Basically, when you bid on travel, you are trading some risks for potential dollar savings. \u00a0If done correctly, however, bidding for travel can be a great way to save money and stretch your travel budget.<\/div>\n

Bidding on Priceline Hotels<\/h2>\n
$\"Priceline$ Priceline has 2 ways that travellers can bid for travel and hotels. The first is a service called Name Your Own Price<\/strong>, which allows travellers to specify the type of hotel they want and the area they want to stay, and then name a price they are willing to pay. \u00a0If your bid is accepted, you have a confirmed hotel reservation. \u00a0If you bid too low, your bid is rejected. \u00a0Savvy travellers know how to get free Priceline rebids without having to wait<\/a> the normal 24 hour period. \u00a0This allows you to bid low and work your way up, thereby ensuring you get the lowest possible price. \u00a0This is by far the cheapest way to get a hotel reservation, but it requires the traveller to spend some time becoming comfortable on how to become a better bidder on Priceline.<\/p>\n
They also have something called Express Deals where there is no bidding required. \u00a0You still do not know the name of your hotel until after you make your non-refundable purchase, but the Price is displayed for you. \u00a0Here’s a tip: \u00a0Use this as the maximum bid amount when you are actually bidding for travel. \u00a0This is a new service offered by Priceline and travellers seem to like it.<\/p>\n

Bidding on Hotwire<\/h2>\n
Another popular travel bidding site is Hotwire. \u00a0Technically, there is not actually any bidding required on Hotwire, but it is common to lump the collection of opaque travel booking sites into the same category, known as bidding sites. \u00a0Hotwire works much the same way as Priceline Express Deals. \u00a0You get to see the hotel area, amenities and price, but the name of the hotel is not revealed until after you buy. \u00a0Much less risky, but the savings are not usually as significant either.<\/p>\n
There is a way to actually reveal the name of your Hotwire hotel before bidding<\/strong>. \u00a0The Hotwire and Priceline forum<\/a>\u00a0has thousands of Hotwire and Priceline customers posting their winning bid details, including the name of their hotel. \u00a0The hotel lists<\/a> can help narrow down the hotel that you are likely to get, and in many cases you can figure out your hotel before bidding.<\/p>\n
Other Bidding Sites<\/h2>\n
$\"Travelocity$ There are 2 other common sites used when bidding for travel:<\/p>\n
\n
Travelocity Top Secret Hotels: \u00a0<\/strong>This service was launched a few years ago, but has only had lukewarm reviews. \u00a0Here is my own review of Travelocity Top Secret<\/a> going back a few years ago when the service was first launched. \u00a0I was not too kind in my review, and I do not know if they have improved their product offering since the article was first written.<\/li>\n
Expedia Unpublished Rates:<\/strong> \u00a0This works along the same lines as Hotwire and in fact, is “powered by” Hotwire. \u00a0In other words, its the same as Hotwire. \u00a0If you are interested in giving this service a try, you probably will not find it to be much different the the service that powers it — Hotwire. \u00a0As for taking the risk out of bidding by trying to reveal your hotel, just use the Hotwire hotel lists<\/a> since they are the same.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Better Bidding For Travel<\/h2>\n
It is most important to remember that while bidding for travel can save you money, it also has some risks. \u00a0These risk can be mitigated, especially with a bit of research. \u00a0The top resources for traveller wanting to become better at bidding on their travel are:<\/p>\n
\n
Priceline and Hotwire hotel lists<\/a>: \u00a0An amazing collection of hotels known to be on these sites, helping you reveal your hotel before bidding.<\/li>\n
Bidding Discussion Forum<\/a>: \u00a0An online community where thousands of travellers ask questions and help each other book travel on bidding sites.<\/li>\n
Priceline Strategies<\/a>: \u00a0A collection of article that cover how to get the absolute lowest price on hotels using Priceline Name Your Own Price.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bidding for travel has gained popularity over the last few years, and for very good reason. Travellers can save money on products such as hotels, car rentals and airline tickets. The biggest savings are in hotel reservations, where travellers can save sometimes 60% or more, but bidding for travel also has some risks associated with it. The most popular travel bidding sites are Priceline and Hotwire. Here are some strategies for how to rebid on Priceline and how to reveal the name of your hotel before making your purchase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,43,36],"tags":[122,130,94,116],"class_list":["post-889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-better-bidding-for-travel","category-hotwire","category-priceline","tag-better-bidding","tag-biddingfortravel","tag-travelocity","tag-winning-bids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoteldealsrevealed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoteldealsrevealed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoteldealsrevealed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoteldealsrevealed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoteldealsrevealed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoteldealsrevealed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":904,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoteldealsrevealed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions\/904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoteldealsrevealed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoteldealsrevealed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoteldealsrevealed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}