Priceline Instant Rebidding Techniques
Priceline has a unique feature called Name Your Own Price for booking hotels, flights and car rentals. If you’re unfamiliar with Name Your Own Price, please read this article on Priceline basics before reading this page. For hotel reservations using Name Your Own Price, your normally have to wait 24 hours if your Name Your Own Price bid is rejected. There are a few exceptions that will allow you to rebid instantly. One technique is simply to use a different credit card. Many people have more than one credit card in their pocket or can use a spouse’s card. This is perfectly acceptable bidding practice on Priceline.
The first thing you’ll notice when bidding on Priceline using Name Your Own Price is that Priceline breaks cities into many smaller areas. For instance, Las Vegas is broken into 12 different areas. This is important because Priceline will let you rebid instantly as long as you add another area to your bid. You might be thinking that if you add another area, won’t you risk getting stuck with a hotel in an area of town you don’t want? The way around this is to add an area that doesn’t have any hotels with the star rating you want. I’ll walk you through an example:
Step 1 - Determine Your Hotel Star Rating and Area: Suppose I want to stay at a 5 star hotel on the southern part of the Las Vegas Strip on a particular date. After entering my search parameters (city, travel dates) on Priceline's Name Your Own Price, I am shown a map of Las Vegas. Since I want to stay at a 5 star hotel in the south part of the Strip, I click on “Las Vegas Strip Vicinity South" and notice that 5 star hotels are available. Have a look at the screen shot below. The availability of a 5-star hotel is indicated by the 5 orange stars. Had a 5 star hotel not been available, the stars would gray. Great, but don’t start bidding just yet.
Step 2 - Find Other Areas That Do Not Have The Same Hotel Class (Or Better): Remember, if a Name Your Own Price bid is rejected, I can rebid just by adding another area. But since I only want to stay in the Las Vegas Strip South Vicinity, I must be careful to not add any area that has a 5 star (or better) hotel on my next bid. If I do, I run the risk of getting a hotel in an undesired location of Vegas. You can see from the screen shot below that Boulder Strip (my current selection as indicated by the check mark) does not have any hotels in the 5-star Luxury category (as indicated by the gray stars instead of orange).
This is good. It means that I can add the Boulder Strip on a rebid and not have to worry about getting a hotel in that area. Remember, just by adding an area, I can rebid immediately.
After repeating this for each Las Vegas area, I determine that there are 8 areas in Las Vegas that do not have 5 star hotels or better, which will give me a total of 9 Priceline bids! Have a look at the screen shot below and note that I have 8 different areas of Las Vegas selected and none of these areas has a 5-star hotel for my travel dates. This is a bargain hunter's dream! Now I am finally ready to start bidding. IMPORTANT NOTE: Resorts are considered 'better' than 5-star hotels, so make sure not to include areas that have resorts available or you may end up winning a resort in an area you don't want.
Step 3 - Place Your First Bid: Your first bid should only include the area you want to find a hotel. In my example, it is the Las Vegas Strip South Vicinity. If you aren't sure how much to bid, I use a Priceline bidding method described here.
Step 4 - Add An Area Identified In Step 2 and Rebid: If your first Priceline bid is rejected, add an area that doesn’t have a hotel with your desired star ranking. In my example, I would add Boulder Strip, increment my bidding price, and submit my bid.
Step 5 – Repeat Step 4: Repeat step 4 by adding an additional area identified in Step 2. Repeat this process until you’ve exhausted all areas that don’t have a hotel with the desired star rating.
Final Thoughts: I have been using this technique for a couple of years now, and it is quite helpful when reserving hotel rooms with Priceline’s Name Your Own Price. This process might seem complicated at first but after trying it once, it actually becomes easy. I will admit it is a bit cumbersome but it can also save you a lot of money! Just remember, you can rebid instantly on Priceline by adding a new area, even if that area doesn't have a hotel with the star rating (or better) that you want. This is a risk free method for starting your bid low and working up to a Price that is finally accepted. Good luck!
Additional Priceline Resources
- Priceline Essentials: Learn the basics of Priceline. Essential reading for anyone considering using Priceline's Name Your Own Price for hotel and other travel reservations.
- Determining A Starting Bid Amount: Don’t overpay for your hotel, using this technique to determine how much you should bid using Priceline’s Name Your own Price.
- Ten Tips For Better Bidding On Priceline: Here is a quick summary of the best tips for saving money on Priceline and getting the hotel you want.
- Priceline Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Some of the more common Priceline questions are answered in this section.
- Priceline Forum: Join our forum and discuss Priceline strategies, find out how much others paid for hotel reservations, seek help identifying a hotel, or discuss anything travel related.
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