Visitreno

[VAPA]

Have you used Express Deals on Priceline and were you happy ?

[dfens]

Sorry for the late reply Vapa.

I use priceline all the time (typically for at least one night a week) as I work 100 miles from my home and travel.

The express deals are pretty good. But typically, I use the express deal as my baseline to what to bid on the "name your price feature". Typically, the express deal is about 4% higher than the offer priceline will accept in the "name your price feature".

Also, are you familiar with the travel site biddingfortravel? If you are going to get a hotel in a metro area, the website will show you what hotels priceline are offering at the star level.

Lastly, through experimentation I've determined that using ebates (gives you a 5% rebate on your purchases on priceline) doesn't raise the express deal or "name your price" feature.

I've compared the priceline prices on the "express deal" or name your price" feature against other travel websites (expedia, hotels.com, etc..) and the hotels own website. Only one was priceline more expensive than the price on the hotel's website. I called priceline and they gave me a credit on the difference and apologized.

Lastly, sometimes placing bids well in advance of a hotel reservation will actually be more expensive than placing bids with a few days before the reservation. YMMV.

[dfens]

Also note that when you use a 3rd party reservations for hotels, the hotel may give you the worst room in the hotel without recourse. That means that you'll have a chance at getting the handicap room or the non-updated room near a loud street. The hotel is under no obligation than giving you the worst room in the class of rooms you're assigned. Again, I've talked, bribed or used a combination of both to get into better rooms.

If you know the hotel doesn't pre-assign rooms the night before, you may get out of getting the crappier room by checking in later. So the first priceline's guests will get the crappiest rooms and then the priceline guests checking in later will get assigned the regular rooms because the crappy rooms are already booked. Again YMMV.

Priceline may also fee for their service. So where I'm paying a $10 tax/room fee for a room if I booked through the hotel's website, I may get a $15 fee charge on top of my express deal deals. Priceline will show you the tax/fee beforehand so you'll know the final charge before you click the final submit button.

Good luck!