I am doing a lot of research for a trip to Hawaii next year. It's a special trip but I would like to get as much as possible for my money.

I have never used Priceline and am considering bidding for part of the trip. I have gained much info from the Biddingfortravel.com website. I would like to know if anyone has had any horror stories from using Priceline for hotels or rental cars. Or any feedback would be great.

Thanks for your help.

I've used priceline 3 times and haven't had anything but perfect experiences. good luck!

I've used Priceline many times, both for myself and for others. Sorry, no horror stories. I am the designated bidder in the family and so far everyone has been thrilled with their hotel rooms and price paid.

Wendy, thanks for the reply.

Also, to add to my question... If anyone has used Priceline for Hawaii or other beach locations, what type of rooms do you typically get? Have you ever been upgraded when the hotel is less than full?

Thanks.

No horror stories, but I've definitely gotten less-than-great hotels from time to time. (Radisson in New Orleans comes to mind immediately!) Price was still good, but the hotel was less than desirable. Can always happen when you bid without knowing the property!

The only priceline horror stories you will read are by those who didn't read the fine print. Once you bid and it is accepted, it is yours.

Nope, I've used price line about a dozen times and I've saved a TON of money. However you just have to be aware of a few things.
If you are going on Vacation, Priceline can either shorten or lengthen your vacation by two days. For instance if you get a morning flight out and evening flight back you'll have two pretty full vacation days. However if you get an evening flight out and a morning flight back, you've just lost two days.

Also you may be getting a lengthy layover.

Not too mention you never know what airline you'll be getting. Since I fly from Chicago to upstate New York, I can narrow my airlines to a few. Since you'll be flying over the Pacific you may get an airline from a funky country (that was probably rude).

Bottom line, if I was flying to Hawaii for a vacation I would really try and exhaust every other avenue before using Priceline.

You'll hear some Priceline horor stories, but people who travel by more conventional means will have horror stories too.

Good luck.

On the biddingfortravel website there was one particular hotel that PL customers were less than pleased with. It was in the hotel reviews--but I forget which one. Read the reviews and then try to avoid bidding in that area.
I am also in the early stages of planning a hawaii trip so I am interested in this topic as well.

I have used Priceline for hotels about a dozen times in the past year or so... perhaps more. I've also acted as the bidder or advisor for several friends using it for the first time. No horror stories at all. In all cases we were bidding for 3* or 4* only and got hotels ranging from good to spectacular at fantastic prices. There are a few issues to consider....
1) If you're traveling to an area with few chain hotels or large hotels or an area that typically has very high occupancy rates all the time it may not be a good choice. I like Key West but I'd never use PL to go there because they only have some chain hotels to offer outside of Old Town and possibly a resort hotel or two in Old Town but I prefer staying in a guesthouse that I choose when I travel there.
2) I travel solo or with a girlfriend so the possibility of getting only one bed is not a problem for me. There's no guarantee of a non-smoking room but I've always gotten one. I've actually traveled elsewhere at company expense (non PL) and gotten stuck with a smoking room on a few occasions - you just never know.
3) It's really, truly non-refundable. I was hospitalized a year ago and had to eat the cost of two nights at a Chicago hotel when I couldn't make the trip. It was a Hotwire purchase rather than PL but the non-refundable aspect is still the same. I save enough money that I'm willing to take the risk.
4) My savings range from no savings at all to $50-70 per night. Without PL I always tried to find places in the $40-$80 range unless I was in a large city where there was nothing acceptable that was under $100. If I'm already going to spend $50 or $60 per night I'd rather stay in a 3* like a Hilton than end up in a Fairfield Inn or red Roof like I did before using PL. IN some cases, such as a recent trip to Seattle, I get REALLY lucky. I spent 5 nights in the Elliot Grand Hyatt for $40 per night. Not a typo. It's an unusually good deal but it does happen.
5) To confirm the fact that I'm not a shill for PL I'll readily admit that I've tried and been unable to get a good deal on airfare. I have to see major savings before I'll give up the option to choose what time of day I fly and also give up frequent flier miles (which I do use). I'd need ot see savings of at least $150 -$200 or more before I'd use PL for airline tix. As was previously pointed out - for some of us the time of day we fly determines how much useful time we get on a vacation. I tend to pack in activities and have an itinerary planned in advance - I need to know when I'll arrive and depart.

I have also tried it for rental cars and only gotten a good deal on one of the three times I tried it for that purpose. Others have had better luck but that's my experience.

It's not for everybody but if you research carefully and bid wisely there are real genuine savings available IF and ONLY IF you're okay with the limitations.

