Priceline Hotel Bidding Grab bargains and beat the system

It's possible to get mammoth discounts on hotels in New York, LA, Barcelona and more, using a sneaky trick to beat US site Priceline's bidding system.

Done right, this is a superb way to get the highest end hotel possible within your budget, especially if you're not desperate to stay at a particular place. One MoneySaver bagged a week at NYC's luxury Time Square Sheraton for £330, rather than usual £1,200.

How much can you save?

Hotel bidding site Priceline flogs posh hotel rooms at colossal discounts, and it’s especially strong for US hotels.

The technique's simple, but you'll need to spend a few minutes understanding it. So here's a little inspiration. For more successes and to add yours, read the Priceline success thread.

How Priceline works

Giant US site Priceline lets you book hotels in the normal manner too, but, for that, better bets are comparison sites such as Trivago, TravelSupermarket* or TripAdvisor*. Where Priceline comes into its own is its 'name your price' function, which works as follows:

• Select where you want to stay

  Simply select the location and area you want to stay in.

• Tell it the hotel class

  Priceline follows its own star rating system. One thing you can't select is whether the bed is king or double, or a smoking or non-smoking room (in countries where smoking's allowed). Once booked, you can email the hotel to request these, though it's not guaranteed. If two separate beds are crucial, Priceline's probably not for you.

• Pick a price

  Tell it how much you're willing to pay (bid) for a room per night. It gives a guide price based on the criteria you've selected.
  
  Once you've entered your price, Priceline checks if any of the hotels it covers will accept your offer. If you don't win, you don't pay anything.

  You pay extra for taxes, but Priceline displays these before you pay.

• Wait to see if the bid's successful

  If the bid wins, the hotel's yours at the price selected. If not, you're supposed to wait a day to put in another bid (but see the loophole below for how to get round this).

The key thing to understand about this system:

Put your bid in and you’re committed.
If it's acccepted, there's no going back.

It works because hotels can offer discounts on unsold rooms without publicising it, so other clients don't know a discount's possible. Plus you can't get a refund, so they guarantee a sale.

How to beat the system

While the system's already competitive and can lead to some good deals, there's a trick to supercharge even these discounts.

Normally, bid too low and you’ll have to wait a day to bid again. But a loophole allows you multiple bids in a day. In other words, if you want a three-star Miami hotel (normally at £80-a-night) bid first at £30 but if that doesn’t work, try £35 next, then £40. This way, you’ll always succeed near the minimum accepted price.

Thanks to all those MoneySavers, especially Blindman (see his Priceline bidding guide), for their tips and info.

How to get multiple bids

There are a number of ways to grab extra bids:

• Do it with your partner

  If you travel with a friend or partner, provided you've both separate emails and have different payment cards, you double the number of possible bids.

• Start with a deliberately narrow area and add more

  Many cities are split up into a number of different areas. New York City, for example, has 18 different ‘zones’. If your bid’s rejected, you can rebid, provided you add an area.

  So start with a low bid in one area you would be happy staying in, then add another area and increase your bid. The more areas the city’s divided into, the further you can finesse each price increase.

  Look at the table below to see where this works best.

• Lower your star class

  If you're on a strict budget, an alternative to lowering the bid is to keep the bid the same (or even go slightly lower) and drop the star class you're looking at, to see if it's accepted.

  Priceline allows you to drop by half a star level, so this is a handy technique.

• See how well you did

  Look the place up on TripAdvisor*, to see what’s in-store and check what's said about the hotel.

The advanced Priceline system

This fairly simple system above gives you more bids than usual, and should help cut the price down to a decent level. However, if you're willing to play slightly more, a super-advanced approach finesses your search.

See how to check what hotel you’re likely to get and avoid hellholes, plus exploit Priceline’s ‘counter offers’ to hit the lowest possible price.