How to Find a Cheap Hotel

Many people use priceline.com to get discounted hotel prices in cities across the United States. However, because of priceline's bidding rules, it can be difficult to get the hotel you want and the best deal. There is a bidding technique from BiddingForTravel.com which gives you the advantage to get the hotel you want at best price.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. 
    
   BiddingForTravel.com

   Go to Bidding For Travel website at http://www.biddingfortravel.com

2. 
    
   Select State/City

   On the main page look for the state and city of the hotel you want to stay at and click on the link.

3. 
    
   Select HOTEL LIST

   On the page for the city, click on the HOTEL LIST link. This link will identify the different star hotels in each priceline.com region for the city.

4. 
    
   Identify Hotel, Star Rating, Region

   Identify the specific hotel you want to stay at, the star rating it has, and the priceline.com region it is in. Write that down.

5. Identify the other priceline.com regions in that city that have ONLY LOWER star rating hotels than the one you want to stay at and write the names of those regions down. The number of consecutive bids you can now make is equivalent to the number of regions that only have LOWER star rating hotels + 1. These are considered "rebidding zones".

6. Look in the forums on BiddingForTravel.com to identify what kinds of bids have recently been winning for the hotel you want and come up with a starting bid amount.

7. Go to http://www.priceline.com

8. 
    
   priceline.com

   Select the option to bid for a hotel in the city you want.

9. 
    
   Select Region and Star rating

   On your first bid, select the region the hotel is in with the star rating for that hotel, and use the starting bid you identified in an earlier step.

10. If the bid fails, add $5 to $10 to the bid, and then select one of the other regions from your "rebidding zones". This guarantees that you will not get a hotel in this new selected region and only the hotels in the region you want at your star rating are being considered.

11. Repeat previous step until the bid is accepted, or the number of "rebidding zones" runs out. If the number of "rebidding zones" runs out, try again when the priceline timeout expires. The number of bids you can perform is one plus the number of "rebidding zones" you identified.

Tips & Warnings

• This technique works best when going for 4 or 5 star or Resort class hotels.
• Make sure you ONLY select "rebidding zones" that only have hotels with a LOWER star rating than the hotel you want. Otherwise, you may accidentally get a hotel in the region you do not want.
• If your "rebidding zones" run out, use a second priceline account from a spouse or family member to continue bidding the same day until the hotel you want accepts the bid.
• NEVER lower your star rating when doing a rebid. This will bring in additional hotels you do not want.

Resources

• priceline.com
• Bidding For Travel

[julesbo]

on 3/17/2009 Sure, it's possible you'll get another 4-star hotel nearby. Is that so bad? I've never been disappointed with this method. Well--except that I have occasionally disagreed with the 4-star rating.

[drfugawe]

on 12/16/2008 Maybe I'm obtuse, but I fail to see how your "system" will guarantee that you will get a "specific" hotel in the zone of your choice! Isn't it true that if your chosen hotel is a 4 star, that it's possible that you'll get one of the other 4 star hotels in that zone?