How to get the LOWEST price at Priceline.com

anyone successful with this lately?

Quote from jmuscle : anyone successful with this lately?

Still works fine. I've gotten a a 3 star in Baltimore for cheap with the same method in July and so did a friend of mine in Virginia at two different hotels. So yeah it works and I've included a link to http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/ which takes out the whole being creative idea.

Basically the way this works is simple and I've tried to sum it up in the first heading of the wiki. Once priceline finds a hotel for you that meets your dollar amount then they will try to charge your credit card immediately. Well by providing them a invalid card they can't charge your card and provide you a screen that lets you enter the right card information, which means you've found a hotel willing to take your price. So from there you have a few options. You can try to bid even lower, so let's say you bid $60, which got accepted and you've gotten denied at $55. Well you can try $56, $57, and so on, but it really depends on how much is your time worth and ow determined you are to get the lowest price.

Alternatively you don't even have to change star rating or do any research at all. You can just keep putting invalid data each visit until you get the desired price. It'll take work and I usually use private browsing to do my bids, but it all depends on how much time you want to invest in getting your lowest price.

Quote from SuperStingy : Still works fine. I've gotten a a 3 star in Baltimore for cheap with the same method in July and so did a friend of mine in Virginia at two different hotels. So yeah it works and I've included a link to http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/ which takes out the whole being creative idea. Basically the way this works is simple and I've tried to sum it up in the first heading of the wiki. Once priceline finds a hotel for you that meets your dollar amount then they will try to charge your credit card immediately. Well by providing them a invalid card they can't charge your card and provide you a screen that lets you enter the right card information, which means you've found a hotel willing to take your price. So from there you have a few options. You can try to bid even lower, so let's say you bid $60, which got accepted and you've gotten denied at $55. Well you can try $56, $57, and so on, but it really depends on how much is your time worth and ow determined you are to get the lowest price. Alternatively you don't even have to change star rating or do any research at all. You can just keep putting invalid data each visit until you get the desired price. It'll take work and I usually use private browsing to do my bids, but it all depends on how much time you want to invest in getting your lowest price.

Thanks alot!! I will try this i was aware of that site

WOW really good info OP! Thanks so much!!!

Good idea

I don't understand. If you really want the Hotel, then why not use your original credit card and let is get processed once the Priceline finds the lowest price hotel ? How much difference will it make when the incremental is $5 ?

good idea OP

Does this truly work for flights as well?

Okay guys, if you made it this far into the thread you deserve to know this priceline trick I normally keep really close to chest. This is the mother of all priceline secrets, seriously.

Let's say you want to bid on priceline for some area in New Orleans, but you are okay with staying in EITHER the convention center OR the french quarter. this means that you have two zones that you wouldn't mind staying in because they're pretty close or they're both nice enough for you.

The mistake that most people make is that they bid on the convention center, then during the NEXT rebid they bid on the french quarter. THIS IS WRONG. You lose a TON of rebids by making this mistake!

Let us suppose you want a 4 star hotel...you need to determine which zones have 4* hotels. easiest way to do this is to click on each zone (there are 9 for new orleans) one by one, but UNCHECK the zone if you see it makes the **** light up in orange below. For new orleans, zones 4,6,7,8,9 do not have 4 star hotels. Go ahead and try it -- if you click on all of those zones, the 4* doesn't light up. This means you have 5 rebids! (Not counting the two zones you want!)

Okay, so here is the secret. Convention Center is zone 1, French Quarter is zone 3, and let us suppose that you are okay with a 4 star hotel in either. You DO NOT bid in zone 1 and then bid in zone 3 on a rebid. KEEP THEM SEPARATE, and then bid on them together only after you have exhausted all your rebids.

Here is the strategy:

Bid French Quarter (zone 3), Rebid by adding zones 4,6,7,8,9 one at a time. Total bids so far: 6

If no luck, then close browse and START OVER, bid only Convention Center (zone 1), Rebid by adding zones 4,6,7,8,9. DO NOT ADD FRENCH QUARTER (zone3). Total bids so far: 12

If still no luck, then close broser, and START OVER, click on BOTH conv center AND french quarter (zones 1 AND 3) and bid. Rebid by adding zones 4,6,7,8,9. Total bids so far:18 !!!

Using this method you get 18 free bids on the same day! If you had bid on zone 1, then zone 3, and then zones 4,6,7,8,9 , you would have had only 7 bids!

