mark99

For the first time I used priceline, and I have to tell you and warn you at what a scam these people are.

I just booked a hotel and went through the Name Your Own price. Of course I understand that the hotel I get I have no choice but to take.

HOWEVER, when I used this, I did state that I wanted a 4 STAR and that I expected a resoanble discount for that hotel...especially given that I am flying blind with the choice.

So I first put in $175 for Miami Beach. It failed and asked me to adjust the parameteres if I wanted to try again, so I bumped up the price to $185 and kept the 4 star rating.

This time it worked, and it came back.

The problem was that it chose a hotel that was CLEARLY not a 4 star hotel!!!! The ratings are terrible and I know the hotel fist hand, and wou ld never ever consider staying there.

WORSE YET...I went to their website and found that THEIR PUBLISHED DAILY RATE WAS LESS THEN WHAT I GOT ON PRICELINE!!!!

LESS THEN PRICELINE!!!!!

CAN YOU IMAGINE??

So I called up Priceline, and ended up talking with someone who could do nothing more then in broken english read off a script on their terminal. They could not answer any questions except to say they can cancel the reservation for me, but I will loose one night deposit plus a service charge.

When I asked to talk to a supervisor I was promptly cut off.

I called back a second time, and explained again the situation, and that person again read off the scripts....not answering my questions.

I asked them if there was anyone else I could talk to, and was told that I could call customer service, but they would tell me the same thing.

Again I asked if there was anything or anyone that could do ANYTHING for me to correct this obvious problem, and I was told NO and then they did not speak again.

BEWARE BEWARE BEWARE...THIS IS A SCAM!!!

I would not have minded if I got a horrible choice...I would at least understand, but to get both a horrible choice and on top of that PAY MORE THEN THE PUBLISHED RATES..that PUTS PRICELINE IN THE SCAM BOILER ROOM CATAGORY.

SO BEWARE...PRICELINE SUCKS!!!!

mark99

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BarbaraS

I'm sorry you feel you were taken advantage of. You definitely need to do research before bidding on Priceline. I don't think it's Priceline's fault if you bid too much. I've had very good luck with Priceline, but I always do research on biddingfortravel.com and other websites before bidding.

mark99

Barb,

What do you not understand about ....I paid MORE then the NORMAL Daily rate the hotel charges.

In addition what I received was NOT a 4 star hotel.

Priceline claims to get you a "bargain" of 40% or more off the daily rate, and then I end up paying 10% more then the published rate and not have a CHOICE...well that in my humble opinion is a SCAM!

paula1470

Mark, sounds like you had a bad experience but when you use Priceline you have to do lots of research first. You need to go to Bidding For Travel and look at the hotels listed for that city and how they are listed by STARs. Priceline's STAR rating is not always the same as Hotwires or other websites.

Bidding For Travel encourages you to look at all the hotels websites to see what their published rate is. This way you know what to bid. If you had looked at all the hotels in that Star Category and saw that some had lower rates, then you shouldn't have bid that high. Also sometimes in a STAR category, there is a hotel that doesn't get great reviews. If you don't want to chance it that you will get this hotel (which is what seems to have happened to you) then again, don't place a bid.

Priceline is all about doing your research first and taking a change second.

janisj

what hotel was it??

PL is not a scam - millions of people use it successfully. But sure, sometimes when one bids too much they feel taken advantage of.

paula1470

Mark-Please don't YELL at Barbara or any of the rest of us. If you had done research as we mentioned, you would never had bid $185 because you would have known that some hotels for Miami Beach in what they call a 4 STAR had a lower rack rate. Again, it's all about spending time looking up the hotels on their individual websites.

I have used Priceline a few times after a lot of research and have gotten a good deal. The few times that it looked like I wasn't going to get a bid with a substantial savings, I decided not to change the hotel I would get and just made my own reservation. As Barbara said if you look at biddingfortravel.com, you can get a pretty idea of bids are being won for which hotel.

paula1470

meant to say decided not to chance the hotel I would get.

mark99

I did not intend to yell...however I want everyone to know that Priceline in my opinion is a scam that depends on satisfying some and screwing others.

One should not have to do a tremendous amount of research to avoid such things.

Companies should be called out when they abuse their exagerated claims.

Furthemore, if the after purchase customer service was not so bad and unprofessional, I would not be so upset.

