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Bidding for travel??

Hi, Based on all of the people mentioning using bidding for travel and then priceline I thought I would check it out. I guess I am slow because I don't understand how it all works. I couldn't find info on the hotel I wanted nor could I find any help in the "help" section. What is "bonus" what is a free re-bid....obviously priceline is not going to be my cup of tea....apparently way over my head. But, curiousity has me now. Somebody give me the dummies version of what you get out of this site. Thanks!

Bonus is money on top of your bid. If you have a $5 bonus, and you bid $75 it is seen as $80 but you pay $75. Free re-bid gets more complicated. If your bid for a hotel is turned down, you can re-bid if you change your zone(s). Let's say a city has 4 zones, N,S,E,W and you want a 4* hotel. Let's say only North has a 4*. You can put a bid in for N or S - 4*. If it is rejected, you can then bid N or E - 4* and this is a "free rebid" because you changed your zone and you know there is no 4* in that zone but that doesn't matter, it will let you rebid. What you get on the site is knowledge of what is being accepted and sometimes which zones have which hotels. I've always gotten deals far below what Priceline says are the likely accpeted bids by using this site.

I got brave and tried priceline for the first time after visiting bidding for travel, which just gives you tips about how to bid and lets you know what hotels, etc. people have gotten at what prices. Try emailing the moderators at biddingfortravel or posting a topic there as you did here- it seems they are responsive and helpful. I think they will walk you through it. You mention "the hotel you want"- biddingfortravel only lets you know what hotels people have recently gotten, because priceline will not let you select specific hotels, only quality levels of hotels in specific neighborhoods. As for "bonus", Priceline will sometimes allow you extra money in your bid...say you bid $90 for a 4 star hotel in NYC- bonus money would make your bid look like $95 to the accepting hotel. A free rebid means that if priceline rejects your $90 hotel offer, you can bid again for a hotel on the same night at a later time. I am no priceline or bidding for travel expert, having only used them once, but I was pleased with the deal I got. Hope this helps. Give it a try!

So, you don't get to pick the hotel? Just the star rating? Do they have a list of which hotels are in which areas and what their star ratings are? I know it's probably on the site and I am being lazy. This is why I don't use priceline for airfare..I want to know the exact flight times, and limit the number of stops or connections, before i give my credit card. Also, what if you already have reservations somewhere....could you bid and get a better deal than you have? Then you could cancel your original reservations. Would this work? Thanks!

If you live outside the US,bidding for travel just don't work...Even if they say it works... It's just a smart way to make money, but nothing special...

Using Priceline when guided by biddingfortravel is great and can result in tremendous savings. Unfortunately, Sonya, you are clearly too lazy to use them. Please don't ask us to hold your hand. Read the information on the site.