Why not also try using a travel agent who is a hawaii specialist? They can package everything together at discounted rates from air and hotel to car and any tours you want. It can't hurt to try instead of bidding on separate portions of your trip....

Not a Priceline expert, but have used it successfully. Owen gives good advice - especially part about knowing you are booking a room for 2 people and it could include only one bed. If you need 2 beds, some have been successful calling hotel in advance to request - but no guarantee.

To me, the limitation is you can only select area within a city/location. For example, we booked Baltimore Inner Harbor and got hotel within that mapped area - but it was the one furthest from actual Inner Harbor. Wonderful hotel at fantastic rate, and we knew going in what were the possibilities. But if we had had our heart set on room overlooking harbor, we would have been disappointed.

With Hawaii you may have to take same chance - if you want specific room type and/or specific view, Priceline will not do it for you. We did not use it when our family went to Washington, DC because we wanted a suite with a kitchen - no way to do that on Priceline.

Horror stories I have heard are usually from people who do not know the way Priceline works when they start or they have to cancel. (As Owen says, you can't - even for medical or family emergency).

I've used priceline.com once for a rental car....no problem. There was a situation about a year or two ago where there was a brief glitch in their computer system and it was picking up the last 4 digits of people's credit card as their bid price. I remember reading about it on this board BUT it was fixed and all of those were refunded their money within a couple of months. As far as I know, this was really a one time freaky thing and it had a happy ending for all of those who were affected.

The only complaint I hear about over and over is that if you should have any problem, you can't reach a life operator as all of it is telephone prompts. Luckily, when I used them I had no problem and no reason to need a life person. I would be frustrated though if I had experienced any problem with no one to talk to. The only other thing that is so important to know is that you must enter a credit card PRIOR to even bidding and if your bid is accepted, it's final!! If you can't handle that, you're better off going to a different discount site like hotwire.com where you know your price upfront and can talk to real people if you have any questions or problems.

It's probably not applicable to your Hawaii trip planning, but we did have a problem with Priceline once. I booked hotel rooms for my husband and his friends for a trip to Paris. First of all, the areas to choose from in Paris are huge, so you can't be very specific. They ended up in an unsavory part of town at a Libertel, chain similar to Holiday Inn. Although they had booked two rooms and had the paperwork to prove it, the hotel only had one room available to them. Luckily, my husband's friend is French so he carried on a lengthy conversation with the manager in French and the hotel secured another room for them at a nearby hotel.

Maybe not a horror story, but not the best experience either.

"Shill" Interesting term Owen, and with the recent plethora of posts on this topic (several threads, all very sudden after a few here and there), I was about to suggest the same to Fodors.

Shill or genuine sudden upsurge in interest? If interest, fine, but it's suddenly beginning to get a bit fishy smelling when taken as a whole.

Bristol, why? I welcome more discussion of priceline AND hotwire here. I've not seen all positive comments so it doesn't seem likely there are priceline "plants" operating on this forum. Do you really think so? I have noted some threads discussing hotwire (and maybe priceline?) getting deleted, and that led me to conclude it was a conflict of interest with fodors advertisers (i.e. expedia).

Bristol, Seriously doubt there are any shills here...if you've been on the Fodor board long enough, you will realize that this always happens. When a topic reaches the top it is viewed by many and responed to accordingly. Eventually, it goes down to the bottom of the list and may not get any responses (thus: topping). Sometimes after it is "topped" all the activity starts all over again even if the original posting is old. No surprise here.

I don't know about conflict of interest Susan. There has recently (past two weeks) been a rush on questions about priceline and biddingfortravel, from just a handful, to what seems to be several a day. Not hotwire, not hotel.com. It began to sound suspiciously as if questions were posted as a means of putting their name forward, and they'll take any bad answers with the good, as long as people know they exist. Lots of others would like to be able to do the same, but are prohibited from doing so by Fodors regulations and none of us want to wade through piles of advertising, that's for sure! biddingfortravel is right there, amenable to answering questions. Why not ask them there? Why would they suddenly be posted here, instead, and so many? Yeahyeahyeah, to "get other travelers opinions". Maybe. But maybe not. If it's legit and not a conflict for fodors, great, but it's beginning to look like it's not.

OK the gig is up. You've found me out. Priceline has planted me on the Fodors United States Board. I am now heading off to the Caribbean Board and hope they don't find out about me.

Brian your post wasn't there when I wrote Susan, sorry for no response. My concern is that it isn't just one thread that keeps rising to the top. It's a lot of different threads, and suddenly. It'd be a great way to sneak in advertising for your product when advertising is otherwise prohibited, to pose questions about that product over and over, yes?!