PRICELINE.COM - When is the best time to buy Hotel? How far in Advance?
 

Ive never used priceline before.
When is the best time to use it?

Planning a California Road Trip next month. Want to try this priceline thing out.

Are the best deals when I book 1 month out? Or wait the week before? Ive never used priceline so I really dont know.

The prices don't vary a whole lot. Some hotels will send underbooked room deals to certain places like hotels.com but there is no way to know when that will happen.

I don't like to drive around looking for a place to sleep - so I normally book 2-3 weeks out. I find most of the time there aren't huge price variances at that frame.

Think Swine Flu scare will drop prices?

LOL. Thread sounds like Ive never traveled.

Kinda strange how ive never used priceline before but I havent. I normally just call the hotel and book.

Times are rough people. I need to save every penny.

How does priceline work? When are the best prices? Should I wait till the week of travel? Or buy earlier?

Ok cool. Makes sence.

Im wondering if this Swine flu thing will start to scare travelers?
If so hotel prices should drop a lot.

I think the hotels know this!

I just got a bunch of travel emails telling me about deals today in my inbox. Like way more than normal.

Ive never really used these brokers before but would like to try them out.

I would have to agree,

I've used them all but never seen a discount large enough to say it's worth it.

Even between priceline, hotels, expedia.. there all around the same tiny discount too.

Is Priceline still a good place to get nice hotels for cheap?
Or is there a better place to get deals on nice hotels in Cali?

I've done ok with priceline even just 3-4 days in advance. I was amazed how cheap it was, cheaper than just the plane tickets and we got 4 days in a hotel also.

Try sites like Flycheap.com dont know if there is a staycheap or not but give it a shot

I just tried LAX to MNL, round trip, for June, on both priceline and expedia - same price on both sites.. same flights..

Way too early to use priceline, maybe?

$857.00 - great price, actually.. Japan Airlines..

Hey Boneprone, check out Hotwire, they offer way better hotels cheaper. You don't get to know the name of the hotel until after you book it, but compared to what I found online, it is the best way to go as far as deals go. And you can book it up to the day before and still get a good deal, unless of course you are heading to a place that has peak season rates at the time you're going.

Hotwire is ok, but you'll find better pricing at Priceline if you know how to bid. Easiest way to use priceline is go to one of the forums that users post their winning bids by destination. I use www.biddingfortravel.com and www.betterbidding.com If you're new to priceline then you need to read the tutorials on those sites to learn how to effectively rebid without compromising what area you want to stay in. Scan the forums for the area you are looking to stay at and then look at recent winning bids and what hotel they got. I recommend only staying in 4 star or resort level hotels. By reading the forums you'll get an idea of what hotels within each category in a particular region that Priceline is currently using.

Right now with the poor economy you can get some incredible deals. I've used Priceline at least 30 times and always stay at resorts for a fraction of their normal rates. In the last six months I've stayed at the Marriott in Maui/Wailea for $100/night and the Hapuna Beach Prince resort on the big island of Hawaii for $75/night.

To answer BP's original question, the best time to bid is usually within a couple weeks of your stay. You can try a couple months out, but you often won't get your low bids accepted. I also recommend using Priceline for rental cars, I just got a full size in Vegas for $9/day.

I usually bid a few days before I want to go and get the price lowered by 20 - 50%

If you are booking a trip to see the Blazers face the Lakers, you might want to wait on that :winkwink:

Sorry, too easy

I was just going to mention those two sites. Very nice forums to help you find out which hotels are actually the ones you are bidding on.

Wow. Thanks bud.
This seems to be a pretty useful tool and indicator.


9 bucks a day car rental?
Wow.