Travelers on the Priceline and Hotwire Forum often want to know which is cheaper for hotels, Hotwire or Priceline. This is a difficult question to answer for a couple of reasons. First, you cannot easily compare the same hotels on the same dates. Neither website displays the hotel name until after you bid. Further, Priceline does not even tell you the price. Instead, they rely on you to bid, so the price you pay is not published and is entirely up to the traveller.
Another reason its difficult to know which is cheaper is that Priceline uses a system called “Name Your Own Price.” Therefore, there is an inherent bias that Priceline will be cheaper. It simply does not make sense to bid more on Priceline than the Hotwire price for a hotel. This is a strategy for better bidding that I encourage Priceline customers to adhere to: never bid more than the price of a comparable hotel on Hotwire. If you follow this rule, Priceline will always be cheaper or the same as Hotwire but never more expensive.
Related Article: Tips For Better Bidding on Priceline
With these limitations in mind, HotelDealsReaved does have access to thousands of winning bids by real travelers who have posted their purchase details. In other words, we are able to Hotwire and Priceline hotel prices against real data: hotel names and prices.
Hotwire vs. Priceline: Letting the Data Decide Which Is Cheaper
I looked at over 8,000 hotel ‘winning bids’. A winning bid is when somebody post their hotel purchase (or ‘win’) on the Hotwire and Priceline forum. We know the price they paid and the hotel name. In looking at over 8,000 wins from over 1000 different hotels, we found the following to help determine which is cheaper for hotels:
- Priceline was not always the cheapest, but most of the time it was. In fact, 88 percent of the time Priceline was cheaper than Hotwire. Again, this makes sense if bidders use the rule that you should never bid MORE than the Hotwire price.
- In most cases (74%), Priceline was cheaper than Hotwire by a significant margin of 10% or more. Quite simply, customers can expect to save around 10% on Priceline over Hotwire.
Strategies for Better Bidding On Priceline
Now you know that Priceline is cheaper than Hotwire, here are some better bidding strategies to ensure you pay the absolute rock bottom price when bidding for travel.
Better Bidding Rule #1: Never bid more on Priceline than the price of a similar hotel on Hotwire.
Better Bidding Rule #2: Lear how to rebid on Priceline, bid low, and work your way up with rebids.
As an example, suppose I am looking for a 5-star hotel in the “Strip North” zone of Las Vegas, Nevada. I check out Hotwire and see that hotels of this class and in this region are selling for around $100 per night. I will use this as my maximum.
Next, I need to determine how many free rebids I have. I see that there are 7 chances to rebid on Priceline. Therefore, I might do something like this: $60 first bid, $65 second bid … $95 last bid. When I reach my final bid, one of two things will happen: (1) Most likely, I will have had a successful bid already, or (2) I’ve maxed out and in this case, Priceline is not cheaper than Hotwire. Therefore, I will simply book my hotel on Hotwire.
Related Article: Rebidding On Priceline Without Waiting