Priceline - review

Priceline is famous for their “Name your own price” catch phrase. Every time I think of Priceline, I think of their commercials with William Shatner. He encourages the person searching for a deal to always bid lower for the price they want to pay. Priceline knows that when you are planning your vacation, you are looking for a deal to save money any way you can.

How does it work? You complete an online form with the specifics of what you want. Imagine that you are booking a hotel for your vacation. You want to stay in a four-star hotel but all the room rates are out of your price range. Using the online form, you choose the area where you want to stay and type of hotel you want. If you like knowing where you are going at the time of booking, do not use Priceline.com's name your own price function. If you have a specific area where you need to be located, DO NOT use Priceline.com's name your own price function.  You will not know the address of the hotel until you have completed the booking and they have found a hotel willing to meet your price. The same is true for plane tickets.

The whole point is that you are hoping to get a nice room for a cheap price. When I use Priceline, I limit my request to 3 or 4 star hotels only. Including 2 or 2.5 stars means you will probably end up in a hotel that would not have chosen on your own. Some of their 2 star hotels in Days Inn, Comfort Inn, etc. Since I like Renaissance, Marriott, Embassy Suites, Doubletree, Hilton, it is better that I limit to the highest rated hotel properties.

Then I do my research and by going to the website of those properties and bid half of their advertised rate. If there are no takers, I may increase my bid. If I don’t want to increase my bid, I will wait 24 hours and try again. Priceline tries to be helpful and suggest ways to get a “winning bid” but it usually includes choosing lower rated hotels. I work too hard to try to save a dollar by staying in a grungy motel. Most of the time Priceline does not accept my price for hotels. The few times that it has worked for me, I ended up at very nice hotels (Doubletree, Holiday Inn, Renaissance).

The cheapest flights are usually going to red-eye or multiple stops. Decide how much you want to be inconvenienced in your travel and then bid accordingly. Keep in mind, that the cheapest flight could be on multiple airlines or have crazy layover times (like 30 minutes between flights) in which case you could miss your connecting flight and end up spending more to get out of your connecting city than if you booked with a different travel agency.

Overall, using Priceline takes a lot of patience. It pays off if you are able to save money on your hotel room, rental car, or plane ticket. Other times, you are better off trying to find a deal another way.