by Robert Cole

You may have seen the classic commercials where Captain Kirk (William Shatner) is running around daring everyone to save money on Priceline. I have to agree that Priceline is the best place for those of us who are obsessively trying to find cheapest hotel deal to achieve our goal. Like defeating the Kobyashi Maru no win scenario, though, it requires patience, some cunning use of math skills and a clever strategy. So, if you don’t have the nerves of a Vulcan, I would make maximum warp speed back to the easier Hotwire Hedge strategy. If you are game, boldly read on.

Priceline is a reverse-auction. You must enter your name, address and credit card information before you bid. You will not see the name of the hotel until after your bid is accepted. All you have to go on are the city, neighborhood and hotel category (star-rating). If your bid is accepted, your credit card is charged and the purchase is non-refundable.

My Priceline deal-finding philosophy is simple – “Re-bid and prosper.” 

Before you start, one important consideration; Priceline only books rooms with a maximum double occupancy using the “Name Your Own Price” option. Priceline is not a good solution for traveling families booking a single room.

Priceline aggressively promotes its “Name Your Own Price” product, but provided with that liberty, what makes you think your bid is the lowest price the hotel is willing to accept? 

Priceline has established some rules to avoid bottom-feeder bidders from continuously testing for the lowest price. Priceline policy prohibits re-bidding for the same itinerary within 24-hours of a rejected bid. Priceline does, however, allow immediate re-bids if the date, city, hotel category (star-rating), or neighborhood is changed from the original bid. 

This is important.

The trick to triggering immediate re-bids is that Priceline allows re-bidding when an additional neighborhood is added but that zone does not offer any new candidate hotels for consideration based on the previous bid… huh? In essence, you can re-bid a slightly higher price for the exact same target group of hotels. Pure genius! 

The key to getting the lowest possible hotel rate on Priceline is understanding how many immediate re-bid opportunities you have so you can know where to start bidding and when to stop. This will be a three step process.

Step A: Calculate the number of available bids (initial bid + any rebids) re-bids and maximum bid.

  1. Focus your sights on the zones and hotel category that you desire. In this example, I will be looking for a 4-star property in three New York City neighborhoods – ideally, Midtown East, but also Midtown West, or Times Square. By selecting 3 acceptable neighborhoods, I have 1 initial bid and 2 free re-bids (3 all together).
  2. Next, determine how many additional re-bid opportunities you have under the same parameters. Over the dates I am searching, there are no 4-star hotels in the Brooklyn, Chelsea, Long Island City, Madison Square Garden, or Upper East Side zones. This should provide at least 5 additional free re-bids after the initial three bids (8 total – remember this number.)
  3. By the way, if you are traveling with a spouse or friend, you can also effectively double your number of bids by having them log in separately by using their name, address and credit card.

Step B: Determine your starting and maximum bids.

  1. Check Expedia for the lowest available retail rate for a 4-star hotel in the Midtown East, Midtown West, or Times Square zones. For the example, The Barclay Intercontinental is $229/night. Depending on the number of re-bids available, you can start at 50% to 70% off this price as your initial bid. Because I have 8 rebids available, I will start bidding at 70% off the $229 rate, or $69.
  2. Now check the lowest 4-star, Midtown East, Midtown West and Times Square hotel price on Hotwire. I found $179/night. You do not want to bid more than this price.
  3. Now a little math… Yes, it’s OK to round to the nearest dollar. As most people want to re-bid with the same value increase between bids, let’s take that approach. First, subtract your opening bid from the Hotwire price $179 – $69 = $110. Now, take that result and divide by your total number of bids $110 / 8 = $14. That’s your bidding increment.
  4. Make a little table – In this example, Bid 1 = $69, Bid 2 = $83, Bid 3 = $97, …, Bid 8 = $167.  $167 will be your maximum bid. 

Step C: Complete your table & Engage by writing down the exact zones and star-ratings for the initial bid and each re-bid next to the dollar amount. You will want to carefully prepare and follow this sequence. May the force be with you (oops – wrong sci-fi movie reference).

  1. In our example, the first bid is $69 for a 4-star hotel in Midtown East. Priceline may respond to this bid by gently saying that you are nuts, the price is too cheap and show you an unrealistically high typical price. They are playing Klingon mind games. Ignore the advice and stick to your strategy.
  2. Assuming the first bid was rejected, take advantage of the free re-bid by adding Midtown West zone and raising the price to $83.
  3. Patiently repeat the process adding zones until you reach your maximum bid. Hopefully, you will be rewarded for your efforts by beating the Hotwire price.

What was the best deal I ever found on Priceline?  Last summer, I paid $39 per night for a five night stay at a 4-star Sheraton Suites in suburban Chicago using Priceline. Over the same dates, the hotel was charging $130 on its website.  I recall being quite pleased that I used the 70% discount level for my starting bid.

So there you have it, by employing this strategy, faster than Tribbles can multiply, you’ll be using multiple re-bids to get the lowest possible price out of Priceline. Be careful not to stun yourself with the savings. Make it so.

 

 

About Robert Cole

The Founder of Rock Cheetah LLC, Robert’s role in the travel industry is to help companies bridge the chasms separating marketing, technology and operations to create best practices and process improvements that benefit the consumer and drive profit. Robert has worked at the VP of Destination Experience for Mark Travel; VP of Hotel & Car for Cendant Corporation; VP of Business Development and Marketing Services for Anasazi Inc.; Director of Electronic Distribution for Budget Group; and Director of Hotel Distribution for Sabre Holdings. Robert is also active in many Travel Industry groups including the Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association, the Hospitality Technology & Financial Professionals, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International and the Open Travel Alliance. Follow Robert on Twitter at @RobertKCole and for total travel industry geeks he also author the Views from a Corner Suite blog where he talks shop for industry insiders. Click here to read.