5 Easy Steps to Start Bidding on Priceline

Thinking about jumping on the priceline bandwagon but don’t really know how to start bidding on priceline?

You are in luck. I won’t claim that I’m an expert in Priceline because I’m sure there are plenty of people who have used them extensively. However, I have used it with success a few trips that I am able to give you a few easy tips to get you to a good start.

Now, if you are unsure whether to use priceline vs traditional hotel booking, you might want to step back and evaluate your options carefully. This post will talk about steps to take once you have made up your mind to go with priceline.

1. Research your accommodation area and location

It’s best to know where you want to stay in your city destination. If you have no clue, you might want to start from asking your friends, checking websites with destination recommendation, joining travel forum to get inputs from other travelers.

My first step for this is always check some of my favorite family travel blogs like Travel Savvy Mom or Delicious Baby for family-friendly area to stay. Then I hop to Trip Advisor forum for more details information.

Trip Advisor forum is a great resource. My advice is to spend sometimes searching on the forum before asking. You might already find your answer.

Arming with a couple options of area to stay, I log in to BetterBidding.com – a Priceline and Hotwire forum. This site is fabulous for priceline bidding tips and info.

2. Check hotels listing in your desired area

Now that you know which area you would love to stay, your first stop should be the sub forum for the state that you want to visit in BetterBidding website. In there, you can check out the hotel listing (Keep in mind that this is a user based forum so take the information as it is but don’t expect 100% accuracy on the hotel listing).

This listing will give you the general idea of the possible hotels that you can win. Again, make sure you are comfortable with the choices. If not, move on and book the hotel yourself.

Also, make sure that you are comfortable with hotel amenities. One big caveat for priceline is that there is no guarantee that you will get 2 Queen Beds. And the room is always the general guest room. So if you are looking for a suite or different room type, you will have to resource to other hotel booking sites.

3. Determine how much to bid on priceline

Right about this time, you are probably ready and itchy to start the bid. But hold your horse.. You have a couple more steps before entering that first bid.

What is the best bidding amount? That’s the biggest question because you don’t want to bid too high that you overpay for the hotel. Yet, you also don’t want to bid too low that you never get a chance to win and wasting your time there.

First, check the winning bid for hotel in your area on BetterBidding. They also have new feature that you can even see the wins for the same date as your travel date. This will give you a general idea on where to start.

Next, you can check Hotwire price for hotel with similar star ranking and in the same area with the same date. Having the information from Hotwire will help to put a top bid for your hotel. You don’t want to bid higher than what you can get from Hotwire.

Also make sure that when you look for winning bid, check the date. Because date does play a big role in your rate. Booking during high season will yield a higher rate than booking during low season. So don’t get fixated to the winning bid of other travelers because they might not have the same date as yours.

4. Learn the trick to rebid after rejection

Based on Priceline’s rule, when your bid gets rejected, you have 2 options. You can either wait 24 hours to rebid or you can change your search criteria like different date, different hotel ranking or different location. However, with all the hard work you have done to research the best possible location with best possible hotels, you probably don’t want to change those criteria. There are a way to get around this. Here is how.

First you need to learn the bidding zone in your city destination and available hotel levels (stars). Let’s say there are 5 bidding zone in a city and you bid 4 stars hotel in zone 1. Now, you must check to see how many zones in that city that have hotel with less quality (3 stars or less). And with luck, Zone 2,3, and 5 has only 3 stars or less hotels. That’s mean you can add zone 2, 3, and 5 to your rebid with a guarantee that you will still get 4 stars hotel in zone 1.

Another tip to keep in mind is that always start your bid with the highest stars hotel. Priceline will allow you to add lower quality hotels to your rebid but not the other way around. So if you know that you can go with 3 stars hotel, start your bid with 4 1/2 stars to see if you might be in luck.

5. If all else fail, wait and be patient

What to do after all these steps and your bid is still rejected with priceline counteroffer?

Wait. Don’t accept the offer. It means you are very close to the accepting bid. So if you already use up all your rezone bidding, wait till the next day to rebid.

Hope these steps will help you to save big on your next trip.