I hope that some lawyers get together some time to see if there is a potential class action lawsuit against these people for their exagerated claims.

janisj

WHAT HOTEL DID YOU GET??? There, maybe if we yell back, you will answer.

starrs

Priceline is not a scam.
You just blew your bidding.

The "mistake" (if any) was yours.

Priceline is a great deal and there are many of us who have gotten great deals on it.

I can believe you STARTED with a $175 bid. That bid was ridiculous.

Did you even check out www.betterbidding.com (or equivalent)?

Shadow

I don't like what has happened to you Mark99 because you put in a bid and then they turned it down..so, you had to go higher....then, it was cheaper on the hotels website...sounds crummy to me!!

Not saying that others have had great success...I've only used them once and it was fine. However, they should have taken his first bid, and be cheaper than the website.
Shadow

mark99

The hotel will remain undisclosed no matter if you yell or not.

My duty here now, is simply to educate others that Priceline is not all that they claim to be.

I should not have to do research to determine if my bid price will intercept another price level of a hotel that they have in their lengthy database of diluted ratings for their benefit.

They have leagues of marketing people trying to convince the general public that they will save you money...."40% or higher".

That claim is simply a gross exageration.

I will not stay at this hotel, I have already cancelled and I will lose my deposit rather than ruin a visit.

janisj

do we know if the hotel's "published daily rate" was less for the dates mark99 wanted?

Some hotels around my neck of the woods have rates "from $99" but only in a tuesday in Feb - on a June weekend they run $250 or more . . . . . .

djkbooks

"One should not have to do a tremendous amount of research to avoid such things."

All that research pays off. For one thing, you cannot expect to save 40% if you don't know the prevailing rates in the area for the dates you are bidding.

rkkwan

mark99 - No use to post on multiple bids about a service sucks when you fail to provide any info, and refuse to accept the fact you didn't do the required homework.

Other readers will ignore you.

You can stop posting on all these threads now, as you're just wasting your time.

mark99

Listen to what you are saying....the prevailing rates have nothing to do with their claim to save you money.

No matter what the prevailing rates are...saving "40% or more" is SAVING...period.

Furthermore, if you actually do the research, and I have now....Priceline SIGNIFICANTLY over inflates the rates, and then claims to give you a generous discount...which in fact the discount DOES NOT EXIST because the RATES ARE NOT THAT HIGH.

Example:

Priceline claims that the current room rates for hotel XXX is 250.00 night for garden view.

Therefore my rate of $185 per night for the garden view room sounds incredible.

BUT....

Go to any other hotel aggregator, or to the hotel ITSELF and look at their non discounted published rates, and BEHOLD the Garden View room is $ 171.00 PER NIGHT!!!

This in the retail world is called consumer fraud.

If any of you are from FL you may recall 10 years or so ago Burdines getting hit with a multi million dollar fine by the state consumers office by doing essentially the SAME THING.

Claiming that mattresses WERE $1000.00 but now they were on sale for $600.00 Problem was the mattreses prices were raised for only the sales period to give the appearance that you would save $400.00.

What Priceline is doing is virtually the same thing....over inflating the hotel price with a made up price and claiming they saved you 40%.

THAT IS THE REAL issue here.

Finally, this might be an error with Priceline, but when you combine basically non existent customer service, no other recourse to speak to a manager or other agency and what you have is a deliberate attempt of wearing out the consumer in the hopes that they will go away.

Thank you for helping me keep this in the spotlight!

mark99

Dear rquack....I am not going to post the hotel name, as my dispute is not with them. They may be a perfect choice for others.

The issue is not the hotel, but rather the "alleged" rating, and certainly the claim that my award was a 40% savings.

Unfortunately that is not the case, and Priceline has basically over exagerated the savings based on an artificial price that simply does not exist.

janisj

You last post is totally irrational. Sorry - but true.

On the "name your own price" side of PL there are no descriptions like "garden view room", or "lanai room" or any such thing. Are you sure you even used "Name your own price" and didn't just use PL's booking site??

Most everyone knows there are few bargains on that side . . . . .

janisj

oops - meant your next to last post -- the one where you said

<<Priceline claims that the current room rates for hotel XXX is 250.00 night for garden view.

Therefore my rate of $185 per night for the garden view room sounds incredible.>>