of bids. Some hotels release rooms to Priceline earlier - others later.

It's essential (not that there's no "free re-bid zone for 4*'s", last I noticed, in London, to organize the zones acceptable to you, in the order acceptable.

If you haven't already booked your airline tickets, keep checking the Priceline packages. We've had terrific luck with those!

Keep in mind, also, that many 4* hotels are less appealing than others, but if you know what you're doing, you'll save so much, you won't care.

And, IGNORE counter offers (more about this at BFT). With that much lead time, you can wait the 72 hours, if necessary. On one trip, I bid $90, then $95 for a 4*, got a counter offer for $130, but re-bid for $100 and got the Waldorf Hilton - sensational, and a significant savings for 10 nights.

You can't rebid anymore if you want Mayfair-Soho zone.

All of the zones in London now have 4* hotels. So if you add any other zone to a Mayfair-Soho bid, you might get a hotel in the other zone.

What can work is if you are willing to take either of two zones, say Bloomsbury and Mayfair-Soho.

You could start with a 4* $55 bid for Bloomsbury, and if that fails, add the Mayfair-Soho zone and bid whatever (say $60). Those prices would almost certainly be too low to win Mayfair-Soho, but they might be high enough to win Bloomsbury. And if by a fluke you won Mayfair-Soho at that price, you'd be thrilled.

However, if Mayfair-Soho is the only one you want, there are no other zones you can safely add.

IMHO, bid for a 4 star in the Gloucester Road area. It's a GREAT spot (nr the Gloucester Road Tube station) and you should be able to get the Millenium Gloucester, a perfectly fine, lovely large hotel, for less than $100/night (INCLUDING taxes) I paid $80/night, bid 3 months before arrival date.

Not to confuse the issue even further but I use the priceline.com.hk in Hong Kong.

There you can rebid as many times as you like except if you keep the same area and star rating you must raise the price by HK$50 (US$6.70) per bid

The bidding is in HK$ but it is fixed firmly to the US$ at roughly HK$7.79 per 1US$, therefore as Willtravel mentions, in London I've seen the Thistle Marble Arch for $54 (7.79 x 54 = HK$420)

Very easy and you don't need a Hong Kong address or credit card, its especially good for Asia travel as it lists places to bid that the US site does not offer

I've used it numerous for the US / Europe / Asia Pacific without any problems, in fact sometimes I've received emails for me to contact a particular person in customer service to discuss my possibilities as I've been bidding unsuccesfully for a particular place, which is good as they've told me that they have no stock for that particular time and place and therefore saved me a lot of unnecessary time & effort

Geordie

Last October I got two rooms at 4 star Kensington Forum, very very nice in my opinion. I got them for a bid of $63 per night for 5 nights. I bid several months in advance. I was just putting in a lowball offer because I had plenty of time and was shocked and pleased to get it.

Do you absolutely have to have Mayfair. I have gotten rooms in the Kensington area many times in the $63 to $75 range.

Have a wonderful trip. Don't give up on Priceline. I couldn't possible visit London as often as I do without it.