celfan

Love it! A no brainer for car rentals. Great for Hotels but you need to do a little homework. As for airfares, not great on short trips since they can send you out in the evening and bring you back in the morning. You could lose two days that way, but that generally doesn't happen.

I've saved thousands, but you have to do
a little homework first. Frankly, the people I've know who have had problems with Priceline didn't get to know the system or they weren't terribly bright.
One day, I'll have problems with a Priceline reservation, just as I've had without Priceline.

Andrew

When American Airlines canceled a flight over the Christmas holidays, Priceline refunded all my money for a hotel reservation I'd made for that night at the airport. All they needed was the flight number and airline to verify it but they gave me no hassles about it.

celfan

Newbies should go to biddingfortravel.com.
First read the FAQ's. Then post a message in the appropriate forum asking for bidding advice. In the FAQ's they are going to tell you what info you need
to give them in your thread requesting advice. If you don't do this they won't help you. They'll give you advice on what you should bid and how. You can also look over the succesful bids listed. This can be very helpful.

One day you're going to need it for a family's medical emergency or something
else that will give you no time for an advanced fare. Try getting a reservation with two or three days notice. I've seen
fares slashed from $900 to $250. Although you only get one bid a day, a smart person can figure out...I better stop.

Anonymous

"I mean that in my category there are 3 possible hotels, any of which are fine. But I would prefer 2 of them over the third."

If you're referring to regular old-fashioned Priceline bidding, and to the hotel lists on Biddingfortravel, remember that those lists aren't official, and that new hotels are added all the time. And zone boundaries get moved around. And PL will sometimes give you a hotel in a higher category (more stars) though they won't change the zone.

JJ5

I know, celfan. I wouldn't have done any of about 10 farther baseball cities if it hadn't been for Priceline.

celfan

I generally only bid on 4 stars. Some hotels that pricelines lists as 4 I would consider 3. I stayed in Milwaukee Last week. They didn't have any 4 stars so I went with the three. All of the threes
were $100-$120 on Orbitz. I paid $45.
All of the rental cars were $250 on Orbitz. I paid $120.

janisj

PL is WONDERFUL for London -- I've got real 4 star, and sometimes 4 star-ish hotels in London for $68 - $85/$90 a night when the rack rates (I know - no one pays full rack but just to give an idea) were $350-$450 or more

And at SFO the Doubletree for $37!!

I don't log on to biddingfor travel - don't want to deal w/ Sheryl's abuse But I do study it religiously before bidding PL.

iceeu2

Honk honk!

Just pricelined a great hotel in Atlanta for $60...and another great one in Honolulu for $149.

Love it....never tried it for cars, but I may give it a try.

Andrew

That's great, janisj, thanks for selfishly stealing the contributions to BiddingForTravel from the rest of us and then not sharing your results with us. If you don't want to post your results there, then don't read BiddingForTravel - use BetterBidding.com instead. I don't care about Sheryl - I'm pissed that you may be saving money as a result of what I post there, but I can't save a nickel because you won't give back. Thanks for nothing.

janisj

If sheryl wasn't such a b***h then I'd be the first one to post over there. But I don't need her crap. The site is great, she on the other hand, not so much . . . . .

Andrew

Sorry, janisj, I'm not buying it. That's a cop-out and you know it. It's easy to post your results on BFT without even interacting with the admins. In fact, Sheryl is absent more often than not these days. You will not have any issue if you simply post youre results. Only if you get into side discussions or post inappropriate messages are you going to have issue.

Again, I say: either share your Priceline results with the rest of us on BFT or stop stealing our information and get it from some other website. If I could block people like you who take and don't give back, I surely would.

rkkwan

I too think if one gets information from BFT, then one should give something back to help others.

Now, if you get banned, then it's a different story.

Anonymous

Posting a hotel win takes mere seconds and benefits your fellow BFT users far more than Sheryl.

bookhall

Gotta agree about posting results on BFT. Just posted one there for a good car rental, via Priceline, and needed no interaction with anyone.

Best hotel deal was a 4-star at Heathrow for a night at $55. Internet rate would have been $300....

P_M

I love priceline and BFT is a great resource for priceline bids. Unfortunately I was banned from that site for not following the house rules. I tried to contact Sheryl to apologize for posting incorrectly and to ask her to reinstate me, but I never heard back from her. That's a shame because I would like to help others by sharing my winning bids.

Andrew

It's not easy to get banned from BFT. You'd have to do something horrendous, not just post in the wrong category or something. I've had disputes with Sheryl before on BFT but I've tried never to break the rules, as I do on all forums. Some of my posts probably did/do violate the specific rules but I've almost never had a post deleted, even; I've almost certainly not been banned. I don't know what led to you being banned - and I'm not saying you did this - but there are people who simply don't care about forum rules and flout them when told not to do something. Those people rightly ought to be banned, from any forum. BFT is Sheryl's place and she has the right to do whatever she wants with it.

(Also, some people who think they were banned from BFT were simply having issues with EZBoard, the site on which BFT is hosted. AOL users for one had issues for a while.)

I suggest that if you aren't happy with BFT for any reason, go to BetterBidding and be done with it. It's also very easy to get a new login at EzBoard to re-post on BFT again, if you want to post your winning bids for the rest of us. I still say that if you aren't going to share your winning bid info, then you shouldn't use BFT at all.

P_M

Here's how I got banned: I was new and I hadn't found the rules yet. I posted a question and she referred me to the rules. I felt so foolish for overlooking the rules I said, "Duh, Thanks." My intention was to poke fun at myself for overlooking the rules.

Later when I discovered I was banned, it took me a while to figure out why. Eventually I realized she thought I was being rude to her when I said "Duh." I sent a note to her EZ Box to explain the misunderstanding and to offer my apologies. I was very sincere and I tried to make it clear I regretted any offense. I told her I would read the rules thoroughly and I asked her very politely to reinstate me, as I feel I have a lot to contribute to her site. I was never reinstated and she never replied.

I tried for another month or two to log in and I was declined. I haven't tried since, but maybe I'll try again, as I would very much like to share a couple of bids I have won recently.

janisj

"she has the right to do whatever she wants with it." Of course she does. No one ever said she didn't. It is her site and she has created a good resource, and can enforce anything she wants.

I just personally prefer to lurk - just like thousands of folks do on Fodors - instead of being raked over the coals when she is feeling petty.

I've shared my sucesses on here many times - not trying to keep them secret or anything. But since Sheryl needs to have folks bid through the link to get the revenue it might do her good to improve her bedside manner instead of chasing so many people off . . . .

Andrew

P_M, is it possible that Sheryl never even got your message for some reason? Isn't it possible it was something to do with EZBoard?

In any case, I appreciate your desire to share your bid info with the rest of us unlike others. Can't you simply try to apply for a new account at EZBoard?