WFMW: Play Priceline’s Game and Win!

Several times a year, we find ourselves in need of a hotel reservation. If we have some flexibility about where we’re going to stay, I play Priceline.

I get ridiculously excited about this, I might add. It’s so fun, and I’ve developed a strategy over the years that I thought I’d share with you.

First of all, it’s important to note upfront that to get the best deal on Priceline, you have to name your own price. When you do this, though, you’re not able to pick the exact hotel you want to stay in, so if you’re, say, attending a wedding and want to stay where the reception will be, Priceline isn’t for you. Also, once your bid is accepted, your credit card is charged and there’s no going back. Often, you can call the hotel directly and request a non-smoking room or two double beds, etc. but beware that the hotels aren’t under obligation to accomodate you. Probably 90% of the time, I’ve had no problem with this, but a couple times it’s been a little annoying. Like the time I got a room here for $40, but it only had one bed and we had six adults staying in that room. Luckily we were young and by the time we got home from the Phish show we didn’t care at all, but I could see if one was traveling with, say, in-laws, this might present a problem.

These caveats aside, I love playing the priceline game and I have saved us a ton of money and we’ve stayed in way nicer hotels than we would have otherwise. So here’s Emily’s Priceline Bidding Tutorial.

You start out by going to pricline.com and click on “Name your own price.” Then you’ll enter the city where you want to stay, the dates you’ll be traveling and the number of rooms you’ll need.

I should mention, too, that you can only make a bid for the same trip once in a 24-hour period, so you’ve got to make it count, and start trying as far in advance as you can. However, there are a few variables you can change to give yourself more shots at bidding, and I will cover those as I go on. Price is not one of these variables, however – you can’t bid $40 and then bid $50 immediately afterward without changing anything else.

If you’re going to a major city, you’ll be asked to choose an area in which you’d like to stay. This is important – the first time you bid, only choose ONE area – the one you’d ideally like to stay in – even if you’re flexible. This is one of the variables that you can change if your bid isn’t accepted, so you want to start by being specific and then move out if you need to.

Next you’ll choose a “star level.” Again, it’s important to choose the absolute highest one the first time. If your bid is accepted the first time around, great, you’ve scored yourself a sweet hotel. If it’s not accepted, again, this is one of the few ways to get yourself another bid. In my experience, 2 1/2 stars and higher make for a very nice stay. Two stars is ok – fine if you’re just looking for a place to crash after a long day at an amusement park or visiting family, but not awesome. I haven’t ventured into the land of one star. Priceline gives these examples for each star level:
• Four star deluxe: Hyatt Regency, Hilton, Sheraton, Marriott
• Three star upscale: Hilton, Marriott, Sheraton, Hyatt, Embassy Suites, Holiday Inn
• Two and a half star moderate-plus: Courtyard, Residence Inn, Doubletree Club, Homewood Suites, Amerisuites, Holiday Inn
• Two star moderate: Comfort Inn, Homestead Studio Suites, Best Western, Ramada Inn, La Quinta Inn, Holiday Inn
• One star economy: Rodeway Inns, EconoLodge, Super 8, Sleep Inn, Red Roof Inn

Then, the most important part, you name your own price. I encourage you to start low – particularly if you’ve started early and have a couple weeks before your trip, or if you can be flexible about the area of town or star level that you’re comfortable with. And by low, I mean low. Like around $30. Maybe even $25 if you’re feeling brave. The next screen might say something like “We want you to get your hotel and there’s a small likelihood that you’ll get it at that price, blah, blah, blah” but proceed anyway! That’s how you’re going to get the real deals.

Then… (insert Jeopardy theme song here) you wait. If you’re like me, you incessantly refresh the “we’re working on it” screen until you get one of two messages – either “Your bid was accepted” (Yay! You’re done!) or “Try again now.” Once in a blue moon, you’ll get a message that tells you that if you increase your bid by $x (it’s been $12 both times I’ve seen it), you can try again immediately without changing anything. If this happens and you’re ok with paying the small increase, I highly encourage you to give it a go. Both times I’ve gotten this message, I’ve increased the price as they asked and my bid has been immediately accepted.

If you get “Try again now,” you can bid again if you change either the city or dates of your stay (most likely this isn’t possible), the area of the city, or the star level. If you followed directions and picked only one area of the city and the highest star level the first time, you have some room to adjust for round two. At this point, you’ll need to decide if staying in the most desirable area is most important to you, or if you’re most concerned with staying at the nicest hotel possible, because you only need to change one of those things. You’ll notice that the first area and star level you chose will be grayed out – any subsequent tries will automatically include these variables as possibilities. You can’t un-pick them.

If you decide you can broaden your area of stay, again, pick only one additional area. In the same vein, if you’re bumping the star level down, only go down one at a time! Put in your price again (you can bump it up if you want to – in fact, this may be the time to do it, since if this bid isn’t accepted you’ll have to either branch out into wider territory or decrease your star level). Again, cue the Jeopardy theme song.

If you’re bid’s not accepted, you can try again if you change one of the two variables. At this point, since you’re bidding on a wide area of location and perhaps the lowest star level you’re willing to brave, make the bid low. You don’t want to pay $50 for a so-so hotel on the other side of town when you only offered the 4-star hotel $30. Hopefully you’ve got plenty of time before your trip and you can try again after 24 hours. This is the hard part – if your bid isn’t being accepted for what you want for what you want to pay, walk away and wait. It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement (think about how your maximum bid on a Ebay item can magically increase if you’re caught in a bidding war with one minute left to go) and end up paying more than you wanted to for a hotel that’s not as nice as you’d like. Hopefully it won’t come to this, though, and one of your first bids will go through.

This really works, I promise! I’ve gotten some seriously great deals on hotel rooms. This summer, we stayed at the Hyatt
Regency in St. Louis over the Fourth of July for $50/night, and we’ve stayed at equally nice hotels for less than that countless times. I know this is a lot of info, so feel free to leave a comment if you have questions.

Playing the Priceline game definitely works for me! For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, visit Rocks in My Dryer.