Here's my attempt at answering questions: 1. FREE REBID--take Portland, OR as an example. Suppose I want a 4* hotel there. Out of all the Priceline zones (seven or nine, depending on the date you're bidding for), only the Downtown Portland zone offers 4* hotels. So I can place an initial bid in the Downtown Portland zone at a fairly low price. If Priceline rejects it, I can rebid immediately by adding a zone and raising my bid. So what I'd do is pick another zone to add, knowing that the added zone doesn't have any 4* hotels and therefore I would still get a hotel in the Downtown Portland zone if my rebid is accepted. If this first rebid is rejected, I add another zone and raise my bid (again knowing that Downtown Portland is the only zone that I could end up getting a hotel in) and submit a second rebid. I can keep doing this, adding one 3*-or-less zone for each rebid. So in this case, I'd have a total of an initial bid plus six or eight free rebids for a 4* hotel in Downtown Portland. I'm never in danger of getting a hotel outside of the Downtown Portland zone, so each of these rebids can be considered "free." So, in a nutshell, a free rebid is provided by adding a zone that only has hotels with a star-rating LESS than the star-rating of the hotel you want. So for a 4* hotel bid, any zone that has a maximum of 3* hotels is a free rebid; for a 3* hotel bid, any zone that has a maximum of 2.5* hotels is a free rebid; for a 2.5* hotel bid, any zone that has a maximum of 2* hotels is a free rebid; and for a 2* hotel bid, any zone that has a maximum of 1* hotels is a free rebid. Using the free rebids (adding one free rebid zone in each rebid) is a way to maximize your number of chances to get a winning bid without paying too much. 2. BONUS MONEY--bonus money links are provided on the BiddingForTravel.com site, assuming any such money is available. You access Priceline via the link, and Priceline adds this money to your bid. If there's $5/night hotel bonus money available, a $30+$5 bonus money bid appears to Priceline to be a $35 bid. So if $30 is below Priceline's "win" threshold but $35 is above it, you get the hotel room for your $30+$5 bonus money--but you wouldn't have gotten it if you'd just bid $30 without the bonus money. In this situation, you pay only what you bid ($30), exclusive of the bonus money. In response to some of your other questions--no, you can't pick a specific hotel. You can only select a Priceline zone in a city and the star-rating. BiddingForTravel.com does have some lists of hotels, their zones, and their star ratings. If they exist, these lists appear at the top of each page within a city/state/region topic. For example, click on the Oregon topic, and the list of hotels, cities, and zones is a topic at the very top of the list of winning-bid reports. Not all cities/states/regions have these lists--they're provided and updated only when the administrators have time to do that work. Some people do what you say--they make a reservation at a hotel to use as a backup in case they can't get a winning bid at a price they're comfortable with via Priceline. If, however, they are successful with Priceline, they cancel the backup reservation and use the Priceline reservation instead. Sonya, you're exactly right on not using Priceline for air travel because of your preference for knowing exact flight times. Priceline can save money for people who are more flexible with their itineraries/schedules, but it's not for everybody. Same goes for hotels--if you want a specific hotel and you're not willing to accept anything other than that hotel, don't use Priceline. Priceline can save you money if you're willing to accept whatever hotel they give you, but there's always a risk of not getting something that meets your needs. Hope this helps...

I spent quite a bit of time at the biddingfortravel site, and am still curious about something. I know what the bonus money is, but where does it come from? I know bidders don't pay for it, so how does Priceline/the hotel actually get this money? Also, that site seems like a lot of work, are the administrators volunteers? Is that site strictly a service (i.e., it doesn't make any money)?

The bonus money remains a mystery. All I can say is that it does exist. If you know the tax rate on hotels in the city in which your bid is accepted you can work in reverse and find out exactly what rate Priceline paid your hotel. If you see that Priceline paid $47 for your room and you only bid $42 and it was accepted, you got your room for the least amount of dollars possible. You are then to be congratulated and celebrated!

Sonya: If you look through some of the hotel and airline posts people have madeon biddingfortravel.com, you will see that Priceline can save you TONS of money. I am a huge advocate of priceline, and bidding for travel. Most recently, which was several days ago, I helped my uncle get a non-stop flight from NYC to San Fran, for this coming President's Week, @ a price of $188/Rt, which includes ALL taxes and fees. It is a Delta flight, and on the same day, if you went to Delta's website and book the same exact flights, you would have had to pay $2,200 !!!!! and that's no lie! Using Priceline, I can get hotels such as Marriotts, Doubletrees, Courtyards, & Hiltons for $35-$50/nt, depending on the city. And it's not just midline hotels, either. There are 4 & 5 * hotels and resorts. So if you want to save money, and be able to take 3 vacations for the price of 1, then you got to use priceline. If you don't want to be flexible, then you will just have to pay 50-75% more to go and stay at the same places.

Thanks Don and all who took the time to answer. I think I might be too particular to use priceline because I like to research and find the hotel or travel times or whatever that I like. If I could then go in and say "I want to stay HERE for X dollars" or travel "nonstop at THIS time" then it would be cool. I love saving money, who doesn't, but maybe I am too fussy. Again, thanks all....at least I am now fully informed!

Thanks for that explanation, Don. I couldn't find a good description on bonus dollars on biddingfortravel but maybe I didn't look hard enough.