If you understood this logic, hats off to you! Have fun pushing priceline to its fullest

Quote from cimorene : Okay guys, if you made it this far into the thread you deserve to know this priceline trick I normally keep really close to chest. This is the mother of all priceline secrets, seriously. Let's say you want to bid on priceline for some area in New Orleans, but you are okay with staying in EITHER the convention center OR the french quarter. this means that you have two zones that you wouldn't mind staying in because they're pretty close or they're both nice enough for you. The mistake that most people make is that they bid on the convention center, then during the NEXT rebid they bid on the french quarter. THIS IS WRONG. You lose a TON of rebids by making this mistake! Let us suppose you want a 4 star hotel...you need to determine which zones have 4* hotels. easiest way to do this is to click on each zone (there are 9 for new orleans) one by one, but UNCHECK the zone if you see it makes the **** light up in orange below. For new orleans, zones 4,6,7,8,9 do not have 4 star hotels. Go ahead and try it -- if you click on all of those zones, the 4* doesn't light up. This means you have 5 rebids! (Not counting the two zones you want!) Okay, so here is the secret. Convention Center is zone 1, French Quarter is zone 3, and let us suppose that you are okay with a 4 star hotel in either. You DO NOT bid in zone 1 and then bid in zone 3 on a rebid. KEEP THEM SEPARATE, and then bid on them together only after you have exhausted all your rebids. Here is the strategy: Bid French Quarter (zone 3), Rebid by adding zones 4,6,7,8,9 one at a time. Total bids so far: 6 If no luck, then close browse and START OVER, bid only Convention Center (zone 1), Rebid by adding zones 4,6,7,8,9. DO NOT ADD FRENCH QUARTER (zone3). Total bids so far: 12 If still no luck, then close broser, and START OVER, click on BOTH conv center AND french quarter (zones 1 AND 3) and bid. Rebid by adding zones 4,6,7,8,9. Total bids so far:18 !!! Using this method you get 18 free bids on the same day! If you had bid on zone 1, then zone 3, and then zones 4,6,7,8,9 , you would have had only 7 bids! If you understood this logic, hats off to you! Have fun pushing priceline to its fullest

I am a priceline virgin, but I see the logic in this and it's an incredible strategy. I took a look at 5* hotels in vegas. There are only 5*'s in zone 7,8,9

Use zone 7, rebid adding 1,2,3,4,5,6,11,12,13,14,15: total 12 rebids
Use zone 8, plus rebids: total 24 rebids
Use zone 9, plus rebids: total 36 rebids
Use zone 7,8 plus rebids: total 48 rebids
Use zone 7,9 plus rebids: total 60 rebids
Use zone 8,9 plus rebids: total 72 rebids
Use zone 7,8,9 plus rebids: total 84 rebids

Do I got this right? If so, lets delete our posts

Quote from CouponCzar : I am a priceline virgin, but I see the logic in this and it's an incredible strategy. I took a look at 5* hotels in vegas. There are only 5*'s in zone 7,8,9 Use zone 7, rebid adding 1,2,3,4,5,6,11,12,13,14,15: total 12 rebids Use zone 8, plus rebids: total 24 rebids Use zone 9, plus rebids: total 36 rebids Use zone 7,8 plus rebids: total 48 rebids Use zone 7,9 plus rebids: total 60 rebids Use zone 8,9 plus rebids: total 72 rebids Use zone 7,8,9 plus rebids: total 84 rebids Do I got this right? If so, lets delete our posts

You got it exactly right!

Also, a tip for everyone. I use the elimination strategy. Using the star rating and review ratings in Priceline, you'll be able to tell which hotel you'll get when you bid. This works best in tiny towns where there aren't much choices. Look for the lowest price that that hotel is selling for. Bid a dollar higher. You'll definitely win the bid. Then call Priceline, tell them you found a lower rate on XXX website. They will match that rate and give you $25 bucks!!! The thing is, you have to be very CERTAIN that you know what hotel you're getting. Hope I made sense.

Quote from shadylady51 : Also, a tip for everyone. I use the elimination strategy. Using the star rating and review ratings in Priceline, you'll be able to tell which hotel you'll get when you bid. This works best in tiny towns where there aren't much choices. Look for the lowest price that that hotel is selling for. Bid a dollar higher. You'll definitely win the bid. Then call Priceline, tell them you found a lower rate on XXX website. They will match that rate and give you $25 bucks!!! The thing is, you have to be very CERTAIN that you know what hotel you're getting. Hope I made sense.

err... unless you're only staying 1 night (and sometimes even then) getting $25 bucks off paying $1 over listed rate will mean you paid more than if you used proper rebid strategy (since that will often save you 25-40% off the price)

that's apart from the inability to always be certain which hotel you're getting.

Quote from Knightshade : err... unless you're only staying 1 night (and sometimes even then) getting $25 bucks off paying $1 over listed rate will mean you paid more than if you used proper rebid strategy (since that will often save you 25-40% off the price) that's apart from the inability to always be certain which hotel you're getting.

That's true. I guess my strategy only works in very limited situations. I've used this technique twice. On both occasions, I only only booked a night's stay (Atlantic City and Massena, NY). And I kept checking the rates for 2 weeks to see how much it fluctuates. In my case, the price stayed the same for weeks. It was a consolation that I knew (90%) what hotel I was booking and that I'm getting it at a lower published rate. Of course, I tried bidding at a low rate first.

Say, the hotel is published for $99. I tried bidding $75. It won't take it. So then I bid $100. I win the bid and get the room for $74 because of the pricematch and $25 money back.