Priceline helped me bid?
 

I went to Priceline today to book a hotel for a weekend getaway after Thanksgiving (Thanksgiving weekend, Fri.-Sun.). I entered my bid for Indianapolis, $40 for a three star hotel. It was rejected, but instead of telling me to change my citeria, Priceline said they had a one time offer, I could raise my bid by $12 without changing any of my settings. My bid was then accepted by the Hilton in north Indianapolis. Anybody ever have a similar experience? I've never heard of this happening before.

Incidentally, I don't suppose anybody knows anything about this property (the North Hilton, not downtown). I was dismayed at first to see the horrible reviews at tripadvisor.com. then I noticed they were from 2003 and 2004. There were some other sites that had reviews from this summer, and everybody was raving about it. I'm guessing they underwent a major renovation over last winter.

This is common. It's a counteroffer. look at biddingfortravel.com for the info about bidding. you probably could have gotten it for less with a free rebid. the counteroffer is just an offer- you can bid lower than that for you free rebid.

The counteroffer on Priceline has been around for some time now. It does not happen every time you bid, but it does happen.

If they were willing to sell the room for $52.00, that means that you could have gotten it for ~$45 if you waited the 3 days necessary between resubmitting you new bid, BUT if you are happy with the rate, then that's the only thing that matters.

Can't tell you anything about the property.

There are three "free-rebid" zones for 3* for Indy - NW, S and Speedway. I don't know if already know about this or not. If not, next time read up on biddingfortravel and do some homework.

Or search on this board. Some Fodorites may have explained it, or I may have before.

Anyways, $40 3* North is your first bid, and you get a counter offer of $52 (or let you rebid by raising $12), absolutely decline. It's a good sign, as you now know they'll most likely sell you a room for no more than $52.

Since you have three "free rebids", you can then bid $44 for North and NW; if rejected, $48 N, NW and S; if still rejected, $52, N, NW, S and Speedway. Since there is no 3* properties in those other zones, you will only get something in N. Indy. This way, you have two more chances to get your room for less than $52.

But have I taken up an offer like that myself? Yes, in Bristol, UK where there's only one zone, and I was leaving in 2 days. Could have asked something to bid for me, but too much trouble, so I just took PL's offer.

The 2 to 3 year old reviews are when this property was an Omni Hotel. Hilton bought it about a year ago. From what I read they did a pretty big rennovation. I've not personally stayed there.

Before you use PL again, study up at biddingfortravel.com, a tutorial for all things PL. Knowledgable users of the site recommend rebidding at half the amount of a counter offer, or in your case, raising your bid by $6.

I've used the counter-offers that Priceline has given me before. I was happy with the price, so it was fine. As others have said, if you had used the free-rebid strategy you probably could have gotten a little bit better price. The PL counter offer was only $12 over your offer though. If you had rebid, you may have saved $5-7. Not a huge deal either way.

$12 doesn't sound like much, but since the original bid was $40, that's a 30% increase! Using the free-rebid zones to add smaller increments is definitely the best strategy.