Anthony- i think it's important to point out that on your winning airline ticket, you got "lucky" that it is non-stop, since when using Priceline you agree to the possibility of at least one stop (just clarifying to avoid the next post of "how did you bid for a non-stop flight" for those that are not familiar with Priceline). But congratulations on a great deal. Sonya- Priceline may not be for you (and for many people it isn't). What i do is find the cheapest rate at a hotel i want to stay at (for this example, let's say it's $100). Then i go to Bidding For Travel and see what hotels have come up in the past in the area, and EXCLUDE any area/star level where i know i won't like the hotel. I will then bid up to a certain amount, in this instance let's say $65, as i'm willing to save $35 for the "uncertainty." But would i bid $95/nite to save $5? No, because the "uncertainty" is not worth the savings. Your idea of choosing the hotel and then making an offer is unrealistic, as there is nothing in it for the hotel. If they operated that way, nobody would book conventionally anymore, they would just continue to make "offers" for the specific hotel they want to stay at. This is why Bidding for Travel is so great, because it gives you an idea of what hotels are in the area. I just got a hotel in Boston and given the area i chose and the star level, i knew that i'd only get 1 of 2 hotels that were offered in that area, both of which i'd be happy with (the risk being that some new hotel in the area comes up, and i was the first person to report it back to Bidding for Travel). Personally, i'd be more inclined to use Priceline for a 1 or 2 nite hotel stay, rather than a 1 week vacation (as i can deal with almost anything for 1 or 2 nites). Also, if i'm only spending $65/nite my expectations are lower, than if i'm paying rack rate of $185/nite... so given the same hotel stay I might LOVE the place for $65, but be disappointed at $185! I was hesitant about Priceline but used it for the first time 2 months ago (after lurking for quite some time at Bidding for Travel) and have since used it once more for myself, but also helped 2 other friends get hotel rooms (we've all been QUITE please... so far!)

The one thing when using Priceline is to keep your choices in the 3 or 4* hotel range. People are regularly getting 4* hotels inNYC for $90--for a $400 rate room. I personally do not ever like to spend a lot on hotel rooms (except at a resort) because I don't use them much.

To Thereyouare: While I agree most of the time it's 'luck' on getting a non-stop flight from Priceline, in this instance, I 'knew' I was going to get a non-stop before finalizing the bid; How did I 'know' that? Again, it was from information that I gathered from biddingfortravel. Even though I would consider myself an 'expert' when it comes to Priceline bidding, the info from bidding for travel is invaluable. In fact, I had bid NYC to SFO a wk before, for my brother-in-law, and although I got a rate of $200/rt all inclusive for a trip in April, it wasn't a nonstop, and I 'know' I could have gotten it for lower. That's because I didn't read through the tips in the bulletin board for similar trips. When I was asked to bid for my uncle, I knew not to make the same mistake. Anyway, from the board, I learned that there are no non-stops from LGA to SFO, only from JFK, so I made sure NOT to include LaGuardia, and only JFK. Additionally, when I had made a low bid that was refused, Priceline came up with a 'counter-offer' of $164/rt JFK to SFO before taxes. This counteroffer stated the exact taxes and fees that would be applied, and said if I accepted, I was 'assured' to get a winning tkt. From the amt. of the additional taxes, I was able to determine that there was only fees for 1 airport, so it had to be a non-stop. If there was a connection, the taxes stated would have been double the amt. All this 'knowledge & incite' was gained through biddingfortravel; I cannot take credit for 'knowing' this kind of info. That is why I love biddingfortravel. In response to Gretchen's statement about only bidding 3 or 4 * levels, I would have to disagree. It all depends on what the area you are looking for has with regard to hotels, and what kind of property you enjoy staying at. For example, the 2 1/2* level includes many of the 'extended-stay' type hotels such as Amerisuites and Residence Inn by Marriott. These properties, although not elegant, usually have kitchenette facilities, and a free continental breakfast. For many people, these would be ideal properties. Again, using biddingfortravel, for any particular area, you may be able to resonablely predict that an extended stay property may come up if you bid on that level and areas that other have gotten those types of properties.

Thanks for your last post, Anthony. Like your thinking about the airport and ticket-taxes. Haven't used PL yet, but the info gained here is going to be invaluable when I tune up later this year.

We have used Priceline a number of times and have been very happy with it and the prices we have gotten. I always bid for a 3 or 4* and if I know I want a specific hotel I do not use Priceline. It is great if you are flexible.

Antonio is absolutely wrong about not being able to use Priceline if you are outside the US. I've used it for hotels in Philadelphia and Boston very successfully from the UK. There is also a UK site now though. When I looked at Biddingfortravel last night the message boards for, say, Boston started with a list of hotels recently successfully bid for, which gives you an idea of what is available for how much. I've saved a lot of money this way and shall continue to use it. Doug

Doug: I emailed the people from Priceline: it only works if you live in the US; With priceline UK: only if you live in the UK...