Ease of Travel

If you have ever used Priceline, you know that their process is a little tricky and if you aren’t careful - you could end up in a roach motel. Well, here is where BiddingForTravel will be an eternal lifesaver for all you Priceline addicts out there. Since Priceline isn’t about to give you a list of their four stars in each city and they aren’t going to tell you which lowball bids were accepted for what flights, you’ll need to rely on BiddingForTravel’s loyal users to provide this knowledge through their own experiences.

If you have never used Priceline, I invite you to take a look at it. Priceline relies on a reverse auction concept - you put in your itinerary details, your criteria (for hotels, it’s the level of quality rated in stars), and the price you’d be willing to pay. Within a specified time period, Priceline will let you know if a company has accepted your price (or if everyone has declined). In the case of hotels, they don’t tell you specifically which hotels are four stars but they do give you their rating criteria.

So, you want to a 4-star hotel in Pittsburgh, PA but are unsure how much you offer? If it’s too low, you’ll be wasting precious time - especially precious because Priceline relies on last minute offers to give you the best price as places scramble to increase utilization (empty seats and empty hotel rooms mean lost revenue). If you offer too much, you’ll be one of the suckers in the Priceline commercials who paid double someone else.

Then, visit BiddingForTravel and look at what other people have been paying and what hotels they’re staying at. Looking at it today, in the Pittsburgh, PA forum, you can see that PismoBeach will pay $80/night on 5/4 (Wed) for the Westin Convention Center, a four star hotel. Compare that with, cgsauer, who paid $53/night to stay at the William Penn Omni on 4/23 (Sat), also a four star hotel. In reading these forums, you’ll figure out which hotels are in which star category too. The Westin, Omni, and Renaissance are all four star hotels in Pittsburgh. The Airport Hyatt, Crowne Plaza (Airport), Sheraton (Airport), and the Hilton are three star hotels that can be had for around mid-$30 a room.

Hotels are easier to game using Priceline than airline flights but we’re talking the same principles. Read the forums based on the departing state and figure out how much folks are paying. Flights are trickier for most folks because you can’t truly specify the times at which you will fly - but the potential for savings is still there.

Have you used Priceline or BiddingForTravel? Share your experiences here!